Instructions for play

Notes from a 2020 diary marked: ‘Covid years: to be read and absorbed by a future ‘us’.’ My daily journal reveals a time I’d almost forgotten; the photos I took, make it real…

We’re making the best of it, this strange time in our lives. We’ve rediscovered beauty in the detail and rapture in the mundane.

I pick wild flowers and display them in makeshift vases at home; bringing in sunshine.

The sky is a gradient from Cadbury's purple to French navy with twinkles.

Amber lights lend punctuation to our winding, weaving journey—parked cars are lucky to escape unscathed from Lyla’s pavement-to-bike riding prowess.

The clamour of bike wheels.

She counts ‘one potato, two potato, three potato’, hand aloft for balance. A cheer erupts from beneath her Barbie-pink bike helmet, beating her own challenge.

We hold hands, off and on. Him and I. Warm, safe, a tucked-in thumb (mine).

Sometimes we're three, and the narrow path stifles conversation.

We attempt grown-up talk in fits and starts—about the bite of unresolved trauma, the essence of justice, the courage we admire, how to play when we’re so locked down.

We walk, create a game to build stories, we look up and we see … things we’ve never noticed before. We see and hear as though vision and sound are brand new gifts to us…

We look up:

We develop instructions for play, a way to pass the hours beyond home learning and rationed food orders.

The need for more toilet roll slips in to our conversation with a never-before known seriousness — alongside the omnipresent Covid (always with the Covid…)

Our voices lower passing shadowed faces, our eyes darting back, half-expecting pursuit.

The journey completes.

We head home.

Red faces, hot and cold, shedding layers at the front door.

“Trainers and boots off, please—I've no desire to trail mud and leaves.”