Coronavirus: Bunkering down and Stayin’ Alive

Locked down at home in this confusing and confronting time of coronavirus, families are finding new ways to make do.

Esmerelda Farquharson-Selby practises ballet and mum Heidi does pilates as dad Jim works on his guitar playing and brother Hamish enjoys screen time. Picture: Dave Gleeson / Surfshots

Locked down at home in this confusing and confronting time of coronavirus, families are finding new ways to make do.

They’re dancing in the driveway, laughing through adversity.

If there is a silver lining to the pandemic, it is how the suburbs have come to life.

Busy parents have stopped ­juggling work with the school run and are getting to know the kids all over again.

Neighbours stand at the fence to chat — maintaining social distance, of course.

Turning inward as a nation to those we love and live with is no bad thing. The world is a scary place right now. As The Weekend Australian writer at large Trent Dalton relates, continuing his Tales from the Bunker series in the magazine, something very profound and beautiful is happening to the family unit.

Stayin’ Alive? You’d better believe it. The brothers Gibb formerly of Redcliffe, Brisbane, couldn’t have guessed that their 1977 hit would become the soundtrack to surviving COVID-19.

“Folks staying safe and passing time by dressing up for steak and three veg as the Corleone family; as partygoers in The Great Gatsby; as members of The Avengers,” said best-selling Dalton, capturing the enlivened vibe in the ’burbs.

“Teenagers creating and distributing homemade newspapers: The Corona Times; The Rona Weekly. Families taking in backpackers who didn’t have the funds or the permission to get back home. Grown adults talking about anxiety and bouts of depression while dancing in neighbourhood cul-de-sacs to the Bee Gees.

“Kids and adults alike creating chalk footpath murals that stretch for a hundred yards. Mums and toddlers and more dads now than ever turning backyards into Amazon jungles and Himalayan mountain tops and endless oceans. And we’re doing all this because we realise now that all the alternatives — fear, uncertainty, dread — are good for nothing.”

Take the Farquharson-Selby family of Sunrise Beach, north of Brisbane. The cancellation of 13-year-old Esmerelda’s ballet class has not stopped her donning a tutu to strut her stuff at home. She has also taken up knitting.

Her brother, Hamish, 17, ­divides his spare time between playing his Xbox and surfing. For the sake of COVID-clarity, he said catching a wave counted as exercise, not fun.

Mum Heidi has stepped up her course work towards a teaching degree while perfecting pilates online, while dad Jim is in the kitchen cooking up a storm. Cilla, the black dog, remains happy to be taken for a walk.

“We haven’t strangled each other yet,” said Ms Farquharson-Selby, chuckling.

“No one has had cabin fever too badly. I think maybe because we at least get out to go to the beach and have a swim, which is your lifeline, really.”

Their neighbours, the Greveling family, should have been trekking in Nepal instead of being stuck at home.

But, hey, there would be worse places to spend a “lockdown holiday” than Queensland’s aptly named Sunshine Coast.

Dad Norbert was churning through annual leave, while mum Brenda had been stood down from her job as a travel agent. Their teenage daughter, Senna, couldn’t go to school if she wanted to: it was closed.

Listing the upsides, Mr Greveling said it was nice to be able to get a park in the usually impossibly crowded Hastings Street in nearby Noosa.

Ice cream from Gelatissimo’s was half-price, and he was shamelessly binge-watching streamed shows on TV.

As for the drawbacks: “The moment you see the to-do list my wife created for me over the years and realising there are no excuses left.”

Between arguing about who should walk Who, the Dalmatian, the Olver family of Sunshine Beach try to stay occupied with Netflix and board games.

“Our life is very much about being outdoors … so we really feel like caged animals,” said Sophie Olver, mother of Scarlett, 14, and Arwen, 8.

Photographer Dave Gleeson, who shot these images, is cataloguing the ups and downs of “lockdown life” in Australia as a counterpoint to the drab depictions of what people in Britain and Europe are enduring.

The Weekend Australian invites readers to share their stories for Trent Dalton’s evocative magazine series. The email for submissions to him is [e-mail]