Living Through Lockdown

The planet breathes, capturing the gasp,
the hiccup before the day creeps into being.

free
flight breath
no flight, no criss-cross lines, no
contrails, clouds change, alter, sky is
not your sky
no tobacco stains
feeling of flight breath lungs
soar glide
arms outstretched
warmth in orange

We have this sky to ourselves
We are here while you sleep and dream
We are walking to work
We still work
We have to work
We are keeping you alive

Never seen it like that before. Not once in the last twenty, thirty years.
That glow on the horizon. A pre-sun. Maybe I never had time to look?

Image credit: Photograph by Kev Howard

I don’t know how to do this. Should I have gone in yet? I can’t see through the door. Will they come out and then I go in? I bet they’re wondering why I haven’t gone in yet. Why I haven’t moved. If I hold the door open, then they can come out and I can see in and check. No, that’s too near. I’ll just wait. It’s taking forever, what are they doing in there? There’s nobody in, is there? There is. Calm down. Breathe. You saw them go in. Will they think I’m rude when I don’t hold the door? I always hold the door. Maybe I’ll tell them that. I’ll say, ‘I’m the kind of person who always holds a door open!’ That sounds rubbish. It’s fine. They’ll understand. Will they? Does this count as my walk? Or is this shopping? Is that the same thing? Can I do another one? Who do I ask? Is that someone coming?

Looking good, mate. Looking good. Becky was right to tell me to get this hat. Wonder how she is? Should give her a ring. Wonder who lives in there? Nan will never believe it took this long. She’ll tell me off for dawdling. I’m twenty-five not five, I keep telling her that, but she’ll still tut. Says Wellbeing on that window up there. They’re having a laugh, like.

UK could face Italy-style lockdown, warns Boris Johnson
NHS hospitals likened to war zones as doctors prepare to make grim decisions
Funeral directors told to make masks out of ‘towels and bin liners’
Need to stop scrolling the news. Not doing me any good. Can’t stop though. Can any of this be real?

Betty laughed and said at least I can use my poles to prod people if they get too near. Usually get to this point on my circuit in twenty minutes. Only taken me fourteen today. I don’t feel like I’m walking faster than usual. At least they’re queuing on the same side, so I’ll just squeeze in here. Been doing this walk for the last 6 months, twice a day as instructed by the physio. Funny to see so many people doing it too now. Always could have had a walk before, just now you can only do one, everyone’s at it. Maybe I’d be safer on the road? That’s why it’s such a good time! No traffic. Didn’t have to wait to cross the roads.

Image credit: Photograph by Kev Howard

I count the ships on the horizon. Each day, the count takes less time. Until
zero.
They say there is a reduction in ship traffic.

They say a generation of humpback whales
have never known a quiet ocean,
they find themselves in one now – what is it not to know quiet?

They say you can better hear the stress building in volcanoes–
can you hear that better in people? In whales?
In the whales that have never known silence?

They’ve always tried to put seismographs in quiet places,
but it’s hard to get away from our noise, our
human hum.

I take the opportunity to listen.
Birds chitter chatter as tide soaks tiny feet.
Feathers from horse’s legs skim over pounding sand,
a heartbeat,

mine?

Image credit: Photograph by Kev Howard

One walk. Choose wisely. Choose the road you always wanted to live on and imagine your life behind those doors. Choose woods, hill, height, stars or sun, beach, sea, trudge streets, same streets, same loop, seen it all.

Clap. Clap for carers, for keyworkers. Thursday neighbourhood solidarity. Clap for NHS. Sing. Clang pots and pans and set off fireworks even though the sky is light. Hide indoors, it’s not that you don’t care, it’s not that you’re not grateful, it’s not that you don’t think they’re doing an extraordinary job, it’s just that the reality and the unreality collide and your head collapses and you quietly say thank you.

We paint rainbows. We put teddy bears in windows. Superheroes kitted out from online shops dance along our streets. Mum leaves a pack of loo roll on my doorstep. I get the paper for the neighbour. Number Three makes raspberry vodka and we drink it with carrot cake from Number Five. I know their names now. Meeting outdoors is not too hard when you can be kissed by the sun.

