Impending Doom.

T-1 day until lockdown number two and things are very different for me now than they were for the first one. 

Instead of being nestled away in the familiar green and pleasant lands of Hertfordshire, this time I’m newly a resident of Northeast London – although the singular deer I’ve seen behind a fence in Clissold Park is indeed reminiscent of the hundreds that surround my garden back home. 

Instead of cramming for my finals, I’ve found a new gruelling schedule of impending deadlines at SCA, although undoubtedly flexing a different side of my brain this time.

Instead of being confined with my nuclear family of four, I’m muddling along (for as long as possible, touch wood) with a group of twenty plus twenty-somethings. 

Despite only having been at school for a month or so, it seems to have wormed its little way into my brain, as proven by the feeling I got in the pit of my stomach when waiting to hear if my 7am commute would be ripped away from me for a month (who would’ve thought).

Incidentally, it seems that SCA 2.0 is the only thing promising to keep me sane during lockdown 2.0, and I think there’s a lovely symmetry there. 

If anyone needs any more proof that the government’s recent tonedeaf overtures about repurposing Fatima into cyber were a gross underestimation of the power of creativity to get humanity through hard times, let my small personal case study be it. 

Not only do creative people time and time again provide solutions to the world’s trickiest problems, their outputs are a vital comfort blanket in times like this, with people’s sanity cushioned by music, art and film. 

Personally, I will be watching Cloud Atlas (dir.2012) and playing the accompanying ‘Cloud Atlas Sextet’ on repeat. As melancholy as is appropriate but infinitely uplifting.