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In the time of coronavirus

A collection of stories submitted by the public on their experience of living through the time of the Coronavirus pandemic.
We are now safely through the first phase of response to coronavirus in New Zealand and people are reflecting on what this major and previously unimaginable global catastrophe has meant for us, as individuals, in the 21st century. Globally the losses and the scale of human suffering have been very great. This forum offers a space to reflect upon the experience and to consider questions such as: What are we learning from the pandemic? What might we need to remember and preserve? Through the alert levels our prime minister said repeatedly, ‘Stay safe, be kind.’ What was your experience, what did you observe, what mattered and how might we re-imagine a better direction going forward? If you would like to contribute to the re-collective effort please send me your reflections, observations, journal entries, stories to my contact page... just a page of A4 writing, with a title and a brief bio and they will be added to the repository of important writings flowering in this space.

The search for knowledge is.. an exercise in reminiscence, that is, an effort to recall and recollect that which we once knew.

Ahsivai Margalit quoted in Richard Horton, “The Ethics of Memory,” The Lancet, 6 June 2020

Writing a Journal  by Anna Fomison

20/5/2020

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During lockdown Anna was in a bubble of two with her partner Max and random tui in Waitakere West Auckland. Anna's mother passed away in Christchurch during level four and Anna was unable to return at that time. These two journal entries were written during the journal course ‘In Extremis: Writing a Journal in the Time of Coronavirus.’
 
Saturday 18 April Level 4
​My Writing Space: Settling in and self-discipline

I have never used a dedicated writing space. Sometimes I have set up a lovely clear desk with a view somewhere but I have found that I rarely use it. Usually I write wherever I can be on my own whenever I feel like it; inside, outside, mornings if I’ve had a dream I want to record  but for many years I recorded my day at night although sometimes there have been big gaps.

The curious thing is that although that has always worked for me in terms of it being an ongoing phenomena, what I want now is a sense of order, a discipline, a requirement. A commitment. And yet the reality is that I have actually been achieving success in a random way for many years so maybe I don't need to discipline myself. Maybe that’s just my internal critic, when in terms of consistency I really have been busy. Over the years I have created endless screeds of open-ended journals. Random topics, random times but have never taken the time to go back over them or reread them. 

So if the feeling is that I need some structure to my writing, what is it that I am after? In terms of the discipline I feel I am waiting for something finite, a dedication to specific topics, a review and a finishing of it.

Wednesday 29th April 2nd day Level 3
Writing Exercise: Danger and Safety  — what does it mean to be living in the time of coronavirus?
​
The world changed almost overnight. It seems a cliché when I write that, that an invisible threat has had such a gigantic global impact and has altered every decision, all perspectives. 
 
For me the flight back to Auckland from Christchurch just as the international borders were closing captured precisely that feeling of danger and safety. Even taking into account my misgivings at leaving Mum when she was obviously unwell, although not uncommon in the last few years, I recall that Sunday evening flight as being strange. The plane was full of tourists from North America. I know this because when the plane landed there was an instruction to all those passengers not attempting to make connecting flights to Houston and San Francisco to remain seated. Maybe more than half the plane arose, and made their way forward. But the strange thing was the silence on the plane. It was totally silent. For that whole hour and a half there was an odd silence, not a cough, not a sneeze, a really awkward self-consciousness, a palpable tension in the air. People were not friendly. Everyone seemed  drawn back into themselves, locked away, avoiding eye contact.

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Copyright © 2017 Deborah Shepard
  • Home
  • Books
    • The Writing Life >
      • Reviews & Interviews
    • Giving Yourself to Life
    • Her Life's Work
    • Translucence
    • Between The Lives
    • Reframing Women
    • Tributes
    • Personal Writings >
      • Lockdown Journal
      • Travel Journal
      • Elegy for a friend
      • Christchurch - Post Quakes
      • On a residency
      • Deborah’s Love Letter to the Women’s Bookshop
      • Deborah's Q & A With Unity Books
  • Writing Memoir
    • Defining Memoir
    • The Participatory Model
    • Tips on Writing and Posting a Story
    • The Value of a Writing Class
    • From writing course to book publication
    • Your Writing Space
    • Writing on a Theme >
      • Window
      • Surviving a Crisis
    • Reviews of Memoir
  • Writers' stories
    • Covid-19 Stories
    • Writing Guidelines
  • Events
  • About
    • Testimonials
    • Media
  • What People Say
  • Contact