Christmas in a time of Covid

After one of the most difficult years most of us can remember, I think we could all do with a little moment to stop and celebrate, don’t you? This online magazine - a bumper version of my monthly newsletter - contains ideas for celebrating and sharing the joys of Christmas, even if you are in lockdown; mindful gift ideas and DIY projects; tips for writing Christmas letters; 12 festive envelope templates for you to colour in and post; and loads more.

Flip through the magazine below (if you hover over the magazine window you’ll see an option to make it full screen), or click “download” to print and read it the old-fashioned way, and to use any of the resources and templates inside. (Give it time if it’s slow to download - it’s a big file!)

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Can you hear the garden singing?

When the world closed back in March, and the us of our familiar communities, neighbourhoods and even entire nations was reduced to the surprising smallness of the we, or me, that inhabited each of our individual homes, Nature welcomed us like a mother hen.

We tended seedlings on window-sills, pruned back overblown autumn branches, and finally learned how to pronounce the names of our house plants. (It’s Monstera Deliciosa, not Monsteria). I would rest my palms on the soil beneath the Japanese maple tree, fingers outspread, and imagine the way the soil connected me to the trees and through them the root systems and through those root systems all the other root systems that spread across my yard and my neighbourhood and beyond the closed borders, all of us belonging to one giant ecosystem, even while we were apart.

At night I would look up at the moon and imagine all the other people alone in their houses, looking up at that same moon.

(Outside our tiny lockdown worlds, Nature didn’t weaken her embrace. Ducks swam in the Trevi Fountain. A herd of wild goats wandered through a Welsh town. The skies above some of the world’s most polluted cities shone clean and clear.)

Nature, and in particular for many people their gardens, became a place of solace. Even more so than usual. For me and my children, our tiny garden became the one place where we could go outside for as long as we wanted to. When the weather was warm we’d carry their schoolbooks into the garden and read on the grass. We’d eat out there when we could, and together tend to the plants: pruning the roses, netting the fruit trees to protect them from marauding possums, and planting rows of tiny carrot seedlings, celery, and Brussels sprouts.

Now spring is here and though my garden was late to bloom this season, it is well and truly making up for lost time now, showering us with an abundance of colour and perfume. For a little while I congratulated myself on a gardening job inadvertently well done, until I began to notice the roses blooming in front gardens and over fences and along road-edges, all over my city.

Nature is having a moment.

I don’t know if it is the extra love and attention, the cleaner air and water, a sign of resilience after last year’s climate disaster, or something altogether different, but right now, it seems to me that the gardens of Melbourne are singing.

I shared this thought on Instagram recently and was surprised by the sheer number of people - not just in Melbourne but all over Australia and the world - who are noticing the same thing.

There is such sweet solace in a garden. Even in the tiniest of gardens, just a pretty pot with one happy houseplant growing, changing, reaching up and out - ever toward the light - and I have never been more grateful for my little pocket of green-and-rainbow than I am right now.

Can you hear the gardens singing?

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It's just a carrot

Except of course it was never going to be “just a carrot.”

Last weekend when our Premier announced that hairdressers could start working again, my husband booked a haircut for the very next day. “It’s symbolic,” he joked. “My curly hair is a symbol of our oppression.” I laughed at him, but I could also relate. Here in Melbourne we have been locked up for so long that everyone is starting to lose perspective, and the little things can feel very big indeed.

My husband has out-of-control hair. I have shingles. My kids are most probably illiterate.

And we are the lucky ones: we have steady incomes, we have each other, and we have our health (although just between us, shingles suck).

Not long ago I bought a take-away coffee from a cafe around the corner from our house, and the owner started to cry. She said, “I don’t know what I’ll do if we’re not allowed to open soon. I haven’t been able to pay my rent for seven months, and I’ve put everything I have into this business. I’m in my 60s and I live alone. What else am I going to do?” She said that if her landlord insisted she pay the missed rent she’d be sleeping “out there,” and gestured to a park bench, still wrapped in “Do not cross” tape because we were not supposed to sit down in public places.

For my part, ever since our second-wave lockdowns tightened in July, I began nursing a fantasy of going out for a walk, and not stopping. Not stopping when my one hour outside allowance was up. Not stopping when I reached the five-kilometre line that we were not supposed to cross. Not even stopping after the nightly 8pm curfew. In my imagination I just kept on walking, and strangers spoke of me as “that crazy, middle-aged lady who is walking her way around the world.” Kind of like Forrest Gump (except that I wanted to walk, not run, because I’m not that crazy).

