Covid diaries - end of 2020

What a strange year it has been. Who would have guessed that the Covid pandemic could happen to the world in 2020?

I took so much for granted the freedom to go wherever I want to go. In the past, the only impediments to travel were time off work, money and visa constraints. I travelled often and all over the world - it's incredible to think that I have been to over 40 countries on every continent except Antarctica. I have been away from Australia on at least one overseas trip every year since 2001 when I started medical school. I am extremely grateful for all the travel I've done in the past - dreaming of my travel bucket list is literally a dream now. 

Like many other Australians, my family migrated to Australia and called it our new home. Like many immigrants, we console ourselves in the fact that we could always go back to our home country in an emergency. We'll be there by tomorrow at the latest, we promised our family - because that was indeed possible. When my grandma broke her hip last year, I was by her hospital bedside the next day. I never dreamt that being an immigrant in another country could mean that you are cut off from the rest of your family, bar "exceptional" circumstances such as the death of a close family member. 

I saw so many patients this year who have been affected by Covid. Many who were sick and dying could not have the final reunion with their family members due to quarantine reasons. Travel exemptions were hard to come by, flights were scarce and expensive. Some of my friends have been unable to attend the funeral of loved ones in person - a real tragedy robbing them of their final closure. 

We have been so fortunate in Australia that Covid has not taken a big toll in terms of case numbers and fatalities. It's so frightening to see what is happening in the rest of the world, and I feel incredibly sad for all the people who have died around the world from the pandemic. I also feel so much pain for those who have struggled with mental health this year. I, too, as a frontline health care worker have had my fair share of scares. For some time I was living alone, not seeing anyone in person, going to work and facing the fears of infection and mortality alone. It was a really difficult time. I was fortunate to have a lot of personal supports and a supportive collegiate work environment. Sadly I know three people who have died by suicide during this time -may they rest in peace. We will never know the answers and how much Covid may have contributed to their deaths. 

Despite all the negative effects of Covid, there have been a remarkable number of "silver linings". I worked relatively little this year, and with the cancellation of travel plans found myself with many weeks free. In the past, I've filled these weeks off with more "things" but this year I have found myself with so much more time and emotional space to explore.

So now, I'd like to take a moment to remember all the things that I have been doing in 2020, the strange year of Covid. I have been:

... Writing:  I kept up my usual journalling and finished three volumes during 2020. I did a lot more writing in general, various things here and there including blog posts. The highlight of the year was National Novel Writing Month - getting through 50,000 words in the month of November was a real achievement to savour. 

... Reading:  I've read dozens of books, a luxury that I don't always have. I re-read almost all of Murakami's works, some of my all time favourites like Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Kafka On the Shore, and Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki. I even had a chance to read the German translation of Colourless TT. I read all of Liane Moriarty's books in the bath. 

... Sketching: It's incredible that one can discover things like this, I never even knew that I liked drawing! I took up sketching after J and I followed a live drawing class on TV - I'm totally hooked now. I'm still experimenting with different mediums but so far I adore charcoal because it smudges and is so messy.

... Gardening: I moved in January just before Covid hit, and the backyard was bare when I moved in. My dad built me a veggie patch and I've been gently exploring growing vegetables. I always thought I had the brownest thumbs, but I realise now that I just never tried! I bought a lemon tree and watched it grow slowly. I fought slugs, bugs, critters and birds, trying to save my vegetables! The winter season saw an excellent crop of snow peas, and now I'm onto zucchinis, beans and tomatoes. One single chilli from Harris Farm Cooks Hill in January gave me 4 chilli seedlings, all of which are flourishing and giving me more chillies than I can dream of. Being immersed in green is so soul nourishing. 

... Baking: Barney my sourdough starter has been with me since 2017. I gave some of him away in exchange for flour at the height of flour frenzy. It's hard to imagine now how hard it was to get flour in Australia in March/April, it was a commodity like gold. Finally I bought a 12.5kg bag from Broadmeadow IGA (husband #1) and a second 12.5kg from Hamilton Aldi (husband #2) - how did I get through 25kg flour in one year? I also got into baking sweet treats this year, having always been a bread baker. Barney also made his new home in several places, including Italy!

... Playing music: I had a lot more time to play the violin this year, and I think I have made some progress. Since the lockdown was lifted in NSW in May, my quartet has been meeting regularly. Talking to music friends overseas, we are really privileged in Australia to still be able to play in music groups (with some restrictions). I feel like there has been a lot of development this year, I am much more aligned with my instrument and the music. 

... Psycho babbling: I've been interested in psychology since the car accident 2 years ago but I really got into it this year as a self development tool (rather than purely as a coping strategy). I did the Science of Well-Being course online run by Yale University, and it was super interesting. In the last few months I really got into Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and David Burns' approach to CBT - doing my CBT homework is really fun and has helped me to learn a lot about myself! 

