Hiding from the Monster

In my last post I wrote about how to deal with a monster, and I'm going to do that again here. The difference between today's post and the last is in the nature of the beast.

My personal monster is just the task that I've undertaken to get my books and illustrations out there, but the big one threatening the world makes my little beastie look about as scary as a kitten playing with a ball of wool. A fluffy kitten. With a fluffy ball of wool.

You know the big demon-creature that I'm talking about. It's the one that's dominating every waking thought of every person on the planet - or at least that's how seems.

The Coronavirus.

That great, pulsing, razor-clawed behemoth stalking our city streets and country roads, roaring and howling its rage, as we shiver under our beds, hoping to avoid its bloody gaze...

Ok, that was a bit melodramatic, but it is pretty scary, and we are hiding from it.

Which brings me to my point. I have been fighting my relatively small personal beastie face-to-face, carving away at the task that I've set for myself, but the coronavirus monster has to be dealt with differently. We can't charge at it head-on, bugles blowing and swords waving. No, this is one battle that we have to avoid. Hiding from it is exactly the right thing to do. We'll leave it to the experts - the doctors, researchers and health-care workers - to do our fighting for us this time.

It may sound cowardly to hide under our beds while the coronavirus Godzilla smashes our cities, but it's what we have to do. Well, maybe not literally, but it's vital that we all do what we can to pull back from the world for a little while. We need to work together to not work together, which sounds a little confusing, but I think you know what I mean.

So we have to find ways to stay sane as we shut ourselves off from the rest of the world. Fortunately we live in a world where entertaining ourselves and communicating with our friends and loved ones without leaving our homes has never been easier. We can Skype and text and blog and chat and binge-watch to our hearts' content, without having to risk deadly disease by crossing our thresholds. The internet, evil though it might sometimes be, deserves our gratitude in this case.

Thank you internet.

We can also indulge in some of the older pleasures that we have too often put aside in favour of the shinier pursuits of modern life. Reading, writing, drawing, painting, card playing, puzzles, crafts, and the like are still as much fun as they ever were, even if we sometimes forget about them.

And let's not forget that we can still go out, as long as our activities are solitary, or restricted to the company of our housemates. In my case, my dogs still need to be walked, my garden still needs to be weeded, and my bicycle insists that it still needs to be exercised. As the weather gets warmer (or continues to be pleasant, depending upon where on the planet you live), long rambles through the nearest park, or picnics in the woods, or even leisurely drives down country lane can serve to shake the cobwebs from your head, and make the world seem like a brighter, less scary place.

So hide from the monster, but don't let it beat you. Take advantage of your self-isolation to do some of the things that you never seem to find enough time for under normal circumstances.

Remember, we're all in this together... just separately.