I almost called this blog post “Run, Forrest!”

I ordered carrot seeds from the Diggers Club back during the first lockdown in March and, when they arrived about two months later (since everyone else seemed to have had the same idea at the same time), I popped them into soil in old egg cartons, and hoped they’d germinate.

Those baby carrots had to survive the entire winter outside in the ground, having their feathery tops battered by winds and munched by marauding possums, overcrowding one another because I didn’t bother to separate the seeds the way I was supposed to, and being generally neglected as my every waking hour was consumed by fitting overdue work commitments in around school-at-home for two children, while indulging fantasies of going for a walk and not stopping.

Yesterday I pulled the carrots out of the ground to make room for snapdragons (priorities, my friend!). Most of them were still small, many of them curly or split in two or twined around each other like lovers. But a few were long and straight like this one here. The children said, “Those look like they come from a shop!” in awed tones, as though this was the highest of possible achievements.

If my husband’s hair is symbolic of our oppression, my carrots are symbolic of our resilience. We can grow, even when the conditions are not… quite… ideal. And we might not all be big and strong: some of us feel very small. Some of us feel split, or wonky, or twisted. But we can still grow, and we still have the capacity to nurture and nourish each other.

The news isn’t looking great here, and the optimism we ventured to feel a week or two ago that things might open up quickly is starting to fade before it even had a chance to bloom, but tomorrow I’m going to make a Sunday roast. I’ll sauté the carrots (straight ones, baby ones and curly-wurly ones all) in butter and orange and honey. And when I serve them up I’ll tell my family they are not just carrots. They are a reminder of our capacity to survive, and grow.

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Wins and losses and taking stock

The ebbs and flows of life in lockdown.

Win: this week Scout discovered the joys of Harry Potter. She is nose-deep in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and each morning when she comes downstairs after reading, we talk about what has been happening inside the pages. Sharing a book I love with her is like travelling together. We may not be able to leave the neighbourhood but together, we travel to Number 4 Privet Drive, to Diagon Alley, and to Hogwarts, every morning.

Loss: school at home. Don’t even get me started! I don’t think I’ve ever felt the kind of anxiety I experienced during that first week of school. The teachers are doing the most amazing job creating learning content for the children, and I’m incredibly grateful. Let’s just say there is a disconnect between the school’s expectations and communications, versus our access to technology, devices, my time, and the children’s capacity to independently follow instructions and use technology they have never seen before.

Win: last Thursday we ditched school for most of the day (with permission) and spent several hours baking hot cross buns via Zoom with private cook Gillian Bell, otherwise known as @gillianbellcake on Instagram, and one half of the delightful Dispatch to a Friend podcast. Gillian gave up a good part of her day to bake with us, and I can’t decide whether the best part was the proud smile on Scout’s face when we pulled those wonky-but-perfectly-cooked buns out of the oven, or the joy of spending time with Gillian and chatting with her about everything from yeast-bubbles to mental health and post-war life in London. I’d like to do this again soon, please.

Loss: scared and angry people in the street looking at my children as though they are predatory germ-terrorists every time we have to leave the house to get food or exercise. We follow the rules. We stay out of the way. They huddle in sad corners outside the grocery store following my instructions to stay out of the way, not move or touch anything, while I race in and buy the basic staples I can’t get online. They dive into bushes to escape cyclists who race past without slowing or swerving on the shared foot-and-bike path. And they endure angry looks, snide comments, and, occasionally, openly hostile “Get out of the way!” shouts from older adults if we happen to be on the footpath while someone wants to walk towards us.

Win: I got all the bulbs that our friends Pam and Kaylene gave me into our garden, I’ve trimmed back the gaura that was going wild at the front of our house, the roses are having a bumper autumn, and whenever the weather is warm we take ourselves out into our tiny garden for fresh air, snatches of sky, and growing things. Never have I been more grateful that I turned our tiny car-park into a garden than I am now, during these funny, self-isolated days.

Loss: the possums are loving my garden too. I mean really loving it. They particularly love the roses, the pomegranate tree, and one of the apple trees. I’ve tried sonic deterrent. I’ve tried possum spray. I’ve tried netting. I don’t know what else to do!

