Nottingham, COVID-secure.
When you’ve been out the bubble for so long, it’s hard to imagine what has changed — especially since my having lived through the lockdown and the restrictions at home, and not on campus or in the city. My home is 200 miles away, a different region and somewhat different perspective on many, different things — perhaps a different accent, different make-up socially, politically and of the workforce, as well as obviously different elements of the city’s offering, as concerns things to do.
All I can summarise my experience as, would be incredibly lonely, or perhaps, exceptionally lonely. There’s nothing standard lonely about my experience — were everything normal, I wouldn’t have this feeling — the exceptional stems from the incredible steps taken to enforce this degree of loneliness. That groups larger than 6 cannot meet, that large groups and gatherings are forbidden. As you scroll through an abundance of hundreds of people everywhere across a camera roll from last year, consistent of hundreds of photos. This year? 10 photos?
Campus is empty. The library insists I wear my face mask at all times, sat down in my little enclosure, hidden from all. You’re the only person in here, you say? Doesn’t matter. Outlets are screaming at you — there’s more than 1 person in your massive square metred floor box, a concept alien to your last year self. The weather is mirroring the cold, sad and depressing times. I took a solo walk through a lively neighbourhood of Nottingham last weekend — not so lively anymore. All that’s in store, is a great big thunderstorm. The clouds are always grey, black, whatever — ready to put the finishing touch on a scene straight out of hell. I stood on Old Market Square — rain pouring down, not a crowd in sight, except the protestors — whatever they had to say, the whole scene was: as if it were Victorian times. People keeping to themselves — no eye contact. They’ll wait right there, for you to pass, just so they don’t catch the virus, of course. You may get a snarl, no smile, however. As if the world is ending, we’re at 90% and we’re just counting down the days.
Tier 3. What more could possibly be done to kill 7000+ jobs and ruin people’s lives? Yet more, they say. The museum I visited last week, Covid-secure of course, an abundance of convenient measures perhaps retrospectively applicable to our former world — in force. Shut now, of course. Too risky. So, not least the nightclubs, but now anywhere not serving a substantial meal — so far inclusive of our university cafe (my happy place, by the way). Now they’ve come for them. They’ve now gone too far.
It feels as ghost-like as in March, but even then there was a buzz — perhaps the rush to lockdown. Now it feels we have accustomed to this way of living — if I were to have lived under a rock for several months, I would not have noticed anything abnormal about our behaviour — we’re just getting with the program. Which haunts me — even our secure and open libraries, museums, spaces, desolate. A walk, a visit? Are we using ‘reducing our trips’ as an excuse to limit our creative outlets? To give up on so much? The bookcases in the languages section; yes, granted (no one does languages anymore) but even across the floor space, no one. No movement, no questions, no dialogue. I took out a book the other day not taken since the 80s. Nothing further to add.
My building, the department’s building — as locked up as you’d think. Last update February this year — all the posters and notices, dated February through March of this year — nothing since. As if it were Chernobyl, frozen in time. Left for, whenever, to pick up from. When will that be?
4 face to face classes, one online. Guess which one was heavily oversubscribed? Guess which classes were left for cancellation? Face to face, too involved, hard. Old-fashioned. I met with someone I would not have met were these restrictions to have been in place last year. How many of these chance meetings, getting to know someone, randomly, spontaneously, are we denying? Productivity, down. Movement, down. Engagement, down. Eye contact and talking, down. But we all seem onboard with it. How many of these mitigations will turn permanent? Will a generation be alien to their elders’ former selves?
I survey the skyline of Nottingham and beyond from the library — you usually find something of action. Nothing. Still and finite. No random fires, smoke, an illusive flying object — no planes. Weather to aid the void. No flag flying from the building. Yet more vulnerability and morality sweeps us, daily. An end in sight? Are we considering what this might be? Perhaps not the end, we all really need.
