The Deep Breath
But in my life, at that moment (and many other moments this past few weeks) the feeling of a deep breath was overtaken by a feeling of no breath at all.
By Carly Lukacs
I heard a radio interview today that spoke of the COVID-19 life that we are now all leading. The interviewee was a musician who was now performing live on Instagram instead of at her usual gigs and events. When asked how she felt about this, she replied that it felt like a giant breath of fresh air. She felt that the world had slowed down and she loved how collectively the world was breathing slower and taking stock of what was most important in their lives.
As I listened to the interview, I was rocking my baby to sleep in the pram. I had to push the pram on a very specific angle to hit the slight raise of the tiles and navigate the spread of Duplo blocks, abandoned baby dolls and rice crackers – that I actually didn't remember serving to my toddler that day. The radio was almost completely drowned out by the sound of Frozen playing on the TV (for the 7th consecutive day) and the peppering of questions about “Why is she building a castle? Why is she alone? Why is it snowing? Where is the guy?” It was 4:00pm and dinner was not yet underway. My husband was in the home office on a conference call – so close, but so far away.
At this moment, I did not feel the collective deep breath that was being spoken about. I understood, to some degree, what she meant. But in my life, at that moment (and many other moments this past few weeks) the feeling of a deep breath was overtaken by a feeling of no breath at all. Of a drowning sensation that comes from having a newborn baby and a toddler at home all day with nowhere to go. The heavy monotony of life with young kids, never ending washing, snacks, negotiations and arguments. The guilt that comes from remembering that we are healthy and safe and extremely lucky to still have our income, but still hating everything about our current lifestyle distancing from everyone and everything we know.
My daughter turns three in a couple of weeks. When we realised that COVID-19 was not going anywhere fast, we just stopped talking about her birthday to avoid any questions about the party that wasn't going to happen, the friends and family we were not going to see. It came up as she was falling asleep this week and went exactly as you would expect. She is confused about why she can't see her friends and why she should be excited about spending the day with her mum, dad and baby brother – like she does every other day of the week. We will go over the top with balloons and cake and kids songs playing all day for her. We will take our little sanity walk in our neighbourhood and maybe stop at an empty field so she can run free for a short break. We will take a lot of photos and remember this crazy time at every single future birthday she has and I will hold a place in my heart for that little bit of sadness around letting down a three year old whose whole world revolves around their upcoming birthday.
I am trying harder to breath. I am trying so hard to breath through the day to day tasks, the overwhelming weight of entertaining a three year old while feeding a very hungry newborn during his every waking moment. I am trying to find that space around my thoughts where I can use my mind for more than our weekly meal plan and grocery list. Whether I eventually find and perfect that deep breath or not, I want to look back on this time and know that I just kept trying to perfect any breath at all – and a smashing rendition of Let It Go.
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