Win: last weekend I hosted my Signature Scent branding workshop online, an adaptation of the workshop I’d hoped to host in my home. I was very nervous about how it would all work out, but could not possibly have dreamed up a better group of women to join me for this. They were - one and all - intelligent, creative, fun, kind, enthusiastic, and enormously patient with me and the technology. I entered it full of nerves and came out on an absolute high, almost entirely because they were just such good company!

Loss: angry emails. I guess everyone is feeling anxious and stressed. A customer of one of my clients got the wrong end of the stick and in his anger, he lashed out at both my client and me. It was one of those situations where you can tell yourself it isn’t personal, you can tell yourself that these people have their own problems and their own issues going on in their own lives… but it still hurts. It can still cause sleepless nights here and there, and reignite insecurities old and new. Let’s not forget our compassion in all this mess, nor that the person on the other end of a complaints form is a real person too.

Win: knee-deep drifts of autumn leaves and alllllll the joyful games.

Loss: it plays on you doesn’t it, the isolation. Loneliness; feelings of claustrophobia; angry neighbours and online meanies; constant, low-level anxiety. Turns out resilience isn’t in never-ending supply without careful nurture, and I find my own capacity to cope ebbs and flows each day (and several times within a given day). Are you experiencing the same?

Win: we are healthy, and so are our loved-ones. I don’t underestimate how truly lucky we are.

Win (sort of): every year of his childhood, my husband’s family sat a stuffed Santa under the tree among the presents. It is a cherished memory of his and so, even though Santa’s stuffing was literally bursting out of his belly-seams, half his plastic face had caved in, and one boot was mysteriously missing, my husband held onto the doll. It was packed away in a box marked “nostalgia” that has moved with us from house to house and State to State for more than a decade. Over Easter Mr B cleaned out our shed (there was little else to do!) and in doing so, rediscovered Santa. He found a lady online who could restore the doll and this weekend, Santa was returned to us, almost as good as new. My husband is THRILLED. All day on Sunday (oh yes, the post came on Sunday!) he kept saying, “I’m so happy Santa is back. Kids, look at Santa!” (Although he did find Santa’s newly-smooth cheeks disorienting, and poked his finger into one side to restore the dent he remembered so well from those childhood years).

The reason this is only a “sort-of” win rather than an unambiguous win is because, frankly, Santa is TERRIFYING. He has blood-red wrinkles, a demonic grin on his face, and his eyes follow you around the room. It’s like having a Chucky doll leering at you from the mantlepiece.

Taking stock

Pip Lincolne of Meet Me at Mikes has been doing “taking stock” posts for years, and I thought I’d join in today with a version of my own. Do you want to do the same? Just copy and paste my list below, and replace my answers with your own. Be sure to let me know so I can come and see what you’ve been up to.

• Making: beautiful brand style-guide brochures in InDesign for my workshop participants

• Cooking: today I made a Sunday roast chicken using the recipe from Yotam Ottolengi’s book SIMPLE and it was seriously good! So far everything I’ve made from this wonderful cookbook has been a win

• Sipping: tea, always tea. English Breakfast, rosehip, peppermint - these are my favourites

• Reading: The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natascha Pulley. Also, the wonderful #dispatchfromisolation story submissions, following this post. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to write to me! Please feel free to share your own story if you haven’t already

• Listening: to the Amelie soundtrack. It makes me feel calm, creative and happy

• Wishing: the same thing as just about everyone else on the planet is wishing! You don’t need me to tell you what that is

• Enjoying: these cooler nights, and the sound of rain on the bedroom roof

• Eating: too much! You may need to fork-lift me out of the house once self-isolation finally ends

• Liking: rainbows and teddy-bears in windows

• Loving: my beautiful children, who remain so loving and forgiving despite my moods

• Buying: a big box of fruit and veg at least once a week, thanks to our lovely local greengrocer Senserrick, who take our orders via text and deliver on the same day

• Watching: we’ve been re-watching The Durrells. The whole family is so beautifully flawed but redeemingly lovable, and their idyllic life in Corfu is a wonderful antidote to all that’s going on

• Wearing: nothing exciting worth reporting!

• Following: @hessaalajmani, who presses botanicals into ceramics

• Noticing: stuffed Santa is staring at me right now and it’s FREAKING ME OUT

• Sorting: I mean, how many pairs of socks to two small children actually need?

