A return to blogging - with a different mind-set

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down this year, written all, or most of a blog-post and then decided not to publish. Most of the time I’ve been too frightened of the consequences of having an opinion in a divided world where, unless you are happy to put your name to the exact wording of a script which has been written by a bunch of shrieking virtue-signallers, you’re considered to be a right-wing fascist, and dispatched accordingly. I am trying as hard as I can to avoid anything which is triggering: anything which brings back the hell of what happened to Nathan exactly a year ago.

We entered lockdown talking about a brave new world. Caroline Flack’s suicide had made us think more than ever about the concept of kindness, and when people started dying in their thousands, we finally started to act on these thoughts. The helplessness and terror that every single one of us felt meant that, for a brief, almost magical period, we forgot about our differences and started to pull together. We checked in on friends and family. We put notes through the doors of complete strangers. We celebrated love. We accepted hardship and learned to put up with lack of food and interminable queuing.

And yet, within weeks, we were divided again. A new script emerged that we were forced to use. You couldn’t talk about going for a walk unless you added the words “socially-distanced”, key workers had to be described as “brave” and so it went on. If you broke the new laws, or used the wrong script, then the cracks started to open again. People became incensed: “what? You don’t wear a mask?” “How dare those dreadful Londoners living in flats without gardens go to their local park?” “How dare these people go to a beach on a sunny day?” “What?! You’re not applauding the NHS at 8pm on a Thursday? You are so uncaring…”

And, of course, the moment Dominic Cummings messed up, the seething anger and bitterness which had built up in us all whilst being cooped up in tiny houses, flooded over the country like an oil slick. You’d think he’d ridden through County Durham with a machine gun and a machete, our anger was so intense. “He must be sacked!” “No, sacking is too good for him” "Covid is his fault" “Burn the witch…” And, as lockdown finally eases, we are back in our echo chambers, literally tearing each other apart, demanding that certain public figures are cancelled for expressing independent ideas or flying too close to the inappropriate wind. We demand that art is censored. Our silence is violence. Our words are violence. We support Black Lives Matter and then the official UK Twitter account for the group starts to tweet antisemitic conspiracy theories but if you criticise them, you're racist and sent into a corner to "do the work." In short, we can’t win. No one wants to debate because no one can be bothered to listen to two sides of an argument. We only read the comments or newspapers which re-enforce our own views whilst living in a culture of absolute fear. Nuanced conversations have been forced behind closed doors, into conspiratorial whispers, whilst those who scream the loudest use sweeping, deeply unacceptable terms like “fascist" “Nazi” and “genocide” to re-enforce their hatred of the people who refuse to bang their drum. Is whipping people into submission a way of making the world a better place? Do we genuinely believe that we can change someone’s mind by attacking them?

Until very recently I thought I could fight it. Moreover, I felt it was my DUTY to fight it, having seen, first hand, the hell that happens when you don’t. I now realise I can’t. A good friend of mine finally got through to me in one of those text messages which you just want to frame for future reference; “let the terrible twos rage. I’m not engaging. People just want to bicker. I prefer to transcend, knowing my own truth.”

And suddenly it was like a weight was being lifted from me. I no longer needed to be the man who rants about politics, about Brexit, about social justice warriorism and virtue signalling. By ranting about the dangers of all of this, I am no better than those who have stolen my right to call myself left wing from me. I need to focus on my own truth… or perhaps try to find my own truth. There’s a long old road ahead of me, I will fall off the wagon countless times, I’m sure, but I need to do this for my own mental health.

Twitter is no longer on my phone. I no longer watch the news. I am actively attempting to surround myself with beauty, music, kindness and joy, so that, instead of throwing negativity and bitterness into the ether, I’m creating art which moves people and gives them the space to be transported from the anger of the world.

And that, my friends, is the last I will write on the issue…

But the blog is back, so what am I going to write about?

I’ll confess. Lockdown for me was a rather special time. I was lucky. Sure, I lost a tonne of work but I had Nathan. Though three people died at my shul, I didn’t lose anyone hugely close to me. And, more than anything else, because I had the sodding illness, early on, I was able to be a little more adventurous. Once the terrible fog of COVID had cleared and my creativity returned, I was able to go out and experience the joyful silence of London. I could go for long walks in the seemingly never-ending sunshine. We could explore the joys of the green belt, which turned out to be just half an hour’s walk from our house. We were able to watch the days getting longer and longer and feel that extraordinary sense of optimism growing on a daily basis. For the first time in years, I watched the seasons turning.

…And I photographed everything fanatically because I knew I was living in a remarkable time which I would probably never see again. And so, for the next however long, this blog will be a testimony to that remarkable time. I will publish one photograph a day from the lockdown period and write a little bit about how I was feeling when I took it.

I very much hope you will join me on a journey into a unique time, and enjoy experiencing it through my eyes.

Photograph One. Chalk messages. April 2nd, 2020

Whilst still recovering from COVID, Nathan and I started to take advantage of our permitted daily walk. To begin with, it was simply a way of regaining strength - we would walk up the tiniest incline and find ourselves breathless - but the feeling of fresh air was very healing after two weeks trapped inside. The outside world, however, was very frightening. Lockdown happened a week into our illness, so emerging into the new world was like walking into a dystopian novel. Everything was deathly silent. Cars no longer roared down the once busy Ballard’s Lane. A masked young lad on one occasion rode past me on a bicycle yelling vaguely homophobic comments before screaming “covid” and coughing in my direction. The shops were empty. Passing someone in the street involved stepping out into the middle of the road whilst holding our breath to give them as wide a berth as possible. We crossed over the road for old people. We could hear bird song. The rustling of trees. The barking of foxes. My neighbour attempting to play "Tequila" on a guitar. Over and over again. And we discovered the joys of the Dollis Valley Green Walk, which follows a brook that runs all the way from Hampstead Heath, through Finchley, into the greenbelt.

But despite the beauty of Dollis Brook, those early days were highly depressing. It was still winter. Gales in February had brought down all manner of trees. Paths were muddy and everything seemed spiky and wintry.

Our strength grew and the walks became longer, and, to our great joy, we discovered that people were chalking messages of hope onto the pavements by the side of the stream. The messages touched both of us. The sentiments were simple but optimistic:

“Focus on the right things. 

Stay strong.
Make a difference.
Stay connected.
Be kind.
Look after each other.
Stay hopeful.”

I look back to those times and realise we were both broken men. The symptoms seemed endless. The illness affected our minds. We couldn’t focus on anything. We felt depressed. We were scared. We’d lost our sense of smell and taste. But to those two, frightened, hobbling, breathless men, those messages meant the world. And I send my heartfelt thanks to whoever wrote them.