Time for a challenge...

So, here I am, starting week-five of lockdown at home. Planned trips back to London for work are cancelled, but I’ve been working from home for years, and outside of meeting people, the social aspect of which I love as most who know me would attest, I’m normally pretty productive here, despite home life spinning and whirring around me.

There’s been time, more time than normal, to think. Cogitate, reflect, read, listen, watch, chat, all things I’m accustomed to doing, but would normally have to fit around school hours, after school activities, and normal ‘life’.  These have all become things I’m able to pick and choose when and how I do them, the only variable of ‘where’ being predetermined by someone else. 

It’s been lovely to watch the children much more than usual, being with them is one thing, but having the time to watch them is something I can’t recall ever really having much time, nor inclination to do, with much intensity or dedication.  But I’ve found myself observing or listening to them, individually and together.  Allowing the squabbles I’d normally be tempted to intercede in, as they’d be irritating or disturbing, or both, I let them get on with it, sort it out. At ten and twelve they’re able to sort things out generally. Alexander being the more peaceable, unless he’s really rattled or out of balance, Allegra being much more demanding and assertive, there’s almost no backing down from her, ever. 

So here I am, wondering whether they sound like their Mother or me, their grandparents, teachers, friends, people who’s names I cannot recall from podcasts they (inanely) watch. Where have they picked up habits and mannerisms from? Are they good?, bad?, desirable? Should I or can I encourage / discourage certain things? They've found their own groove - Alexander with his drawing, Allegra.... just being Allegra - ballet, studying, reading, making pompoms.

All of this against the backdrop of something extraordinary; half the planet grinding to a halt, all at once.  This has done many things; crashed economies, put people and families in desperate situations, seen homeless people housed, loo rolls sell out, stocks rocket, and stocks crash, people applaud the nameless and faceless helping others suffering, goats to roam, air to cleanse, and, maybe people to stop, be still, stay in one place, and think.

I’ve seen this with my children. These two wonderful little people, loving (sometimes cruel), caring (sometimes thoughtless), patient (sometimes impatient), dedicated (sometimes lazy), interested (sometimes supposedly bored) trying to work out just what the hell is going on, what they should do, and where they fit in. I believe who and what they will become in later life will be influenced by the past five weeks, and however much longer we have in our little world here on our hill. 

So I’ve tried to set an example with much more purpose than before. Not in those little things; manners, p’s & q’s, watching less TV, exercising, etc. (not that they aren’t important of course), but through picking up something I’ve not had much time nor ’space’ to do much before - painting, and challenging myself, showing the children my work, what I’ve learned, got wrong, or got right.  I hope this will be something they both remember about this period of time we’ve been given together. 

I’d convinced myself I was the one who had missed out on that artistic gene, and perhaps I still am, but I’m trying.  I like a challenge, previously it’s been cycling up a hill as fast as I can, or launching a bank - things which push me.  Doing an oil painting is not only a challenge artistically - learning what paints to use, techniques, the ‘how to’, but for someone like me it’s a challenge of my patience.  This is something I acknowledge I can be short of, but the one lesson I’ve learned, as a result of Covid 19, the lockdown, challenging my patience, and the one thing I think painting can teach anyone who gives it a go, is that you have all the time you need, something we’re now rediscovering, perhaps for the first time since we were children.  Only you can decide when a painting is finished, you can go back any number of times until you’re happy - and that is the key: when ‘you’re’ happy, nobody else to please or consider, that's very refreshing, a selfish indulgence in a world of demands and expectations.

Anyway, enough. This isn’t really about me, or my children, it’s about all of us, and a painting I did recently. I saw an image of a nurse, distraught after having lost another patient to the virus.  It was a hugely powerful image and I felt compelled to paint it. The anguish and sadness was obvious, but also was hope, and beauty, so I painted it.  It’s not your normal portrait, perhaps, but I rose to the challenge of capturing the emotion of someone right at the ‘coal face’ of something which is so profoundly affecting us all, but which I can only observe from afar, in the hope I, nor anyone I know, has to observe it that closely.

I’ve always loved the saying ‘art is where you find it’.  Like so much in life, particularly now, subjectivity is poured liberally upon nearly everything - everyone is a critic, everyone expects their fifteen minutes of fame, everyone can create and publish, be seen and heard.  The forum on which I’m publishing this post is an enabler of that, though I have to say, generally much more enthusiastically and supportive compared to other forums. 

I’ve no idea whether anyone will read this, think about it, have an opinion, or respond.  But I decided to write, as I decided to paint.  If these words don’t resonate with you, perhaps my painting will, or the other way around.  If neither, I hope you, your family and friends stay virus free, and that perhaps you’ll find your own challenge from this.