Forget the big-picture stuff, what I crave right now, is the comfort of mundane topics
Walkers in a pandemic look different from walkers in ordinary times. They are fully immersed in the business of walking. They are not going anywhere; they are only walking. Most walk at a moderate pace, neither brisk nor ambling. Some are tilted slightly forwards, with hands clasped behind their backs. Some walk on the road, which lends a cinematic quality to the walking, as if they are striding coolly ahead of a sky-high explosion. And because there is so much space between the walkers, they bring an autumnal feeling with them, all lightness and drift. It's like that Simpsons episode where the Itchy and Scratchy show gets cancelled and all the children emerge from their houses at once, rubbing their eyes.
As I cycled past the walkers this morning I was thinking about this column and how maybe I would have to write about what the pandemic means to us as a nation. A few minutes later a bug flew into my mouth and went straight down my windpipe, not even touching the sides, and I started hacking. And I thought, it's not right to ascribe meaning to any of this. Or not yet. We're all just going in circles, swallowing flies. Even that bug was probably just on its daily rounds when, out of nowhere, it was scooped up and swallowed into a great darkness.
I find that I want to read about the small circles we are walking in. Once I've taken in the big-picture stuff, from the PM and Ashley Bloomfield and Dr Siouxsie Wiles, I want to read about the sandwiches people are eating. I want to know their thoughts on the best shoes for remote working. The things that are newly irritating about partners and families and flatmates and neighbours. What the spiders that live in the corners of their lounges are up to. I want to read about existential dread, too, because so many of us feel it; the dread is always hanging in the air like a cobweb you don't see until you've walked through it. But mostly I want stories of daily tedium. That tedium is suddenly rich and complex, holding the days together and connecting us to a sort of normality and to one another. In her 2015 essay On Darkness, Helen Garner wrote: "At times of great darkness, everything around us becomes symbolic, poetic, archetypal." Everything becomes more compelling too. We see more and maybe want to hold on to what we see. Maybe there's something about this that feels like getting older. Like grandparents who want to record every moment of their grandchildren.
And so I plead with all those who work in media to make their content as boring as possible. Beauty writers, tell us the best technique for washing your face with a flannel. Food writers, I want to see you boiling an egg. Science writers, tell us what we need to know about the virus – but then move on to why scratching an itch feels so nice or whether a cat can be both a solid and a liquid. Tech writers, tell us why the sound of a time-lagged voice in a Zoom meeting is so uniquely horrifying. Sports writers, tell us why the hell I'm not allowed to run with the ball in netball and why exercising in front of people who are not exercising is so embarrassing. Political reporters, you're on your own.