... Maintaining human connections: I don't think there has ever been a time in my life where I have felt so overwhelmingly grateful for the social network I have. I have my family and an amazing inner circle of friends. Covid has kept me in touch with local and international friends, some of whom I reconnected with during Covid. The development of Zoom in 2020 has been incredible - video chat as a way to stay connected is a very real thing now. I think Covid has made me appreciate friendship much more than before - we take for granted the ability to see our friends any time! 

Finally, there have been some major changes in my personal life in terms of relationships lost and gained. I really thought I was too old to fall in love again, isn't that the realm of teenagers? But the universe has some other ideas! Love in the time of Covid also has its unique challenges. I feel like we are constantly walking through sliding doors in life, one opens and another one shuts. No one knows what is going to happen next. All we have is the present moment - there are all the bad things that are happening in the world, co-existing with all the good things that are happening in the world. Humans are far more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. Human connection knows no bounds, and this gives me hope going into 2021. 

NaNoWriMo 2020

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month -  gotta love Americans and their abbreviations! It started in 1999 with 21 participants, and this year there were over 7000 participants in Sydney. The idea is to write 50,000 words in the month of November, something that I would have thought was pretty crazy till October 31 this year. That day I was listening to a podcast while working in the garden, and I was immediately intrigued. By coincidence, my friend Grace mentioned it to me later the same evening. I had most of November free anyway, and my travel plans were cancelled. It was like a sign from the universe that I should do it.

Day 10, at the secret writing spot at my dad's

You are supposed to prepare for the month by constructing a "writing plan". So I scribbled out a basic sketch on the back of an old billing sheet, and then I promptly lost that piece of paper. A few days later, I tried to recreate the plan by drawing it on the back of an old envelope while I was at my friend's place, but I lost that too.  

Day 20, at Chambers cafe in Top Ryde 

Never mind the "plan", it seemed to write itself anyway. I knew I just had to start somewhere, and then it would be like flowing water gathering momentum. Each day, I would sit down with the laptop, and contemplate what was going to happen next. 

Day 25, at Bar beach 

The story is about a string quartet, because I am fascinated by the kind of interaction that a string quartet brings. On a superficial level, string quartets necessarily spend a lot of time together with each other playing music. The frequency and intensity of contact brings some kind of closeness more than the average social interaction. 

Day 13, with Cali at my dad's 

On a deeper level, there's something about the special nature of strings. Any chamber music groups involving the piano just do not have the same amount of intimacy, because the piano is like an intruder. The strings fight with the piano. But string quartets are a totally different species. Strings can truly become one in sound - it is not just four instruments, each with four strings. Rather, it is like a single sixteen-string being, and we all merge into one. This kind of intimacy naturally brings conflict into the group, conflict leads to resolution, followed by fresh conflict. 

Day 16, with Simba on Namiko's terrace in Darwin (that troppo roof!)

Who were the characters? Well, I started out basing them on real people, but they morphed into their own people. One of the characters (the cellist) was completely fictional, and I enjoyed shaping him very much. The others were based on musicians I knew in real life. I had decided the first violinist would be based on the real life S, but it was particularly tricky to grasp his "voice". I also could not decide the name he would take in the book, so he did not appear for the first 10,000 words! 

Day 18, flying back from Darwin to Sydney

Each chapter, I took a different person's voice and wrote from that perspective, with the storyline running throughout. I had started out wanting to plan something dramatic like a murder, but I could not decide who was going to murder who! I even had some nightmares about being murdered, but in the end none of the characters had the potential for murder. I found it hardest to write as "myself" in the book, which was strange to me as I thought writing as myself would be the easiest. 

Day 12, at the waterfront park in Putney, writing before my real life quartet

I had writer's block just once, at the 37,000 word mark. I had written the first violinist and the violist into a serious conflict, one that I could not resolve. I felt stuck in real life, because they were stuck in the novel. Whatever I wrote seemed to be an inaccurate representation of the reality within the book. Eventually it was the real life S who offered a resolution. It didn't really feel like the right direction for the story, but I wrote it in anyway and it seemed to work. I'm still undecided about whether I should re-write the ending...

Day 28, on the flight from Newcastle to Gold Coast

Overall I had a strong sense of being the medium for the story. It seemed to write itself, if I closed my eyes and let go.  Sometimes, I would start the day's writing with absolutely no idea of what was going to happen in the story. I realised that each of the people in the story had their own story to tell. All I had to do was be very quiet and very still. If I am open and receptive,  then it would just be there - I would see the story unfolding like I'm watching a movie, and all I had to do was write it down. I even felt shocked sometimes when I saw something emerge from a corner of my (own) imagination that I wasn't aware was there.

