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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

Two Saturdays by Jeanette de Heer

13/5/2020

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Currently Jeanette is living in a ‘solo bubble’. Together with Marilyn Eales she attended Deborah’s life writing course and belongs to the same life writing group. Jeanette has had many different occupations but the best one by far is writing. Currently she is writing a family history.  
 
Saturday 18th January 2020

It was a typical warm sunny January day when I walked across the road to my hairdressers to have my hair cut and blow waved. I wasn’t getting my hair done for any extra special occasion but it needed cutting.

That afternoon I watched the televised men’s doubles final of the ASB Classic tennis tournament at the Stanley Street stadium— tennis is my favourite spectator sport. The match can’t have been very exciting because I fell asleep while watching.

Later that afternoon I drove to my friend Sue’s place in Glendowie. We sat on her patio and enjoyed a glass of chardonnay.   We were having dinner together but Sue wasn’t cooking as she had had joint replacement surgery on her shoulder a few weeks earlier so we fetched a meal from a nearby Thai takeaway. It was delicious and accompanied by another glass of chardonnay.

After dinner we watched the singles final of the ASB classic. Two Frenchmen, Paire and Humbert were competing. Humbert won.

After the match we had coffee and I drove home.

Saturday 4th April 2020 Lockdown Day 10
​
It was cooler this morning but I soon got warm vacuuming my apartment. Ouch! My right shoulder was sore as I hauled the vacuum cleaner around. I’m fortunate that I have cleaners, Tommy and Natasha but not while we’re in lockdown. Like many others, including my hairdresser, Natasha and Tommy have lost their livelihood. Fortunately, Tommy’s mother who lives with them has enough funds to support the family of three adults and two young children in lockdown level 4. I gave them double what I usually pay.

After lunch I had my usual siesta, read and listened to the radio. When I got up, I walked to the dairy down the road to buy myself a Saturday night treat, a trumpet. I took an insulated bag with me to carry it home so it wouldn’t melt. Usually I’m not good at delaying gratification but this day I was.

At six I sat down to watch the News with another Saturday night treat, a glass of my favourite beer, Asahi. Mostly I cook myself a good dinner each evening but on this evening I didn’t feel like cooking so I opened a can of tomato soup and heated a bread roll and had that.

Later in the evening I watched two episodes of “The Crown’ while enjoying the Trumpet.  Of course, it didn’t last through the entire viewing, but while it did was scrumptious.

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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