Yesterday I got out a calendar to try and get back my sense of reality.

Because March 2020 has been such a beast of a month that appears to have lasted forever, I have no idea what happened when and why and how much life changed in a heartbeat

As the month started, I was frantically packing up my life and my house as we prepared to move out of a house we loved and lived in for 15 years. The big downsize to an apartment. Granted a big apartment with three bedrooms. In the fullness of time, I'll thank God for that.

Thursday March the 5^th it happened. An exhausting day. March the 6^th I went to the Mockers and Midge Ure with 1000 others. Saturday the 7^th I was with 12,000 people at A-ha and Rick Astley.

I spent the next week working and adapting to a new house in a new suburb and a new commute

On Saturday the 14^th, my son Ben came up from Wellington for his 21^st birthday. 50 people came to our new house. It was lovely. I saw the photos yesterday. Where did that happy throb of people go?

But the next week we spiralled towards the new reality. By Thursday we'd cancelled a trip to Wellington. By Saturday Ben's debut photo exhibition was cancelled five days after it started. By Monday I was on air as Jacinda Ardern announced the nation's first lockdown.

On Tuesday a panicked Ben made it back to Auckland to lockdown with his family. By Thursday I was living 24/7 in a house I'd only lived in for three weeks, walking a dog and rolling from room to room for a different view.

Last night I watched my partner Helen washing lettuce leaves in warm soapy water. Something I've never seen her do in my life.

In a matter of days, hours really, everything and everybody changed. People are losing jobs, people are getting sick, people are getting bored, people are washing hands, they're laundering lettuces. Time crawls. Yet here I am, four days in, feeling at home with the new normal. Missing the casual complacency of our former lives. But knowing that those days will not return.

 

I will never be complacent with my hands ever again. I'm aware of everything I touch. I'm aware of how dirty I used to be. I'm aware of others and how we used to blithely slobber all over each other.

I'm also aware that the end of the lockdown will only be the first step in a long process of human reimagining. There'll be no big party. There'll be no desire to cram into pubs and wipe ourselves all over each other. No, at the end of the lockdown we will sigh.  Visit our closest friend and realise that we got to the end of Round 1 and get back to the battle knowing a moment's indiscretion could see the enemy back amidst us.

My opinion, and it's only my opinion as we sit in times unknown to anyone, is that a life of separation will emerge. Spaced seating in cinemas and cafes would be the smallest indication of that. Slowly we will regain the jobs we've shorn in just a few days. Many of us will never go back to an office again. Workplaces will be run more modestly.

Our exports will revive. The America's Cup will be held, but with no spectators from overseas.

Because I see no return of international tourism in the next two years, either inbound or outbound. Too many other sovereignties have been too cavalier, most particularly the United States. Reinfection surrounds us and our saving grace will be the 1000 mile moat we hide behind. It's going to take a long time for us to let anyone in willy nilly.

With the advent of a vaccine there may be some return of the old normal but I think many people will be gun shy. I am a long way from shaking hands with an American tourist. I am a long way from thinking that a long weekend in Sydney is a harmless piece of fun. It breaks my heart but I don't know if I'll ever get to Europe again, or even if I want to.

What will replace that former frippery is a return to domestic tourism.  Hawkes Bay will be our Barossa. Northland our Fiji.  We will look within. Life will be humbler. We will not be so cavalier.  But life will not be less special.

My hope and ambition for the post lockdown days is that I will be able to hop on my already booked flight to Wanaka at the end of September to once again ski in the Southern Alps. I have taken that privilege for granted. I am working through this enforced time of contemplation with that as my reward.

It will happen.  If we all get it right.