I think I don't mind lockdown by Megan Hutching

​Megan Hutching is a freelance historian, specialising in oral history. Her research interests are women’s history and political activism. Megan works on commissioned projects as an oral historian, and works two days a week at the Museum of Transport & Technology (MOTAT) in Auckland, where she lives.
 
I think that I don’t mind lockdown. I suppose it’s because I work for myself most of the time and, for that, I work from home. Having just listened to the Prime Minister tell us that Auckland will be in lockdown for another two weeks, however, and looking out the window to the rain that has stopped me from having a walk today, I’m beginning to think that I DO mind lockdown after all.
 
It has its advantages for a procrastinator though. Part of my work is recording oral history interviews. In order to make the contents of the sometimes-long interviews available, I write what we call in the trade, an ‘abstract’ – a time-coded summary of the recording that encourages researchers to listen to the original recording. For while a transcript will tell you what has been said in the interview, how different that sounds when you listen to the sounds of a person speaking, along with the laughs, the pauses, sometimes the anger and tears.
 
Anyway – abstracting takes time and concentration and is very easy to put off when I can be out and about, recording more interviews. Being at home means I have time to write those abstracts. And so I am. Somewhat resentfully and only after finding myriad unnecessary jobs to do to put it off, but I am doing them. And it is, of course, marvellous to be able to put a line through and tick off the names on my list. (I like to do both.)
 
Deadheading the violas in the pots on my balcony is one of the tasks I do when putting off abstracting. The little flowers of deep purple and lilac and yellow give me such pleasure, especially the ones with ‘faces’ on them. At the moment, I also have hoop petticoat daffodils (Narcissus bulbocodium) out there, dancing on the wind. I was talking to friends on zoom last night about the joy that miniature flowers give me. My mother, whose name was Iris, had many different miniature irises and I’ve grown miniature daffodils. My sisters and I ‘stole’ some of Mum’s miniature iris rhizomes after her house was sold and I grew mine in my garden when I was living in Bayswater. When I unexpectedly had to move, I dug them up – again – and one of my sisters is looking after them till I have a garden of my own once more. When my friends and I were talking about the miniature flowers last night, we decided that it was the doll’s house effect that makes them so appealing. The tininess of them and that they are a perfect replica of their larger sisters.
 
It’s been a lovely time to go for lockdown walks. There are two cherry trees on the verge outside my flat which, until today’s wind, were smothered in soft pink flowers. Now the grass underneath them is scattered with petals. There is a hedge of jasmine further down the road, rioting along beside a stone wall, and freesias and jonquils scenting the air. The bare trees are beginning to get a down of pale green and the evergreens, like the huge pohutukawa along the road, are sending out new shoots and getting themselves ready to produce flowers. 
 
And so, for me, despite two more weeks in internal exile, it feels a hopeful time of the year.