Isolation in Isolation - Gabrielle Samson

Early morning: kookaburras call, then magpies, peewees, minors, wrens, parrots, black ducks in the creek. I’m alone in the bush at sunrise, shafts of yellow lighting up the mountains; I’m alone in the bush at sunset, the sky red behind them.

A woman in my 70s, a risky age for Covid 19, I’m keeping well away from it. I’ve things to keep me busy - writing, learning another language, practicing music, painting, reading– so for safety’s sake I’m staying here in my cottage far from my children, my grandchildren, and my friends. Here I might be lonely but I’m safe.

I grow vegetables (snow peas, silver beet, zucchini, broad beans), herbs (sweet and pungent) and flowers (the happy ones – petunias, geraniums, pansies, violas, nasturtiums). Most days my hens - four reds and a black – give me one large white egg and four small brown ones with bright yellow yolks. Millie, my little dog, is a constant companion. Isolation suits her – a sunny or shady spot on the veranda, the occasional goanna to chase up a tree, crows to bark at when they come to steal, a walk to the mailbox, a handful of fresh mince and a cuddle at night satisfy her needs.

I’ve started Tai Chi lessons on Zoom. On Thursday mornings at 8 I follow my teacher’s slow movements on screen. It’s not like our weekly meetings in the park - sometimes I can’t quite see her feet - but this virtual gathering of isolated bush ladies dancing Tai Chi on a laptop screen is good for my soul.

In winter I take coffee back to my bed. When it’s cold I wear ugg boots around the house all day. Sometimes I long for telephone calls. There’s never enough of them. I eat alone. I become careless with housework and care less about it. I don’t iron anything and start to order online clothes I may never wear. From the big wide world parcels arrive, delivered into my old milk-can mailbox at the end of the road by a mailman in a dusty ute.

Because I’m alone, avoiding a virus, I’m often lonely . . . but I have time and space now to see and hear small things - the excitement of birds at sunrise, a tiny joey in a wallaby’s pouch, moon shadows at full moon, the persistent ‘boobook’ of owls in a nearby tree, a shy black snake in my woodpile. I’ve time to be enchanted by simplicity – charmed by the evening routine of my hens chasing last-of–the-day insects before deciding amongst themselves it’s time to roost. I meditate, read, write. I water and weed, trim straggly branches, rake. I watch things closely, make and wait for phone calls, listen to frog song, and to classical music.

I’m doing alright. The town grocer delivers supplies. Neighbours, lining up in cars for their pick-up, wave to me.

I bake bread and birds sing as if the world is still normal. Isolation 2020. I’m not complaining.