Working from home. Remembering to get dressed before a call. Sharing social media horror stories of naked partners wandering behind the screen. Arguing who gets the table, who will be stuck on the end of the bed. Snacks. Back to back zoom calls. Where is the edge of home and where is the edge of work?

Shield. Stop everything. Stop people and vanish. Do not vanish. Claim time and space and say I still exist, I am now a label, I am now vulnerable, I am still me. Sit in a queue for 12 hours for an online shopping slot.

Sit down to watch the briefing. Nod at the tele, shout at the tele, talk about what was said on the tele, predict what will be said on the tele. Soaps stop. Repeats and reruns, and how will they do kissing now?

Home-school. Juggle it all. How much do they eat? Homework, lessons online, I can’t help you with your maths if you do it like that. We didn’t used to do it like that. What does any of this mean?

The to do list states the obvious – shower, eat, sleep. Need a reminder of the basics, and they’re the only things to put on the list.

We bake. We become a nation of bakers. Without flour. We learn the word kuchisabishii – when you’re not hungry, but you eat because your mouth is lonely. Sourdough. Cake. Carrot cake, chocolate cake, lemon drizzle, muffins.

We develop a new language. Covid-19, corona, masks, vulnerability and shielding. WFH, lockdown, staycation, self-isolation, key-workers, covidiot and the ‘rona. Zoom bombing, zoom fatigue, furlough. Stay at home, protect our NHS, save lives. 2 metres apart. Wash your hands. A lexicon of our new world.

Hope, joy, novelty,
rainbows, solidarity,
Thursday clap, pans, neighbourhood, togetherness,
in it together, won’t be long, over soon.
The edge of fear. Just at the edge.
It’ll be over soon. And we won’t forget, will we?

We won’t forget how we cared.

Image credit: Photograph by Kev Howard

A haiku is 17 syllables long, broken into three lines of 5 syllables, then 7 syllables, then 5. It is a Japanese poem which often captures a moment in nature. These use that idea as a starting point, but are most definitely not true to the form. These were all written during lockdown, something small and creative I tried to do every day, when I was too anxious to do anything more. Our tiny back yard became a place of sanctuary, something for which we were so grateful, to have our own outdoor space.

Seven, sun wakes me. Plan the day ahead, from bed, must get up and start.
Twin boys play next door, I trespass upon their world, walls as light as dust.

I would like to sleep. Have it envelop me in absolute silence.
You can lie down, wail, waste a day and regret it, or begin again.

Cuppa on the bench. It wasn’t windy until you came out, he says.
We plan the garden, sifting compost into pots, grateful for our yard.

Multicoloured pots adorn the crumbling wall, fill them with more colour.
Potting marigolds, she tells us about her past, can’t help her inside.

Cloud watching with pup, I am a human dog bed, sun turns into rain.
Gave up on outside, too cold for garden sitting, time for dinner soon.

Proper rain came down, won’t grow a freckle today, plants are happy.
Mummy blackbird flits, smashes snail shell on the ground, frees the meal within.

Walked then made a meal, dressing gown back on & flop, Sunday rest day starts.
Card games in the yard, every time I have two, wind blows cards away.

Nature reserve walk, nature overtaking now, narrowing our paths.
Walking home, rain comes, hot path scent rises, we laugh and chase a rainbow.

Step’s too cold for tea, sun has lost its warmth today, black cloud horizon.
Can go to the pub, but I still can’t hug my mum, change terrifies me.

See Barbara on walk, delighted by a trip to Lidl, six bottles of wine.
My 40th year. How will you spend it, Lisette? In a pandemic.

Image credit: Photograph by Kev Howard

Career down the steps spilling popcorn,
two boys take handfuls and throw at each other,
an older couple tuts, shakes their heads,
the boys mock them once safely past.

Pigeons land to retrieve their popcorn,
a woman screams when they come too near.
Anxious glances at watches, in the queue outside
Pizza Hut, will they make the film on time?

