“We’re all philosophers now”

In last week’s Big Issue (which I’m well chuffed to be getting delivered) the editor wrote that “we’re all philosophers now”. He’s correct. We’re all living through something exceptional and we’ve each got a new perspective on, well, everything really. So this post is a bit sentimental, because I am a bit sentimental, and because I’m a philosopher now too…

Last summer, a couple of months pregnant, I was listening to Radio 4 before work (as was my way – now I am a parent I have actually climbed the cool stakes to Radio 2), and I came across The Pleasures of Brecht. Basically, German playwright and poet Brecht thought that by listing every day pleasures you could stay grounded through a sense of gratitude, and he wrote a poem about his. That morning, in the notes field on my phone, like the overly sentimental person I clearly already was before all this, I typed mine. The list included: snoozing; finding out how Bub 2 (name for Ruby when she was cooking) has developed since the day before; the first cup of tea of the day – and all the cups thereafter, but especially the first one; toast with loads of butter; a hot shower; walking over Waterloo Bridge; a chat with my parents; lunch – especially if it’s curry; dinner – especially if it’s curry; seeing Tom before he leaves for work and when he gets home. Cheesy as, right? Alas, all true. 

What I realised just today is that the current lockdown situation doesn’t affect them, except my ability/ inclination to walk over Waterloo Bridge everyday. Motherhood, on the other hand, is much more obtrusive. Snoozing you say? Not a chance woman. A hot shower? That’ll need to be a bi-weekly indulgence… The list, however, would have some additions now: seeing Ruby smile when I first get up; watching her watch the world (as my brother very eloquently put it, she’s showing me a world I can’t remember); watching a series of something while she sleeps on my lap (if you have not watched Normal People stop reading this immediately and switch on iPlayer)… Anyway, in summary, what I’ve lost in showers and snoozing I’ve gained in the immeasurable joy of watching another human start to discover her own daily pleasures. 

And so, at a point where the current reality is making many of us despair for lack of physical contact with those we love, I thought re-discovering a sense of appreciation might be the antidote. There are things we are gaining from the current set up. For many people, the obvious win is having more time. Paradoxically, I know this can also be a curse. In our case, Tom works long and inflexible hours from home, but being able to pop downstairs for five minutes and see Ruby whenever he wants has changed everything. He can get her up on a morning before he starts work; he can rock her to sleep at lunchtime; he can do the bedtime drill. Because he’s here. And we spend time together on the basic stuff, making her smile, going for walks, cooking dinner (not cleaning, as you know). Life is less hectic and there is – undeniably for us – a lower level of stress, and that makes even Ruby’s tear-less tantrums a source of amusement, rather than something that might push us over the edge. We’re able to be present for these first months of her life in a way that we simply wouldn’t be if we were commuting and travelling and, in my case, having the million bits of self maintenance carried out which so desperately need doing but that are temporarily irrelevant. 

The second win is finding new small things that we enjoy, or rediscovering the stuff that got swept to the side when life got in the way. My friend Laura discovered the sheer delight of a cup of tea and messaged me just to tell me about it. As I told her, I’m very happy she has finally stumbled across the single greatest joy in life (sorry Ruby), but it’s over a decade too late for my liking. Where were all these brews when we lived together at uni?! My friend Clare spent a weekend sitting in the garden doing a jigsaw. My father-in-law is getting green fingered. My boss is baking bread. Right now, I’m writing something non-corporate. Whether there’s a point to what we’re doing or we’re doing it just ‘cos, we are all – in some way, shape or form – spending our time a little bit differently. As some of my ante natal crew have been doing, I’m planning to reintroduce reading into my life, because – as goes the Mason Cooley quote – it “gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are”. 

And even where we’re not really gaining anything new or different from all of this, many of the simple things we probably appreciated and enjoyed before are still there – with the glaring exception of spending quality face to face time with our friends and families, of course. What’s happened I think, without us really realising it, is that those small, seemingly insignificant daily rituals have become the main fabric of our life. They are the things that punctuate our days, and we don’t need to go anywhere or do anything special to experience them. My dad, for example, has always loved gardening and he is currently spending all day every day in the garden, never happier and probably never healthier for it. So when this is all over, and if and – more likely – when life becomes hectic once again, I think I may look back to a time when my hours revolved around simple pleasures… with the odd motherhood meltdown thrown in for good measure.