From my apartment, you can sometimes see another human being if you’ve lucky. A man paces around on an adjacent balcony as he makes a work call. A neighbour practices deep breathing on her yoga mat. Meanwhile, in the common areas, it’s one person to a lift and anyone getting on unexpectedly can be met with glares.
There are people on the street, of course. You walk past but don’t get too close – with an extra margin if either of you are breathing heavily.
I’ve become one of those public nuisances who gets through phone calls while pounding my exercise routine, probably shocking onlookers by the personal observations I’m flinging out into space.
My mum lives closer to the city and I haven’t seen her in months.
She broke my heart recently when she revealed she looked forward to her daily walk in the Royal Botanic Gardens, even wearing her mask. Why? There was always the off-chance to bump into someone.
We’re three months into lockdown. It was R U OK day recently and an organisation I’m part of has been checking in to see how its members are doing. When I received a similar well-intended phone call from the Parramatta Chamber of Commerce a few weeks ago, I was drowning in a work deadline and responded brusquely.
This time, many who picked up told me they appreciated the outreach. A nurse who leaves the local area for work at an inner-city community health centre sounded defeated.
She was taking six days off, just to get her head straight. An older man living alone was monotone and glum. After some prodding, he admitted he felt isolated and was just getting by.
Human connection requires real effort right now. Zoom trivia nights. Whole-of-family split screens. I’ve been on a few virtual meetups and been struck by the extent to which people, more dishevelled than normal, take the opportunity to just yowl at the camera and blow off some steam.
You suspect some might have been drinking before the call.
Yet whether we know it or not at the time, each of these interactions shakes us out of stagnation and supports our frame of mind.
What’s the traffic like on the City West Link?
What’s the temperature in the ocean?
From our vantage point, the people we see on TV lounging on Sydney’s beaches may as well be museum curiosities.
On a recent work course, I was taught that if your outside world disappears, focus on improving your immediate world.
Keep your room tidy.
Shower and change, don’t just roll out of bed and log on.
Take some time out to go outside. Recognise you won’t feel great every day – accept it, then figure out how to best be productive.
For some of us, the pandemic has brought the realisation that social connection is what gets our juices flowing. For others, our mental health starts with having a purpose in life; a business to run, a course to study, a dream to pursue, something to build with our hands.
Having lost control of Delta, we’re now going to reopen as best we can.
The unspoken trade-off is between the additional cases that will fill our hospitals – and the consequences of staying like this.
We can debate whether our leaders have made the right calls, but mental health has arrived as an issue and it’s a watershed.
Alan is a journalist and communications specialist. He writes a weekly column for Parra News.