“In 1982, I wrote in my diary that life is motion, not joy. If the way you measure success in life is by how much joy it brings you, you're measuring inaccurately. Life is also sadness, defeat, striving. It is many things.” – Mario Cuomo
My newspaper Editor Mary Frances Ryan pitched the idea of a Covid-19 enforced diary to me almost a fortnight ago, a proposal I readily accepted.
And here we are, with my ‘Diary From A Social Distance’ for the Waterford News & Star now heartily into its 11th day. Assembling it has provided me with a level of focus during this semi-quarantined phase that I suspect I’d have had a good deal less of only for it.
From the moment I’m out of bed each morning, I find myself thinking about what I’ll be writing today. Well, not exactly.
Our dogs, Buddy (aka the Little One) and Zippy (aka the Ludicrously Oversized One) need their morning walk for all that the same reasons walking the dog had always entailed, and once they’ve been exercised, I turn my thoughts to the diary. And I’m glad of it. Really, really glad of it.
Given that we’ve been living inside a two-kilometre radius in Ireland since midnight on Saturday last, I’ve found myself further constrained in terms of where I can physically get to, which has presented me with an additional diary filing challenge.
Granted, given my job, there will undoubtedly be times in due course when I’ll have to use my car but I am not going to abuse the privilege which journalism at this time provides me with.
I am nowhere near as essential as (a) other workers in this or most other circumstances or (b) as I’d like to think I am in reality but in the meantime, I’ll keep reporting and filing my diary.
With my diarist’s hat on, I’m aiming for a certain level of levity with every entry – not Michael Palin funny since that’s a level I’ll never reach – but given the appalling reality of this pandemic, I figured this was a space I needed to do something slightly different with.
Yet given that University Hospital Waterford (UHW) is within my own particular two-kilometre radius, under no circumstances could I ignore what patients and staff are facing right now, around the clock. Anything else would be a dereliction of duty on my behalf.
Oscar Wilde wrote: “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” I think I know what Wilde was hinting at.
Many years from now, if the fates are kind, I’ll be able to dip back into this diary to remind myself of how wholly distinctive a window in our history we all hope this pandemic shall prove to be here and throughout the world.
I’m looking forward to a return to normalcy, just like everyone in my family is, along with my many friends, colleagues and acquaintances. In the meantime, I’ll make the best of this most unusual of situations and I’m eternally grateful to have a job which fills my surplus of time so well.
And if my diary puts a smile on one person’s face and no more, then it will have been worth it. Stay At Home. Wash Your Hands. Stay Safe. And keep smiling.
You can see all of my diary entries at: https://waterford-news.ie/views/diary-from-a-social-distance/
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