Lockdown has closed off too much of the artistic and sporting hinterland that makes our lives worth living
The other morning, I blew the dust off the wasteland that is my 2020 diary, opened it and contemplated the days ahead. Wednesday is marked in fluorescent highlighter, as if by a teenager swotting for exams: FREEDOM it reads in capital letters, and below it: RING HAIRDRESSER. Of course, we know now that liberty will not be ours precisely, but in tier 2, where I am, there are spots of hope. I will soon be able to walk around an art gallery again – and it looks, too, as if I’ll be in the audience to see Simon Russell Beale as Scrooge in the Bridge theatre production of A Christmas Carol. Most wonderfully of all, Handel’s Messiah at the Barbican, my most beloved annual ritual, is still happening. When my friend Jim wrote to tell me that it was back on, I heard the sound of distant trumpets and surprised myself by bursting into tears at my desk.
We all know what’s hardest about lockdown. We cannot see those we love or, if we can, we are forbidden to touch them. We’re worried for the health and livelihoods of our families and friends. We wonder what the future holds, our stomachs turning as we look at the worst-case scenarios – or even at the nearest high street.
