Here goes

Cherry blossom Regent’s Park, April 10, 2020

This has been a long time coming. If I had started writing a blog when the first person said to me “you should write a blog”, I would be a blog veteran by now.

But I’m not. I’m a newby. This strangest of times has finally made me sit down and start to write. I am also prodded into action by a group of people I met on a Writers’ Retreat almost a year ago. In the euphoria instilled by that wonderful week of creativity, I vowed to write and write and write. And I will, starting now.

I began this period of inaction, this Covid-19 lockdown, with two weeks of illness. I steadily ticked my way through the list of symptoms. Fever on and off for eight days, extreme fatigue, debilitating body pains, loss of taste etc etc but no test to confirm. I thankfully wasn’t ill enough for that or for hospitalisation. Another week of recovery and self-isolation and I was able to step outside, to rejoin and yet not join the world of social distancing and allotted exercise time.

Outside. Such a simple word. That first deep breath of almost pollution-free air, of spring, of life, of health rushed in bringing with it excitement and anticipation. April, the month of warming, bursting buds, nests and burrows, eggs and broodiness. I forced my still wobbly legs to keep going, to make it to the park when I knew I should be staying closer to home on this first foray “outside”.

Because the park was where it was all happening. My nearest access point to that wonderful, wild world of outside. I knew that the blossoming cherries, the birdsong, the acid green new leaf growth, the languorous buzz of early bumble bees would speed my recovery far better than the four walls of my flat.

And I made it – just. Not wanting to appear to rest or loiter I leaned against the trunk of a cherry tree a few metres into the park. Above and around me, sunlight danced through the pink and white blossoms, gently bouncing in the spring breeze. The air was cool but the warmth of the sun reached my face and was enough to power a few bees, slowly moving from blossom to blossom eagerly drinking nectar and gathering pollen.

I closed  my eyes, drinking in through every pore the vitality that surrounded me. I was alive and almost well, unbound from the introspection of illness, the fear of what might have been.

I didn’t make it any further into the park that day. After a few minutes rest I dragged myself home, limbs heavy with fatigue. The climb up the two flights of stairs to my flat left me breathless, dizzy and light-headed. But it didn’t matter. I was getting better. I had made it to the park. The blueness of the sky, the brightness of the day were still with me as I collapsed into bed and slept the most peaceful sleep I’d had in weeks.