Zoom

‘I wish the word they call freedom someday would come’

Oh, the things we took for granted that no longer are.

Going out, shopping for clothes and shoes, travelling — on buses, planes, trains, and automobiles — hair salons, manicures, massages, rubbing shoulders with strangers, slow dancing in clubs, picnics, tea with friends, lunch with the girls, dinner dates in low lit restaurants.

Those aren’t the things I miss. If I never went to another shoe shop, had another manicure, ate in another restaurant, or even rode on another bus or train, it wouldn’t be a deal-breaker for me. Those aren’t the reasons I love Life.

Only some things are irreplaceable

It’s the things for which only a few particular people will do I miss.

Hanging out with friends, with extended family, with my adult children who no longer live at home, and especially, with my grandboy, eating meals with my family, those things I mostly with my husband — playing scrabble, walking in parks, on commons, besides the canals of London, in woods, forests and along the Southbank — and the activities I do only with him — french kissing, naked picnics, making love.

Of course, it’s only been in the last week that those familiarities I love yet took for granted ceased to be available to me.

The day I started exhibiting signs of coronavirus.

Shit got real

Yet even in the situation in which I find myself, I know that things aren’t that bad. Temporarily being unable to do things we like and even love is no real loss; it’s just inconvenience.

Boy, was I pissed when I had to call off my annual holiday to my beloved mother’s home island. For about five minutes. Then I woke up and smelt the disinfectant.

I remind myself that some people have lost loved ones. And that many more will die. That’s the real loss.

There are still reasons to be grateful

I don’t feel despondent. I remain hopeful. And grateful. Grateful for every breath I take. Grateful that my symptoms have been mild, so far. So grateful that we have a roof over our heads and food to eat.

And grateful that I can still keep in touch with so many people that I love, both near and far. Grateful for the internet and all the applications that have made chatting face to face possible. Like Zoom.

I was listening today to Michelle Obama’s playlist (which she published in the follow-up to her memoir, Becoming: A Guided Journal (2019) and when the Commodores hit Zoom came on, I was transported back to 1977 when I was a sixteen-year-old living on the Caribbean island of St Lucia.

How I loved that album, and especially that song. It had a melancholic edge to it that gave me the shivers. It wasn’t until many years later that I learned the story behind it; how it was inspired by a young woman called Cathy, wife of Commodores band member Ronald LaPread, who wrote the song (with Lionel Ritchie) after finding out his 23-year-old wife was unlikely to survive stomach cancer.

And sadly, she didn’t. The story goes that Cathy’s last words to Ronald were: I’m sorry that we didn’t have kids.

We are so privileged

How lucky we are, most of us. Yes, the pandemic has and will probably affect us for a long time to come. Many of us are going to have to rethink what is really important to us, what we can let go of, and what we simply must have, no matter what.

Life is going to have to get a lot more simple for many people.

Once, we were free to go and do as we pleased. And now, for now, we are not. Boy, was I pissed when I had to call off my annual holiday to my beloved mother’s home island. For about five minutes. Then I woke up and smelt the disinfectant.

My hope for us that we step up to the challenge. That we don’t turn into whining and complaining spoilt children. We are human beings, not automatons made to eat, consume, reproduce, age then die.

Let’s find alternatives ways to live that involve respecting our world and truly collaborating with one another.

As long as the sun rises and sets, and we get to enjoy another day on this beautiful planet, let us try to remember (or discover) what is really meaningful, and find paths to allow more people to share the resources of our great and bountiful earth.

Inspired by The Commodores 1977 hit Zoom and this story by Caroline de Braganza

©️marla bishop 2020

Marla Bishop is a relationship coach and writer: On medium.com she is the creator of Lilith and an editor of The Bad Influence, The Get Fit Gang, and The Narrative. She lives in London UK with her husband and youngest two children. You can follow her here.