Steady stream of cars, pull up,
eject passengers, gather back in, leave.
Blinking at daylight, day time film
different sky light bright to when you went in.

Doors open from the bowling alley, a burst of pop music escapes.
Groups together, joshing, moving, close together, close together,

Close Together

holding doors open for each other,
closely passing by.

Road river roar of traffic, loud in its missing.
These are ghosts, see-through invisible
‘If you’re good, we’ll go to Teesside Park’
no rewards, no summer holiday, no weekend treat.

Stripes of empty carpark spaces, quiet is loud,
oppressive lingering, an empty
movie set, an old American lot, a
‘This Is How We Once Were’ amusement park.

The pigeons sit on the hoarding advertising the films
they didn’t show, waiting for their popcorn.

Image credit: Photograph by Kev Howard

Worked there thirty year, never really saw it, never really looked, head down in, head down out. I’ve taken to coming back, pack up – butty and a flask, just sitting, sitting in the pinks and yellows.

Rosebay Willowherb, commonly known as Fireweed and traditionally known as Saint Anthony’s Laurel. So many names for a lovely wild plant.

I’ve lost hugs, all human contact, touch, people where they belong, not in a screen. The travel, the driving, my arm burnt to a crisp on a wound down window, the finding, planning, parking, staying away. The coming back home. The pints and the crack and the chat and the ‘How are you, pet? Same as usual?’

I’ve found the Snapdragon growing against the wall when I opened my gate out into the back alley. Out of its natural habitat in the cracks and the grit. Just like me. Dragon flowers. Antirrhinum. The one that started it all.

I’ve found a book, stacked on my shelf. Don’t know why I had it, filled with wildflowers, a bus ticket to Shildon page marker, and an amassing fine for a library that no longer exists. Purple Milk-vetch, Hop-trefoil, Northern Marsh orchid, Sweet-Williams.

I delight at small things, new things, how have I never noticed them before? A woodpecker in the park. The black head gulls fishing, not just dive bombing for chips, and that beginning moment of magic in the back alley, crouch down, squish the sides of the yellow dragon head together so its mouth yawns, a hello, what are you doing there? The colour bright sun against brick.

Then I found the other plants in places they shouldn’t be. The sea grasses far from shore, all the dandelion wishes gathered together, the wildflowers on the roundabouts. Small becomes important as the world shrinks, as your footprint narrows.

Then I found me. In this place. The place I shouldn’t be, said I’d never see again, once they closed those gates. Just sitting, sitting in the pinks and yellows.

Image credit: Photograph by Kev Howard

They say I shouldn’t go out. I make a list. I make up a list some days. Some days I go out without one but I don’t like how aimless feels. Today I need some veg, and a watch battery. There’s a couple of other things, but I’ll spread them throughout the week.

I hadn’t been coping that well for a while, and when we looked at the home together she gave my hand a squeeze and flashed that smile. That smile that made me say ‘Will you…?’ and her say ‘…yes!’ before I’d even finished my sentence.

I sing through the window to her. I’m not sure if she can hear. The song we walked down the aisle to, cut the cake to, had our first dance to.

Last Monday, I pressed my hand to the glass. She stands. Walks towards me. That smile! Presses her hand against mine, and I swear I can feel it, warm palm against palm. Then she’s gone. The smile leaves. She sits back down and she’s, well, lost. The nurse, she runs to the window and I think she’s going to tell me off, another rule I can’t understand, but she pulls the pen out of her top pocket and draws around our handprint held in condensation.

Catches it just before it disappears forever, before she’s gone forever.

Image credit: Photograph by Kev Howard

Big fuss about nowt, this. Furlough was mint, proper holiday, time with the kids. Pubs are reopening, playing footie, to be fair, not much missing. I’d keep it like this.

