Author: Ali April 17, 2020

This was first posted on Culture Vulture, a happy band of bloggers and reviewers and ordinary Leeds folk, as Billy Fisher's mum might have said (Billy Liar).

My mate dreamt that she married Boris Johnson, presented a daytime TV programme and was later crushed by a turtle. To be honest, I have a feeling that Johnson is not good husband material, but don’t tell Carrie. My most recent dream, meanwhile, was unpleasantly scatological, which may have been influenced by Phil Kirby’s recent post.

I live – as Candide’s Professor Pangloss had it – in the best of all possible worlds. I have an income, a garden, my son’s company and enough wine for a fortnight. Lockdown has not, as yet, proved any physical hardship, unless you count the instant coffee I had to drink this morning.

But general anxiety, weird dreams and waking up unexpectedly in the night seem to be common to us all. After centuries of reliance on fight or flight, our DNA is poorly adapted to watching Netflix or reading a book as a means of responding to fear.

And in general, people seek out human company for comfort and solace rather than deliberately crossing the road to avoid it.

My first dose of this anxiety was curiously tooth-related. A long, long time ago on the 15th March – a full eight days before lockdown – my toothache had reached the point where action was necessary. A cursory google revealed an emergency dentist just ten minutes’ walk away with an immediate appointment.

An hour or so later I left the dentist with a temporarily tidied up and medicated root canal on a back tooth.

And a week later, after a follow up hour of gawping like the wide-mouthed frog, the treatment was complete.

The next evening the shutters came down on my workplace. Me, my laptop and headset (and a couple of work-based house plants that would otherwise have suffered a long slow dehydration) set up shop in my front room.

Work carried on as ‘normal’ with meetings held instead over Skype, meaning that many hours were spent chained to my laptop, my only distraction counting the number of times the tall, blonde bloke from up the road had his once-daily exercise that day. My teeth meanwhile were also fine, which was just as well as my appointment was moreorless the last thing the dentist did before packing up his drills and X-ray machine for a few weeks.

This new normal didn’t last though. One morning I felt the familiar ache in my recalcitrant molar. The internet was reasonably helpful, explaining that it could just be post-treatment discomfort, but happily informed me that if it persisted, I should seek out an emergency dentist. Hmm. Apparently, the only option just now is A and E, not a great prospect. On the off chance it was just gum trouble or a minor infection, I swilled Listerine, gargled salt water, flossed for England and just got more anxious and more uncomfortable.

Some time around then though, I read this article Why You should Ignore All That from Aisha Ahmad, an academic from Toronto for whom this is not her first experience of lockdown. Have a read, it’s really useful, but the gist of it is – like The Hitchhikers Guide – ‘don’t panic’. People take time to adapt to this and feeling overwhelmed is actually normal. The people who aren’t normal are those trying to learn a new language, build a spacecraft or write a book. They are in denial because this isn’t about just staying at home, it’s about the whole uncertainty about what happens next.

Having said that, I did actually go up the loft to find my long-abandoned guitar yesterday. In my defence, I have no expectation of being much better when they do let us out, but it is quite relaxing strumming the odd chord of an evening. I think those £50-an-hour life coaches call this ‘mindfulness’.

Anyway, back at my tooth, it crossed my mind that the tenderness was at least in part because I was thinking about it ALL THE TIME and jabbing the poor thing with my accusatory tongue. I also began to wonder whether this had begun – not immediately after treatment – but when I began waking up with a start at 3am. Grinding my teeth from stress? It’s possible.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, I’ve started giving myself a break. Work calls getting me down? Walk round the house and make a brew. Things to do this evening but not in the mood? Watch a film, talk to the cat, play my guitar badly. Wake up in the night heart racing? Don’t try to look for a cause, there isn’t one, other than being in the longest, weirdest, stay-home time I’ve had in the whole of my considerably mature years. And yes, my tooth feels a bit better too.

But no, I’m not yet ready to do bloody Joe Wicks’ workout, or online yoga. Maybe that day will come. No rush though.

"Recursive Frog" by defndaines is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0