As Covid-19 lockdowns enter Year Two, I have a question: how are you coping? Do you find that you mind not being able to congregate with other humans? Or do circumstances provide you, like me, with a good excuse to avoid other people?

It's a serious question.

I come from a long line of what used to be called pioneers. Also backcountry dwellers. Woodsies. Hillbillies. In other words, people who lived up in 'the hills' and farmed a mountainside. If they weren't perfectly happy being by themselves for long stretches at a time, they'd have gone nuts.

(Quiet in the back.)

I heard a lot of people when this started saying fatuous things such as, 'This will give people time to reflect. They will become more thoughtful.' Phooey. If they were going to be thoughtful, they'd have done it before this. Instead, they spend too much time online. They tweet out impassioned cries such as, 'I've finished Netflix!' While I applaud people who keep in touch by phone, email and social media, and who encourage one another in difficult times, I haven't seen much evidence of inward reflection going on.

What I am seeing is a lot of grownups acting like kids on a rainy day. 'I'm bored! Entertain me!'

Here are some things you can do while being bored.

• Dig out all the books you promised yourself you'd read 'when you had time'. Read them. Slowly. As some of the comments I get have evidenced, a lot of people around here think they are 'fast readers', when in fact they are merely careless ones. If you raced to the bottom of the page, but got most of the facts wrong, you are not a fast reader, merely sloppy. Try testing yourself. Read a chapter, or a few pages. Write a summary. Reread and compare your summary to the text. Learn better, and slow down.

• Run out of books to read? No, you haven't. Try archive.org or Open Library. They're free. And yes, they have Stephen King novels.

• Take up that hobby. Doesn't have to be elaborate or expensive. Dig out that needlepoint starter kit some wag of a relative gave you two Christmases ago. Make that little stained-glass tchotchke. Or noodle around with your Paint program and make a picture. You can send those to the Post. You've seen my 'artwork': I won't judge.

• If you play an instrument, now is the time to practise. FWR is, I believe, still working on that fifth chord.

• Talk to your dog or cat. They don't care how inane you are.

• Practise visualisation. When you think of someplace you'd like to be, but can't go because everybody's on lockdown, try visualising it in your mind's eye. See it, explore it. When you've visited long enough, imagine getting in your car or on the bus/the train/your bicycle and travelling back home again. Try to see each step of the way. You'll surprise yourself.

• Write a five-paragraph story. Just five paragraphs. Go away and get yourself a cup of tea or coffee. Come back and reread it, as if you hadn't written it. What do you like about it? What don't you like? How could you make it better? Force yourself to make at least three changes to improve the story. Go away again, come back. Make three more changes. Do this three times. Now read your story. Is it better? You've learned how to rewrite. Congratulations. Now send it to the Post.

This list of suggestions brought as a public service by someone who enjoys solitude. Now go away. I'm thinking.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

18.01.21 Front Page

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