My calendar says what I should have been doing in orange, and in purple what I’m now doing instead. Orange is ending my first national tour of theatres as an actress in a play, heading home for one night, and then off to Northumberland for a week’s break. It becomes: haven’t been on tour, no work, stay at home. There is not much in purple. Wear a mask on a bus with a Covid poster and some hand sanitizer towards a job I think I’m grateful for at the new Amazon plant. Hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer. My hands are raw. My housemate is shielding. What will I bring home? I’m scared.

I’ve stopped counting how many days since I last held my grandkids. It’s not good for my head thinking like that. And I’m lucky, we do those zooms, it’s just not the same as the smell of milky warm hair and a tug of my hand as I get dragged to the cupboard to find a snack. My daughter says buses aren’t safe, she’ll get my shopping for me. We argued, and it’s not right over the phone with no hug to make up, so I said yes. But I still sneak out. Something about the streets whizzing past that makes it all okay for a while.

What would my mum and dad have made of this? My mum? How would I have explained it? We’ve only got a certain time left on the clock. I didn’t imagine my last days ticking down like this.

Image credit: Photograph by Kev Howard

Do you remember that phase, where buying a star was ‘the thing’? For a birthday, or an anniversary, to remember a loved one. Twenty-five quid and a printed out certificate you could have made yourself arrives through the post. I knew it wasn’t real, that I could never claim it. That someone else would own it too. I still did it.

I know three constellations, or are they stars? Parts thereof, let’s settle on that. The Seven Sisters, follow the line from Orion’s Belt. The North Star. The Plough. I found my certificate, I tried an app, laid back on a cloudless night, warmth held in the air, couldn’t find the one I’d bought.

But the sky gave me other gifts. Said, here have these, look up not down, out not in. Breathe.

Noctilucent clouds, Perseid meteor shower, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. Shooting stars.

Comet Neowise, discovered in March, stayed with me throughout lockdown, won’t come again for another seven thousand years. What will it see when it next comes back?

Make a star map. Plot them in real time. What else can you plot in real time?

Not the trajectory of this pandemic, of how to feel.

The weather held over us all. How small are we under this sky?

Thousands of years, eye blink, star die, look over us,
be there, tomorrow,
where will we be?

all that the stars have seen and heard
witnessed
our witnesses
our twilight guides
we stand under them light reflected in sea
ghosts, who we were and who we can be.

Image credit: Photograph by Kev Howard

Kev Howard Artist Statement
I create atmospheres and environments using my camera as my medium.

Decades spent studying the rugged north east landscape has given me a sculptural approach to tackling light, land, sea and human interaction.

Whether dealing with the human body or limbs in the studio, political protests, Arizona desserts or north east surf community. Every sinew, or scar; each contour or depth to landscape, face or body is mapped by my lens and composed like a musical rhythm.

Tracking my medium and helping others to find theirs. Educationally aware, emotionally charged and socially motivated. Essence of a mood, emotion, moment or memory fleeting and transience captured.

http://www.kevhowardcreativephotography.com/

Lisette Auton does stuff with words: disabled writer, activist, poet, spoken-word artist, actor, theatre-maker and creative practitioner. She is an award-winning poet who is widely published and is known for her energised performances in the spoken word scene. Lisette is a Penguin WriteNow mentee and has completed her first novel. She was the 2019 Early Careers Fellow for Literature at Cove Park supported by the Fenton Arts Trust, and is on the TSS Publishing list of Best British & Irish Flash Fiction. She has recently been awarded a major new commission for the New Narratives of the North East project by New Writing North.

Lisette works with many creative collaborators to create unique and innovative cross artform works. She is currently Assistant Producer for Disconsortia’s At The Table programme.

Lisette has performed at Northern Stage, ARC, The Southbank Centre and the Sage, in pubs, in a crypt, at festivals, indoors, outdoors, on a bridge and in a launderette. She uses her platform as a performer, writer and theatre-maker to make the invisible visible.

www.lisetteauton.co.uk

We hope you’ve enjoyed this exhibition. Why not visit the rest of our site?

Living through Lockdown was commissioned by Kirkleatham Museum – understanding our past, exploring our present, forging our future.

We are grateful for the support from the Arts Council England