• Getting: restless

• Coveting: escape

• Feeling: ask me in five minutes and it will probably have changed

Our small but significant stories

Recently I participated in a giveaway, organised by Annabelle Hickson on Instagram. I’ll share more about that at the end of this post as there are some beautiful prizes you can win. But what prompted this blog post is that Annabelle asked me to share a piece of my story from “lockdown” for the giveaway and, as I was writing to Annabelle, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.

About all of us, really, all over the world. About how this whole COVID-19 experience is so extraordinarily… universal. Never before in history have we been so physically isolated from one another and yet, at the same time, never before have we been so united against a common enemy.

When generations in the future look back on this period in our lives, what will they say? The history books will talk about the big things: the spread of the virus, the deaths, the heroes, the privations, the cure or vaccine (assuming one is found!), the economic fallout… but what will they say about you and me? About what our lives looked like, at home, small but oh so significant, during this unprecedented time?

So I’ve been thinking that I would like to start collecting the smaller stories. OUR stories, little dispatches from isolation. Isolation and lockdown are powerful silencers: there are no external witnesses to my days and nor, I imagine, are there any to yours. Let’s change that!

If you would like to share your story of COVID and lockdown, I will include it in some kind of publication: a specialised blog, an online magazine, an e-book… I don’t know exactly how yet, because that will be governed by the quantity and style of stories I receive. But I can guarantee that if you tell your heartfelt story, you will be published. I can share your name, or keep you anonymous if you prefer.

SUBMIT YOUR STORY

Tell me about your experience of lockdown and social-isolation. Write a sentence or write an essay - it’s up to you! I don’t want to restrict you so you can write anything you like but, if you find yourself stuck for words, here are some prompts or interview questions (inspired by Annabelle’s questions to me) to help you:

• Where do you live (just give your city and country)?

• The date you’re writing (because things are changing so rapidly!)

• What is your name (just say “anonymous” if you’d like to remain so)?

• Where are you bunkering down for this period?

• What do your days look like?

• How has this pandemic impacted you and those you love?

• How has it changed what you value?

• What gives you hope?

At a later date, I may also be in touch with you to see if you have a photograph of your “lockdown station” that I can include in this publication, so give some thought to this if you’d like to share one.

To submit your story, either share it in the comments, or use the form below. (If you are reading this blog post as an email, simply click “view original post” at the bottom of this post, to see the form and/or comments box). Please don’t submit your story via email - I’m liable to miss or lose it and your experiences, thoughts and words are precious to me!

I’d love it if you would share or mention this blog post on your social media platforms, so that as many people as possible can potentially add their stories to our publication. I’m using the hashtag #dispatchfromisolation.

In the meantime, following is my own story (or a snippet of it) from my own experience of lockdown. The photograph is of my children, hard at work in “Mummy school” since the schools here have been closed.

MY STORY (26 March, 2020)

We live in an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Australia, in a 100-year-old terrace house. My husband recently returned from overseas and the law in Australia says he has to self-isolate for 14 days, so he has taken over our front room, which normally doubles as my art studio. It has been incredibly tough on all of us - but especially the kids - having Daddy home but not being allowed to cuddle him or even share a room with him. Financially it is also a stressful time, as both of our incomes have been impacted. But, on the other hand, I’m powerfully aware of how lucky we are: we still have our health, we still have a roof over our heads and food on the table, and we are all here together as a family. 

I make my husband his meals (and copious instant coffees), and deliver them to him throughout the day. We’re not allowed to share a bathroom with him, which has created an extra challenge for our six-year-old son, who has a morbid fear of being upstairs on his own. Every time he needs the loo, he begs other members of the family to go with him. I told him that singing out loud was a good way to chase away fears, and his fear-fighting weapon of choice is Cheap Thrills by Sia. Whenever we hear “Come on, come on, turn the radio on,” we know he’s making his brave little way up the stairs to the non-quarantined and apparently terrifying loo. 

Since the schools closed, we have sectioned up our long, narrow house to keep the children away from their dad. My husband stays in the front part of the house, while I’ve set up “Mummy school” in our playroom out the back, overlooking the garden. (This garden has been a godsend: it’s basically just a courtyard, a converted parking space, but having a safe place to see sky and growing things is a sanity-saver these days). 

