Waiting for Covidot

Waiting For Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett in which two men, Vladimir and Estragon, are waiting for a third, Godot, to arrive. Very little happens, and during their long wait the men talk about their lives. It seems the perfect play for these times with one analysis describing it as "drama using the abandonment of conventional dramatic form to portray the futility of human struggle in a senseless world. ....... the meaningless, confusing, and ridiculous plight of the human being. " Forgive me if this sounds a little bleak . Given that we are in the six month of some form of lock down, the the last month of a glacially beautiful but bitterly cold winter, and my social engagement has been reduced to one interaction at a time, while also trying to walk like I am exercising, I think I might be forgiven.

I am however a diary keeper and an insatiable reader of everything, including daily newspapers from which I tear shiny items of interest which hover on my tables like jewels of potential until I follow them up. I would like to think my musings during these days of muted living went to the heart of things however in a recent review , this did not seem to be where my focus has been. One salient example of this is a entry nestled next to my ACTIVE APRIL vouchers from the state government to get old people moving, and under the heading Focus on the moment which notes "the memory foam in the sofa is stuck in the shape of my bum " The next days`s entry, in capitals exhorts me to "GET OFF THE SOFA " which I feel has had some existential impact on my behaviour although I do note a further entry several days later , in much smaller script ( as if ashamed of itself) which says "Turned the sofa cushions . "

Obviously the day which solely warranted the entry in very large letters of "BREATHED OUT , LOUDLY " was covid slow. It appears to have found a sister day in the joke I tore from a paper which was titled WEEKLY PLAN : PM Tuesday : put out the bins.

On what must have been a day of some reflection I have noted the book titles, Tales Of Graceful Ageing from Planet Denial, The Three Dimensions Of Freedom and Crones don`t Whine although I have written the name of the author of the Freedom book, Billy Bragg, so that the last title appears to read Crones don`t Bragg which pleases me as a title far more than the self pitying original. The next few days announce clearly but in increasingly scrawled handwriting that I have not been to the supermarket or done anything essential. Such preparedness to note my reality is somewhat derailed by the next day diary entry which reads "I am using my Unicorn napkin and I hope it helps " " Covid cases under three figures for the first time "is the gold glitter pen notation for the day after that so scoff all you like, ye of little faith.

It is embarrassing to note my increase in longing as the days have turned through the season ..".I am waiting on a cheese therapy parcel, more books and printer ink ...hope = on line shopping ...It is indeed a strange world " is an entry which goes to the heart of the pressures on the mail system with increased on line shopping for both goods and experiences. The somewhat poignant "masks "sit under the To Buy list on the same page.

"Stitched all day at the Phoenix Bird, interrupted night after idle days of dreaming and conversing, tending cat and chooks, reading. It is again bitterly cold, wild and stormy. " Being trapped by both the weather and the virus appears to somehow have caused transference so that the next few pages of my diary read "There is man on television who is saying that Donald Trump will win the next USA election. The COVID numbers here are down but Trump is so awful. The next day the word awful is repeated ...and the next and the next. " Occasionally F@##%^$$^is added and I note that my To Buy list now contains the word "Grog ". It is such a troll word for a lovely nectarous product. Trump is a troll word for a lovely American President...I know, I know .I do find it hard to let go !

As an antidote to the hard that is viral and Trumpish and masked and hilarious and self serving and interminable, a documentary on the photographer Robert McFarlane on a Sunday arts program on ABC television gave me a lovely quote. "At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is.” T. S. Eliot. It has its own page in my diary.