Torture of lockdown with no end in sight

‘My mental state can be remedied by the things I cannot have: meaningful connection with my community, and the vibrancy of the city I love.’

Writer Sarah Ayoub with children Alissar, 6, Jack, 3, and Anthea 9 months at their home in Sydney's west. Picture: John Feder

Last night, I was in an emotional hole. After almost three weeks of being in lockdown with three children, my mental health was starting to take a dive, and even as I’m writing this, I know that all the words in the world cannot possibly capture the potential ramifications of an extended lockdown – two more weeks, maybe longer – on my sense of wellbeing as a working mother going into another round of homeschooling.

I understand the reasons for this lockdown. I know it’s for the best, and I’m aware that my experiences of this pandemic could be a lot worse. But the weight of last year’s lockdown is still heavy on my heart.

I homeschooled across multiple websites and apps. I potty-trained my (then) two-year-old. I suffered nausea accompanying the first trimester of a new pregnancy. I ran university lectures from home while polishing the final chapters of the PhD thesis that was fast approaching its due date. Not finding anything to eat on supermarket shelves – bar one bag of camping-friendly instant milk powder and a dented can of four bean mix – was icing on the cake.

This year, even with the benefit of experience behind me, lockdown feels worse. Although I’m in a considerably better place – the nausea has given way to a very cute but noisy baby, I’ve passed my PhD (though this lockdown will likely push back my graduation date), and the supermarket shelves are far from bare – being locked down has been harder to stomach. Like we had our chance and we blew it, which we kind of did.

I’m not sure if it’s been the ambiguous rules (stay home, they told us, while stores like Louis Vuitton and Ikea stayed open), the bungled vaccine rollout, or the fact that half my suburb seemed to be hanging out at the local park every day, while I sat at home, simultaneously content that I was obeying the rules but feeling guilty for depriving my children of playground equipment that was significantly more exciting than our backyard trampoline.

Knowing that what is in store for us doesn’t have an expiry date is even more troubling, and I can’t help but reflect on the irony that my current mental state can really only be remedied by the things I cannot have: meaningful connection with my family, and the opportunity to draw comfort from the vibrancy of the city I love, even in a socially-distanced way.

I doubt I would be feeling this low if I weren’t raising my kids in western Sydney. That I chose to live close to my extended family and broader networks is considerably ironic now that I am physically separated from them, and recent stay-in-your-area orders are harder to bear when you consider that western Sydney is cut off from the tranquil pockets of the coastal suburbs that would make staying within one’s area a little less suffocating.

Here, thrills are minimal (if they exist at all), and the enforced containment of Sydney’s more marginalised communities in suburbs where there are no pretty beaches or rivers feels especially crueller by the visible presence of extra police roaming the streets in cars, making even the journey to get a comforting ice cream (or in my case a bubble tea) seem like a dangerous mission.

In these areas – where the intersections of race and class create boundaries that are more than just physical – a heightened police presence feels Othering in an entirely different way. Videos circulating on social media show a significant number of police cars in local suburbs, a stark contrast to the images of people enjoying Bondi and surrounds when news of this cluster first emerged.

Just this morning I received a text from a friend who felt “humiliated” when she was surrounded by officers wanting to know if her purchases were essential as she emerged from her local Woolworths. “I know they’re just doing their job,” she wrote. “But it was my (autistic) son’s first optometry appointment, and it was so hard telling him we couldn’t go to Big W to get balloons because of that.”

While I understand the increased transmission risk among household contacts, I can’t help but wonder why families who are isolating from the rest of the world – our groceries are being delivered, our school is shut and my son hasn’t been attending daycare – can’t seek comfort with one another.

Having less in the way of outdoor spaces means we are cut off from the very networks that recharge us as we juggle the needs of our home and our children with our paid work, leaving very little room for relief.

The fact that I found out I passed my PhD without being able to embrace the very people who made it possible has been a real anti-climax. My parents gave up everything they knew to migrate here, and deprived themselves of so much so that my siblings and I could access the kind of education they never had. Mum lit multiple candles in front of Jesus and Mary in anticipation of the day when those sacrifices would at last be worth it.

Add to that my inability to comfort my sister who is supposed to do the big Lebanese wedding (300 people, loud drums etc) in two months and hopefully you’ll understand my mood. Lebanese people don’t do things by halves, and one person’s nuptials is the entire village’s party, and we rely on those occasions to keep the memories of heritage and culture alive.

Instead, I get a (much-appreciated) daily doorstop delivery of Lebanese dishes (sambousik pastries, spiced chicken and rice, and containers of a lentil stew we call mujadara, to name a few) from my kind-hearted and constantly worried mother, whose face, hidden by a mask, disappears back into the car before I have the chance to glimpse it.

One consolation, especially on nights when I feel especially low, has been reading Lauren Elkin’s 2016 memoir Flâneuse. I always thought my own flâneusing – walking cities while taking in sights and people – was embedded in my vocation as a writer. Elkin says it’s also decidedly female. She writes: “It makes a kind of authoritarian sense; a woman who does not wonder – what it all adds up to, what her needs are, if they are being met – won’t wander off from the family. The layout of the suburbs reinforce her boundaries.”

Walking cities around the world has always thrilled me, and Sydney is no exception. Right now, I would love nothing more than a socially-distanced stroll through Hyde Park, pastry from Flour and Stone in hand. Flâneusing makes me a better wife, mother, writer and all-round human being. But it also makes me a better me.

It’s been incredibly hard feeling cut off from that experience but diving into Elkin’s book has been a decent second. And, because there’s nothing to do but shop, I might buy myself a candle from Glasshouse Fragrances’ new Montmartre collection, which is inspired by Paris, the city that inspired flâneusing. While it can’t physically change my circumstances, it might at least be some light in the darkness of this emotional hole.

Sarah Ayoub is a writer based in southwest Sydney.