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Author: richard

Counting the lucky stars

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Coronavirus lockdown day 40

It was another slow day. Some editing, some voiceover work. Some editing of zoom meetings.

Reflecting a lot though on an email from overseas and how differently the lockdown is being handled around the world.

The Moscow Times says Russia’s curve is climbing steadily:

This image from the Moscow Times show’s every corner of Russia is affected.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/05/03/coronavirus-in-russia-the-latest-news-may-3-a69117

The curve is looking exponential.

Moscow Times graph.
  1. Russia confirmed 10,633 new coronavirus infections Sunday, bringing the country’s official number of cases to 134,687 and marking a new one-day record increase. Russia is now the seventh most-affected country in terms of infections, having surpassed China, Turkey and Iran last week.
  2. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has been diagnosed with coronavirus, he said during a video meeting with President Vladimir Putin broadcast on the state-run Rossiya 24 television channel Thursday.
  3. President Vladimir Putin has extended the national “non-working” month through May 11 as Russia continued to see sharp daily rises in new coronavirus infections in recent days. Moscow’s coronavirus lockdown has also been extended until May 11.

You might have guessed I was planning to visit Moscow, hence my interest. That won’t be happening in the foreseeable future. I don’t know when international flights will start again, and can’t imagine how much they will cost… One less thing to worry about, I guess.

But more worringly, no-one really knows the full extent of the spread of the virus in Russia – or many other countries around the world. Here, there is much higher trust in the stats, and we are counting our lucky stars we live на краю света – on the edge of the world. Also the lockdown there has different implications from what I can tell: digital tracking for transport and phones; arrest and actual jail if you pass the virus on, or criticise the response.

Here, we are are own worst enemies: Fishermen getting stuck on islands in the middle of a river, people crowding beaches or takeaway joints. Level four was easy – there was no wiggle room. Now, people make their own assessment on safety. We’ll see in a week or so if we can go down to Level 2.

Rain and fire

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Coronavirus lockdown day 38

We have decided we’re going to enter the competition. One old song, one new.

SO spent some time figuring out the new song’s structure, chords, phrases, that kind of thing. It’s funny to look at work that way, like the editing process it’s a different skill set and outcome you’re working on.

The first task is to document what we actually played – as we’re all in separate locations, it’s not always clear. There’s also what we call the beautiful mistakes. Things that you didn’t mean to play or sing that kind of just appear. Some you keep, some you don’t.

Then it’s thinking about what you want to change, and if the song needs it or not. The hardest part of this is that you end up listening to the song hundreds of times, or listening to small sections of it repeatedly.

Don’t release a bad song – it’ll probably be the one that becomes a hit.

John Prine said this, or something similar

So we’ll see where we end up. We have about 10 days to get it all together and submit it. And since it rained all day and was generally grey and miserable, we had the fire on and watched The Half of It on netflix. It was good.

The days go slow, the weeks go fast

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Coronavirus lockdown day 35

I was talking to a friend today and we were both feeling a bit dislocated. Because we are working from home, we have what feels like much longer days. Domestic tasks are mixed in with professional tasks; house language and office language are blurring.

You do some work, then oput on the washing. A bit more and you meet up for a cuppa outside on the deck. A little more then lunch. You creep through doorways hoping to not disturb the zoom meeting.

You crawl into the kitchen to nick the kettle and take it to another part of the house where you can boil it. You chat to your neighbour, then strategise with the boss, then pat the dog.

But that dislocation is also a symptom of uncertainty; we are in a holding pattern. I note that already I repeat myself from a few days ago. It’s like time is closing in on itself.

I’m upbeat because the pandemic is a reminder that time is precious and we shouldn’t waste it. Despite all that, lockdown suits me. I have done more work on creative projects and music and collaborations than I have in ages.

I genuinely hope that some things don’t go back the way they were. At the same time there’s the fear of not knowing how much things will change and how bad things might get. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

Or is it level down?

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Coronavirus lockdown day 34

Who can tell any more? It’s Level 3, anyway. It was a slow day. Work meetings got postponed, so I did some audio editing, some coding and other tasks. Lots of things are in the nearly finished pile. Made a bit of a plan for the month ahead.

Already the city is busier. More sirens, more traffic noise, more shops open. Not heaps, but it felt more normal, which was great. Bit of port noise, although some of that was a person loudly pleading not to be handcuffed which we overheard whil on our walk.

More rescue helicopters, and a couple of planes overhead. I’ve noticed the lack of planes the most from our place. Nelson’s airport is usually busy and we are on the northern approach flight path.

Time to level up?

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Coronavirus lockdown day 33

Here it was, the last day of Level 4. Not much will be different of course, but we’ll probably feel better.

It was a Monday, the Anzac Day holiday, so it was a cruisy day. Mow the lawns, talk to the nighbour, forget what I was was meant to be doing kind of day. Bit of a bike ride up and down the hill.

Stayed up till midnight to see Level 3 in, like a poor cousin to New Year’s. Had stayted up to midnight to see the lockdown in, so felt right.

A stand at dawn

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Anzac Day 2020

Dawn over Nelson on Anzac Day 2020.

We don’t usually go to the official services on Anzac Day – while we commemorate, we don’t celebrate. Don’t get me wrong, I am eternally grateful to those who served and fell, the pomp and ceremony isn’t my cup of tea.

This year we did. We all got up and stood at our gate at dawn, looked at the stars, got uncomfortably cold and reflected on history and the stupidity of war. We felt the sadness of all those lives lost and the damage done to ordinary citizens.

We heard the last post played a few times from the surrounding neighbourhoods, as well as on the RNZ broadcast on our phone. Maybe half a dozen neighbours stood on our street, sharing a historic moment before all retreating to our bubbles.

Coronavirus lockdown day 31

I guess we wanted to mark history – the first time there haven’t been services, is the time we should remember.