Day 26, in my backyard with my veggies

The goal was to write 50,000 words in the month of November, an average of 1,700 words per day. I wrote everyday except for a couple of days I skipped. One of them, we went out to Litchfield National Park and swam in Florence Falls, one of my favourite places in the universe. After we got home, I was too buggered to write. The other one, I'd been out all day at the beach on the Gold Coast and we made dumplings for dinner, so I was too tired by the end of the day. 

Day 30, last day in Gold Coast (reunited with Pengy!) 

I finished it on a beautiful day on the Gold Coast at Linda's place, and finally I was a "NaNoWriMo winner 2020"!

Yes... I tracked my word count, I'm an spreadsheet nerd

I felt this strange sense of accomplishment and I was proud of sticking it out through the month. I knew that whatever happens to the story, it was a kind of self affirmation that I can write 50,000 words. Ultimately I want to write a book about death, but for some years now I have been stuck on how to start that project. Now that I have exercised my "writing muscle", I feel confident that I will eventually make it there!

Day 22, writing at J's place with a cup of London Fog

The other little side project I started doing at the same time was a photo journal of where the writing took place. I thought of it one day when I went to the beach to write - it's quite hard to concentrate with the wind and waves, but it's also quite soothing to be in fresh air. 

Day 7, at Bar Beach with a banh mi from Mayfield Hot Bread 

I had inherited the Chromebook from my friend W who generously donated it to me instead of selling it on Facebook. 

Day 19, writing with W at Cooper Park 

The trusty Chromebook now lives with me in Newcastle, but for this project we went all over Australia - to Sydney, Darwin and Gold Coast, covering perhaps 10,000km in the month of November. There were a fair share of ups and downs in the writing process, and I couldn't have done this project without the encouragement and spiritual support of my friends.

In my kitchen: December 2020

I had organised to have four weeks off in November to travel overseas, but obviously that did not happen! Instead, I visited friends in Darwin and Gold Coast, and I did the NaNoWriMo challenge (National Novel Writing Month) - the aim is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. I felt an incredible sense of satisfaction when I finished on November 30, what fun that was!

What a year it has been. There have been incredible changes in my life this year, and Covid has put a lot of  things into perspective. I have never felt such a profound sense of gratitude for the people I am connected to and the joyful things I have. I'm also gobsmacked that I can still find out all these new things about myself like I love long complex recipes (23 step mooncake? yes please!), and that I love sketching! 

Here my zucchinis are flowering. Sadly all the baby zucchinis died while I was away last week on the Gold Coast, probably from dehydration during the heatwave. 

Proud to harvest my very first ever beans! I went up to Darwin for a week, and when I came back the tomato plant that had survived the winter was completely covered in green stink bugs. With much sadness I had to pull it out of the ground, and eat the remaining 100+ cherry tomatoes. 

I adore the tropical fruit in Darwin! We ate mangoes every day, as well as papaya and rambhutan. My favourite of all time is jackfruit, so intensely sweet with a tiny hint of tartness. I love peeling them too, to get rid of the seed and membranes and finally be rewarded by the fruit!  

On the baking front...

I made this vegan carrot cake for my dear friend B. The cream cheese icing was so interesting - cashews soaked in hot water for an hour, then blended with coconut cream, maple syrup and apple cider vinegar till smooth. It slathered on extremely well, and was the perfect combo with the caramelised walnuts.  

This pumpkin pie was made with some leftover roast pumpkin puree. The pumpkin itself I was storing "just in case" for Covid, but I figured it was getting a bit old. This is also something I never knew about myself... that I love making pie crust!

We made these mochi (sticky rice balls) on the Gold Coast. Our Chinese dumpling party made boiled dumplings (pork and wombok filling), fried dumplings (egg and chive filling) and these mochi. I didn't realise how labour intensive they would be! The glutinous rice flour is steamed then "beaten" but it got stuck to everything. We boiled the red beans with some orange peel and the flavour was incredible, perfect complement with strawberries.  

Onto the food and music series...

We had sourdough pizzas one day, cooked on the barbeque. I made the tomato sauce with fresh oregano from my garden, it really makes a difference. We ate these with the Archduke trio, my all time favourite piano trio now, and also the Mozart Divertimento in Eb for string trio. 

Here is another meal we had at the quartets for the other violinist's birthday. Beef stew, Yorkshire puddings, mash and salad. To celebrate her birthday we played Shostakovich's 8th string quartet, something that I never ever imagined I would play in my life time! It is so incredibly dark and complex. It was like climbing Mt Everest and being in awe at what the body can achieve. 

And finally, who can resist Pengy in a fruit bowl? 

I'm sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings, who hosts the In My Kitchen Series. Merry Christmas everyone and see you in 2021!