With the "all go" on lockdown for four weeks, I had very mixed feelings about the situation. One of the most substantial feelings was that I was relieved to have a break. I am entirely aware that I am privileged to be secured economically and socially. I have a family to back me up in the face of crisis.
In saying that, my relief came from a place of wanting to live a "stress-less life"; to have a moment to breathe without worrying about integrating my every day so my work feels less like uni work and more like stress-free "work". At the same time, knowing that by doing that, I will have lost a good chunk of my privacy. (while aware I'm one of the few people on the earth in a privileged position to be able to securely self assess).
I have lived comfortably for the most of my life, and although I have worked hard to get where I am academically, at the end of the day, I do feel like I haven't lived a day outside the university structure. I am a little nervous about this "break", excited but nervous.
Recent thoughts with the above ramble as context:
The system I am under, although I am benefitting from it, is corrupt. Now I understand that
people may say that I am not benefitting from the system; there are other "richer" or more corrupt people. However, after reading Arundhati Roy's novel The God of Small Things, I learnt that the division between a victim and criminal is not so distinctly apart. I may be underprivileged to some, but I know in my situation I am far better off than the majority. Taking accountability is something I am trying to implement in my life, while not "whipping" myself for the context I reside in.
I am aware that poverty, climate change, famine, war, religious, racial, gender discrimination, obesity and stress could be connected very naively to two qualities- greed and disconnection.
I'm not attempting to reduced these extremely complicated dilemmas with my "spot fix" solution. What I am trying to say is that perhaps (neo-colonial) capitalism's lie, selling "freedom" and complete autonomy as long as we are financially steady, has caused a severe disconnection. Disconnection to our land, people, other species and even ourselves; we are artificially severed from the loop that connects the earth and all its inhabitants to each other. Capitalism keeps taking "recourses" without considering the effects it will have on the immediate and distant future of our earth family.
These thoughts have been with me probably since I was 15, after first reading the dystopian teen novel Feed. The lockdown, a strange "break" from so-called "real-time", put my life into perspective. University was a completely separate entity from my "home life". For the first time, I questioned if painting in the studio, was a clinical practice, as though the university was a place where I carried the experiments of my "home life".
Things didn't sit as they did pre-lockdown. I think it was an important realisation because I decided the day before lockdown to buy a passionfruit plant, orange tree, 15 lavender and cock's comb flowers, radish plant and planted coriander, a beetroot, and a few other bits and bobs.
Gardening was something I always wanted to experiment with but never had the "time" within the schedule of the university and my home life. Neither did I have the appropriate skills to know how to begin. If there was any time to experiment, I wanted to make this lock-down productive.
Gardening has been one of the most functional methods for me to gain agency. The act of planting and saving seeds, connects me to the land we are renting, cutting the disconnecting journey of food and being a mediator between the "chaotic" and demonstrator to my family.
Side note- the "problem" with gardening in a rental is knowing that the plants I have looked after might die under future generations of renters and landlords. Renting may not admit a permanent gardening culture (under the supervision of a human). Inhabiting deeply within the land one is situated in, takes cycles of time which embodies relationship and trust; something that is counter to the "progressive" rental culture I am part of. Perhaps suburban gardening is privileged for those who "own" property(s).
At the same time, I have realised the significance of confusing protectiveness with ownership. Trusting in the process; the trees are not a submissive victim in need of my empathy; instead, it seems like this because we abused most of the land to the point that "nature" is vulnerable without our help. Through observing non-human nature, I have noticed how "viciously" resilient life is. The earth has created a perfect climate for its inhabitants to thrive. This gives me hope. That even after I leave this property, that the plants will reproduce, appear as "weeds" in places they weren't originally planted. There's always moss appearing in cracks, grass overgrowing over cement ladened pavement; there are always vines that tie themselves tightly around unsuspecting drain pipes.
Perhaps I have been looking at my context in a skewed way.
Perhaps, I am "renting" or rather "borrowing" the "earth", and I must do my very best until my tenancy is up. Perhaps, that's all there is to it.
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