Well it's Week 4 of isolation. Initially they said two - though none of us really believed it at the time. Officially that was extended to a month, but honestly? This is just the beginning.
So, I did a smart but kind of obvious thing this morning. You'd have thought of it a lot earlier, I have no doubt. The sun was warm and happy-looking, the sky, blue with gentle white clouds. I sat down at my desk with my cup of Assam tea, opened my laptop for work, and then opened the window.
A glorious fresh breeze filled the room. I could hear the birds too! Spring is such a lovely season, and if I were to pick a season for this lockdown to have happened, I think I'd have chosen Spring - it's so delightful to watch winter melt and thaw and for the world to come alive, even if it's mostly from indoors. It's not freezing and depressed, and it's not baking hot and sultry: it's really very pleasant. And hope is in the air.
I put on Vivaldi's 'La Primavera' - Spring in the Four Seasons - just to hear the violins sing like the birds do. It was a beautiful moment of synchronicity, though five hundred years or so apart. I loved it. Then I put on Vaughn Williams' The Lark Ascending - a piece which captures a soaring kind of hope and freedom. I can't recommend that piece enough - even if you don't like classical music, The Lark Ascending will speak to you about where we are. I closed my eyes and let the notes soar and swoop over me.
We need that kind of thing. Tonight, the Prime Minister, who stood in that mahogany room when this all began, was taken into intensive care, having been infected with the virus, and now suffering from persistent symptoms. I don't know why that made this war feel all the more real, but it did. It really did. I felt a wave of fear and sadness when I heard that news.
But we should expect the turbulence - this is a fight, where our resolve is being tested with the twisting turns of every day. As The Queen said yesterday, so courageously and so warmly:
"... in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge. And those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any. That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country. The pride in who we are is not a part of our past, it defines our present and our future."
As believers, our job is to pray, certainly (and I'm still shocked that the left-leaning politicos are simply too angry to do this) for our leaders.
It's a very serious situation we face, and there will be days when the lark ascends above Vivaldi's golden trees, just as there will be days of darkness when those we love are taken. There will be thermals and pockets of air, and this is far from a simple flight to freedom. However, I'm certain that the Queen is right - win, we will, and with the 'quiet, good-humoured resolve' of our race and people.
I believe in The Lark Ascending.
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