Today, I wanted to talk about the stay-at-home lockdown scenario that we are all going through.
When I was a child, my dad, Jim, who sadly passed away in March, liked to share with me what it was like when he was growing up. In Dublin during early May 1941 he told of 4 bombs being dropped on north Dublin, which urged people to be put into lockdown and use their houses as bomb shelters for the rest of May. In some ways, we are also fighting a kind of war with this ‘invisible enemy’ and suddenly my father’s story has come to life for me.
I heard on the radio the other day that a school is advising pupils to view the lockdown as a summer holiday camp, rather than a camp corona – that reframing it might help shift the perspective of pupils and in turn might help with mental health and to remain calm during this crisis. Ministries are dreaming up schemes to keep people at work but much of these schemes are happening in isolation. Sometimes it seems more like a series of giant experiments rather than a joint battle. And yet, every human on this planet has come together in a different way to respond, fight and to develop vaccines for a cure for COVID-19.
Strange days, indeed. I recently heard that one of my favorite country folk musicians had passed away. Bruce Springsteen and Sheryl Crow were among the stars who cam together to pay tribute to folk singer John Prine, who at the age of 73 (he was one of the most influential figures in country music), contracted COVID-19 and died in a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. His songs will Iive on forever.
Outside early in the evenings the streets become bare in London. We see that emissions of toxic fumes from traffic have fallen as a results of this lockdown. Every cloud has a silver lining.
Love you all xxx
Slainte Paul Maddog
The world should stand together in this fight.
Maddogrising 