We haven’t really been embracing all the “slow” activities that come from spending so much time at home, at least not yet. I’ve found home-schooling requires my full-time presence and attention (hats off, not for the first time, to teachers everywhere!) and any spare moments are taken up with trying to reconfigure my business to adapt to this new world. My plans of making fresh bread every couple of mornings have likewise been thwarted because I can’t buy flour right now. But at least we still have toilet paper! 

Every day, while we are still allowed to, I take the children out for walks or scoots around the neighbourhood, aiming for parks that are quiet - no playgrounds. Thankfully the weather has cooled down, as I make the children wear mittens or gloves to minimise accidental touching of things outside. 

Since they are missing their little friends, we have started writing letters for them, and making small gifts (the dreaded loom bands!) to enclose with the letters. We deliver the letters by hand, posting them into our friends’ letterboxes, then retreat a block or two before I text the family to advise them of their postal surprise. Their friends have been making and writing as well, so it’s a lovely new habit for all the children.

I honestly think that tiny connections like these will save humanity, emotionally, as our weeks in isolation stretch out to months. I’ve heard it said that the COVID-19 is is a battle being fought on two fronts: medical and economical. But I think there is a third front, and that is the emotional impact of prolonged isolation, the lack of physical contact, and sustained anxiety, as it plays out on entire populations. 

We have lost so many of the tried-and-true ways we traditionally use to support and comfort one another: I can’t give you a hug, or pop around to your place with something home-baked. We can’t meet for coffee in a cafe or sit side-by-side on my verandah, or gather around your dining table or mine for home-made pasta, cheap red wine, and loud laughter. 

In particular, the thought of so many elderly people stuck alone in their houses or in nursing homes absolutely breaks my heart: I worked in nursing homes when I was a university student and know just how lonely those places can be, even in the best of times. 

That’s why letters are so wonderful right now. Because they are written by hand, they are tangible missives from me to you (even if we have to spray them with disinfectant) and the paper I choose, and my handwriting on it, give you little glimpses into my personality, my feelings and my world, beyond mere words. The children and I have committed to writing a letter a day to elderly neighbours and friends in the coming weeks. If they want to write back, we can become pen pals. 

I have been so encouraged to see so many community initiatives of love, kindness and courage spring up since the lockdowns began. Like messages of hope written in chalk on footpaths for passers-by to read; and bear-hunts or rainbow hunts (people putting teddy-bears and pictures of rainbows in their front gardens or windows, as little treasures for children to find and follow on their lonely walks) are beautiful reminders that the people inside those houses - though locked away - are still with us, and we with them. 

Landlords offering rent-relief to financially-strapped tenants. People sharing skills, courses and gifts online. Communities rallying to save and serve their local businesses. Those same businesses adapting to sell online and deliver, to continue serving their customers. People giving away that last roll of toilet paper, that last bottle of hand-sanitiser, to someone else at the supermarket. Families picking up food, medicine and mail for self-isolating neighbours. The teachers who continue to show up for at-risk children and those with parents who can’t work from home, despite the personal risk. Our healthcare workers who are under extraordinary strain, day in, day out, caring for those who are suffering. And whole neighbourhoods applauding healthcare workers from their balconies, every night. 

Sharing - and kindness - these are what will define us for future generations, aren’t they. Otherwise, what’s the point? When the history books look back on 2020 as the Year of COVID, and inevitably someone references Lord of the Flies, I think all of us would like to be known as a Ralph, rather than a Roger. Acts of kindness, generosity and patience will give us the courage to live with the fear and uncertainty, and emerge on the other side with our humanity intact and a community that is actually worth rebuilding. 

I’ve ordered some wildflower seeds - who knows when they will arrive - and we’re going to make seed balls by rolling up the seeds with clay and compost. In spring we’ll drop them around town on our walks, guerilla-style, to create little floral surprises for our neighbours. Messages of new beginnings and fresh hope. 

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I haven’t forgotten the giveaway! Annabelle is hosting a week-long giveaway with all kinds of gifts from her community, including beautiful clothes, artworks, books, and more. I’m giving away three places in my online letter-writing and mail-art course, The Most Beautiful Letter You’ve Ever Written. We will be choosing winners at the end of this week, so if you’d like to enter the draw for my course, you can do so here, and if you take a look at Annabelle’s Instagram feed, you’ll see loads more wonderful opportunities for you to win some thoughtful gifts.

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