Covid Lockdown: The 8-Minute Posy

Ed: This was written at the height of the Covid Lockdown, 2020.

We are lucky enough to have a supermarket at the end of our street.

It’s about a 4-minute walk, one way. More, if the dog is feeling particularly sniffy (which is always) and I am feeling particularly willing (which is rarely) to let said dog sniff at Every. Damn. Thing. The full 8-minute round-trip awards me about one thousand steps on my daily step count.

When the supermarket was built there about 7 years ago, I invested in one of those little pull-along grocery carts; they are unjustly regarded as a senior-citizens accessory.

Every weekend, I happily trotted off with my red trolley (which like all trolleys, didn’t take long to need a wheel alignment) to do the “big shop” for the family. I’d come home, proud at how I’d strategically fitted so much into my little red-caboose; the bread always on the top, intact and unsquashed.

The kids were four and six at that stage. They went to school and kinder. Tantrums, messy house and unachieved crafting aside, it was a blissful time when we didn’t have any weekend commitments.

And then I blinked. And it all changed.

Netball on Monday nights.
Drums on Tuesday nights.

Football and basketball training on Wednesday nights.

Basketball training on Thursday nights.

Piano on Friday nights.

Football, netball and basketball on the weekend.
Birthday parties. So many freakin’ birthday parties.

The little red trolley went out less. I couldn’t seem to find the eight minutes I needed to walk to the supermarket and home.

I started driving to the supermarket. It was easier. It was a few minutes quicker. I didn’t have to lug that wonky trolley filled with everything we were going to eat for the week, up the street. I didn’t have to yank the dog away from five hundred and sixty territory-marking scents.

I’d parked the car, whip around the supermarket, load all of my groceries into the boot, drive the four-hundred metres home, open the garage, shut the garage, unload the groceries (noting the bread had been squashed by the rogue dog food cans), drag it all inside, put the dairy and meat into the fridge and leave the rest there to put away after the kids’ basketball games.

Then I discovered click and collect.

What? I could even eliminate the whipping around the supermarket bit? I could scroll through the supermarket webpage on a Friday night (whilst my daughter was at piano), click on what I needed, and then have someone bring it to my—to my car— the following morning. Before netball, football and basketball. My entire big-shop could actually take me less than eight minutes.

I clicked and I bloody collected!

And then the world blinked. And everything changed.

Click and collect got cancelled.

Home deliveries got cancelled (that was so close to being my next step).
Opening times of the supermarket altered.

The number of people allowed in the supermarket got limited.
The kid’s sport got cancelled.
Their schooling got cancelled.
My job got cancelled.

I’ve started walking to the supermarket again.
I take the dog.
I let her sniff. I’m in no rush.

It’s nice to get out.

I should dig out the red trolley. Dust her off.  Check her wheels.

I don’t know how this will all unfold. I don’t how, when or if our lives will return to what we once considered normal. But while I am walking, I think, how can I hang on to these eight minutes? How can I keep all of the little posies of eight minutes that I’ve gambled away and lost over time? How can I work, have the kids at school and the sport and music that we all love so much, but still have the time to do this? To walk to the supermarket and home. To read a magazine. To write in my journal. To do odd jobs.

I think about a quote from Shawshank Redemption. Long-term prisoner—Brooks—pens a letter to his fellow inmates after his release. He says “….the world went and got itself in a big damn hurry.”

I feel that, Brooks.

I think we all feel that.

We’ve been institutionalised.

But we’ve been institutionalised by our own expectations and mixed-up values.  In a bid to make ourselves wealthier, healthier, more highly regarded, more important, more noticed, more heard, more valued – we have forgotten to value ourselves.

And we have forgotten to value time. Good grief, have we forgotten to value time. We have forgotten that time is an asset.

In a phrase usually associated with money, we’ve pissed our time up the wall.

The world will blink again soon. And it will all change. Where we are right now, will change.

Shops will reopen.

Schools will reopen.

Kid’s sport and music lessons will resume.

Jobs will be reinstated.

But let’s go slow.

Let’s not rush back.

And when we’re back, let’s not rush.

Let’s hang on to some of our minutes.