The ant has been circling my foot for several minutes now. I have been watching it intently, as it runs over and back across the patio, in ever-decreasing circles. Its purpose is unfathomable, and its progress is slow, but that’s OK. I have time to watch it. I don’t have anything to do, or anywhere to go. It’s just me and the ant.
have finally cracked it: the mysterious art of mindfulness. For years, I have been toying with the idea of meditating, or even just sitting still for a bit. Every therapist I meet tells me it will ease the anxiety that has haunted me for as long as I can remember.
I never had time to try it, though. The local classes are three hours long. If I had three hours to spare on a typical Monday evening, I wouldn’t be anxious in the first place.
There were lots of other things, too, that I didn’t have time for. I didn’t have time to mind my own children, so I paid someone to do it. I didn’t have time to clean my own house, so I paid someone to do that too. I didn’t have time to start, let alone finish, any of the novels stacked high on my bedside table, so they went unread.
Frequently, it felt as though I was an occasional visitor in my own life.
But in lockdown, with no commute to tackle or school runs to juggle or, let’s be honest, no need to even get dressed, I have all the time I need. Time is the great gift of the pandemic. We have been given it in abundance, as if by way of compensation for the horrors outside the front door.
These days, watching ants circle my toes for the best part of half an hour does not even count as deliberately meditating. It is just passing the time.
And the therapists were right – it works: in the silence, as I listen out for the familiar low crackle of my anxious mind, it’s undetectable.
The children, too, seem calmed. With nowhere else to go and nothing to do (we abandoned any serious efforts at homeschooling early on), they’ve settled into routines of their own making, playing with trucks and dinosaurs and cycling up and down the street.
The 8.30am hall meltdowns, so routine in normal life as I tried to herd them out the front door to school and nursery, are a thing of the past.
The great luxury of having time on your hands isn’t just about what you do with it, because to be honest, though I had grand plans to clean out the garden shed and sort out all my old photographs and write A Great Novel, I’ve done nothing of the sort.
But that doesn’t mean, necessarily, that I won’t, some day (when you’ve time on your hands, you can hold on to the comforting illusion that anything is possible).
And if I haven’t actually written a book, at least I’ve read a few. I’ve taught myself some new songs on the piano. I’ve made some excellent cakes. And I’ve sat a lot, usually very still in the garden, staring at birds or spiders or ants, or at my children, who seem to grow taller before my very eyes.
But now as that time is running out, I don’t want to go back to my old life. As Leo talks of easing restrictions and stages and plans, I feel my anxiety stirring. Perhaps it is a form of madness, but I don’t want the lockdown to end.
If we go back, the spell will be broken. I’ll have to get dressed again. I’ll have to hand my children back.
And here’s the part that is really mad: I don’t even want my cleaner to return. I just want to have time to clean the house myself.
That’s not to say that lockdown is idyllic. There have been some very near-misses in this house as we’ve juggled children and work. There have been interrupted team meetings, missed deadlines, raised voices, and burnt dinners.
The kids have enjoyed Netflix TV marathons of a length that would make child-development experts weep. They’ve eaten so much spaghetti bolognese and frozen pizza that I think I can detect a faint tomato-coloured glow from their skin.
And we’re the lucky ones. For many, this period has been a living nightmare, or a lonely, anxious time. Others are simply bored stiff, and itching to get on planes and discover far-flung exotic locations.
I feel that too, sometimes. We talk idly about the dream holidays we’d love to take when all this is over: we might bring the kids to Australia to see the Great Barrier Reef, or to California to visit their new baby cousin. The six-year-old wants to go to the Isle Of Wight to see dinosaur fossils. That sounds a bit more realistic.
We talk about how nice it will be to see our friends and families properly, to give them a hug.
We talk about the big, scary questions: will there be a vaccine, and if there isn’t, how will people survive if the economy grinds to a total halt?
Those questions have no answers, at least not yet. And that’s where the mindfulness comes back in.
There is no point thinking about the future. There is no point making plans. Time has slowed down so much, sometimes it feels like it has stopped, and all that exists is the here and now. Which, as mindfulness experts will tell you, is the whole point.
Many will be celebrating as the country takes its first tentative steps back to normality. And it is a wonderful thing. But I will be secretly hoping that I can stay in my bubble just a little while longer. Just me and the ant.