How Lucky We Are

Three weeks ago, my sister, brother-in-law, and niece came to stay. We had a lovely time, walking around the harbour on the one day we had beautiful weather followed by authentic Italian pizza, introducing my niece to the concept of  yum cha for lunch (it was a hit!), and a day later, going out for Vietnamese for dinner in the city. And on two of the coldest, bitterest days we have had this winter, there were several successful shopping trips. By night, we were cosy at home, with the heating cranked up, nice wine, and home-cooked Thai curry and (the next night) lamb tagine (to round out our international eating tour), and good conversation.

And of course, when we needed some quiet time, we would all delve into our devices, in which we read about COVID-19 cases skyrocketing around the world, and even closer to home (in Melbourne, Australia, where another niece lives). I read about the despair of my international friends in the UK and US at their fellow citizens or governments, or the cautious reopenings in Malaysia and Thailand. And in Japan, my AFS sister was finally released from her Tokyo apartment to visit her in-laws in the country, relishing her day out in the garden. Perhaps because my social media is full of these offshore friends and family, my life has felt particularly surreal, simply because of its easy conviviality, its normalcy.

We walked into stores displaying COVID-tracing bar codes, and – along with 99% of Kiwis – didn’t scan them. We ate in crowded restaurants. We weren’t bothered by the crowds, or by the occasional sniffle or cough from someone else. So far (and I always say “so far” because I am well aware that nothing is certain), we are free of community transmission. And as we hugged hello and five days later hugged good-bye, I knew how lucky we were and are, to visit friends and family, to be able to travel freely within our islands.

I do however feel a degree of survivor’s guilt, whenever I think of my friend isolating in DC on her own, and my sister-in-law and another friend going through cancer treatments on opposite sides of the world, and a niece about to give birth in a pandemic in Australia. Rest assured, I am not taking our freedoms for granted. I know it could all go away again soon.

But we’ve now been out of lockdown longer than we were in it. We’ve had approximately 80 days since our last community transmission case. It feels completely surreal, that today we are so free, and yet the pandemic rages offshore. John Clarke, aka Fred Dagg, told us in the 1970s, “We don’t know how lucky we are!” He was right. With a cultural inferiority complex, mMost of the time, in New Zealand, we don’t know that. But today? Yes, the difference today is that right now we know just how lucky we are.