Alan Roddick
On the afternoon of Lockdown Day 16, I woke up from my siesta feeling as though we were all in a kind of suspended animation, with brave grins on our faces. I went outside to trim the hedge, but realised after a few minutes that, inside my skull, something had been at work, and needed my attention. So I went back indoors, and in five minutes had written down the words for a poem (finding the title took me two days). I was glad to snare these words as they came to me, because poems often take me weeks to work out.
In theory, this period of Lockdown ought to be useful ‘free time’ to get done what we really want to do: to write that family memoir, or put together a photo album for the grandchildren – or maybe re-decorate the spare bedroom. But Lockdown can be filled with distractions (think of all those addictive news-bulletins!), and somehow the normal domestic tasks take longer to finish, every step seems to need careful thought, because we just find ourselves proceeding more cautiously – suddenly more aware of other people, and what our actions might mean to them if we do the wrong thing. (And of course, we can also lose the plot: I realised this morning that the birthday cards I wrote in a rush last night won’t be needed till this time next month!)


The news has been read, the weather forecast follows. Nothing unusual: highs and lows, temperatures, fronts, expectations for the week ahead. A menacing southerly is approaching, snow to low levels, icy roads. A warning for those who have to travel is broadcast:


For the past ten years, I’ve been a physiotherapist at Mineral Springs Hospital in Banff, Alberta; Canada. Witnessing long term care residents live a mostly sedentary life did not resonate well with me. I saw the effects repeatedly: deteriorating functionality and simple lack of satisfaction with daily living. Some people would beg me to take them outside and, once there, they would lament that they were no longer able to walk around and enjoy their surroundings. Despite often severe disabilities, it was obvious that residents still craved opportunities to be active outdoors.


We like to think of time as linear. Seconds building on seconds, forming the minutes, hours and days that track the path of our lives. Dementia and death fracture this line.