New Norms

          Whilst virus control has become paramount, still it has been feasible to go out for a walk if heedful of the required precautions, which is just as well since it would have been hard to resist the lure of this past week’s spring sunshine. A morning constitutional enlivened by a coffee stop is one of life’s pleasures, though lately we have all had to get used to being served a takeaway with no form of companionship except for moments of determined carry-on-camaraderie expressed in exchanges of smiles through improvised serving hatches. But even that has now come to an end. Yesterday, all remaining hatches were battened. At one coffee shop, all that remained as testimony to its popularity was a series of sticky-tape crosses on the pavement, safe queueing points meticulously marked out, then abandoned in apparent haste with no time taken even to fix a notice of regret to the door.

          Still, looking for something to buoy the spirits, motor traffic has almost disappeared, resulting in lower levels of air and noise pollution. We can breathe clean air and marvel at birdsong, both of which are unusual attractions in the city centre. Perhaps this is how the teams of traffic wardens are passing the time while they pointlessly patrol the conspicuously vacant parking bays. It’s time they were sent home, surely?

          But they might prefer to be out and about. Confinement at home is not necessarily a pleasure. There are many for whom such an imposition presents difficulties and hardships. But for the lucky ones, like me, it is no hardship at all. Having long since been liberated from the daily commute to a place of work, I am well prepared for being at home, where it’s almost business as usual – apart from one or two modifications to routine necessitated by the altered circumstances outside, the closure of cinemas being one. Thanks to the DVD rental and streaming outfits, so there is no shortage of material. But, since it had become my habit to go to the cinema during the day, a psychological glitch presents itself. Whereas entering a darkened cinema during daylight feels like a legitimate if louche pleasure, drawing the curtains at home feels more like the violation of some deeply ingrained ethic of one’s upbringing. So, unable to cross that line, I wait until evening before I let the credits roll.

          This leaves cinematic gaps in my day, which allow more time for the ‘legitimate’ daytime activity of reading. But getting to grips with the backlog is no mean feat. I made a start by tidying and re-organising my den, resurrecting books that had gathered dust while they waited their turn and scrappy lists of titles yet to be acquired. Most divertingly, I uncovered a forgotten publication, one that I had stashed long ago with good intent and which promised to help me with the daunting task ahead: Read Better, Read Faster. The essential guide to greater reading efficiency (published 1965). Like a writer who sharpens pencils rather than committing words to paper, I determined to work my way through the manual as preparation for tackling the reading itself. I got off to a good start but nodded off halfway through Exercise No.5 and subsequently decided to impose a discipline, limiting study periods to one hour per day. But, by day three, with my score clocking ‘average’, competitiveness reared its head and heightened my concentration so that I am now enduring stretches of almost two hours.

          This morning, after Exercise No. 9 (in which I surpassed the average score) I took a break and confronted the new normal – DIY coffee at home. It was a miserable experience: coffee, like BBQ, is an event or it is nothing. So, tomorrow, I might establish another new normal, by tackling the taboo and watching a few trailers over my cafetière.