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Temporary breaks in our routines force us to look at things from a different angle
As I write, snow is falling. I am reminded of the closing passage in Joyce’s The Dead. ‘Snow falling obliquely against the lamplight.’ I imagine the local cemetery, not more than a stone’s throw away, with snow lying ‘thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns’. I cannot compete with Joyce, and in any case, it was not my intention to write about the weather. As you read this, there will likely be no snow and those whose lives have been temporarily disrupted by unpassable roads, power cuts, water shortages, and lack of Wi-Fi, will have returned to the usual routines. We will have forgotten the stillness of the countryside as hedges and trees lay paralysed beneath heavy white mounds. We will have quickened our steps, driven our cars and once again, charged our phones.
I want to write about how these disruptions affect us. About how they are becoming more frequent and impactful as the smooth complex rhythms of everyday life become more reliant on enabling technologies. And how when these technologies fail, we can feel an initial sense of paralysis. But the freeze also seems to have affected my ability to put thoughts into words and my eyes are continually drawn to the scene beyond the window. A blackbird hops and pecks, hops and pecks on the snow-covered lawn. Over the past few days I could swear that he has doubled in size. Already he (or she) has visited the birdfeeder 185 times. I only know this because I got a birdfeeder for Christmas equipped with a camera that records each visitor. My interest in birds has soared. Robins, chaffinches, wrens, linnets, jays, rooks, ravens, have all come to eat at the recently installed table. The blackbird flits onto the feeder and stares into the camera. I’d swear he knows he’s being watched.
But I digress. Back to disruptions. Storms, hurricanes, pandemics, cyberattacks, wildfires, power cuts, and floods are some of the events that have happened in the past few years. Events that will continue to occur. As the world gets more developed, we have come to rely on technology to maintain even the most quotidian of daily practices. In our surgery, without electricity, we had no phones, no internet, no light or heat. Fortunately, due to earlier learning, we were able to switch to a generator and remain accessible to patients. At times like this, the benefit of living close to work and having local knowledge becomes apparent. With the help of a local farmer the car park has been cleared making it safe for those who are mobile and not afraid to drive, to come and go.
Disruptions highlight the fragile nature of our everyday lives. One missing link, such as lack of power, causes a cascade of interrupted routines. However, breakdowns also illuminate the flexibility of habits that we might have taken as stable and stubborn. During the Covid-19 pandemic, general practitioners, with the help of other agencies such as the HSE, found new ways to continue to provide essential services. But the very processes and procedures that we devise to deal with one crisis can render us more vulnerable to greater disruption at other times. Without electricity we cannot email scripts, do online referrals or access a medical history. In a lot of ways, life becomes simpler.
William James wrote: ‘Looking at a landscape with our head upside down, makes the colours grow richer and more varied, and the contrasts between light and shade more marked.’ Breaks in our usual routines force us to look at things from a different angle, if they are not catastrophic. Reminding myself that there is a world of difference between a temporary ‘cold snap’ in Ireland and the wildfires of LA, the invasion of Ukraine, or the current situation in Gaza, helps maintain perspective and shifts my focus from what isn’t working to all the reasons to be grateful.
On reflection, disruptions are not freak accidents. They are regular, frequent occurrences. Despite the negative consequences of such events, they allow an opportunity for individuals and communities to find creative solutions and increase social connection. This in turn builds flexibility and resilience and helps us prepare for the next inevitable occurrence, which I hope will not be too soon.
Back to the scene in the garden. The evening light is fading. The blackbird has disappeared. The snow remains. I turn my head sideways (not upside down) in the spirit of William James and listen, as Joyce’s Gabriel did in his hotel room long ago, and imagine I hear ‘the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.’
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