Fear veneer

The other day I was speaking on the phone with a friend in the UK. He is over eighty years old and living in London. He absolutely loves connecting with people, talking with them, learning from them. He enjoys conversation, and cracking jokes, and having his mind fed new stories and insights and opinions. Obviously, all of these things are seriously hindered by the current Covid-crisis. At their age, his wife and he are particularly vulnerable and the UK government is not helping much with both the physical and the mental health situation over there. It is, as P. calls it, an absolute mess.

We talked about how taxing the situation is on all of us, there and everywhere. We talked about how difficult it is to deal with the constant veneer of fear that is covering everything we do and experience. From meeting someone to going shopping, deciding whether or not to go out at all, even answering the phone because you don’t know if there will be bad news. Which, admittedly, is something that crosses my mind every time I see his name pop up on my phone display.

PSSSt: I am thinking of doing a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style NaNoWriMo and need YOU to join up so you can tell me where to go! So subscribe to this blog and keep me on the right path.