Inspirational isolation

Social isolation, to try and stop the spreading of the Coronavirus, is not an exclusive experience reserved for us at Towerwater. In fact, it is a lifestyle requirement for almost all people the world over. Isolating ourselves from most social interaction, is the only sure way that we can be safe from a viral infection for which, as yet, there is no known cure or vaccine.

Although we can isolate ourselves from a possible viral infection, we cannot isolate ourselves from the visual and audio deluge on media platforms about the Coronavirus. Unfortunately, being in government communications, my work currently is only about the Coronavirus. It feels strangely removed to sit in a nearly 200-year-old house, located in a small town in the Western Cape. Updating the website with daily statistics relating to infections, deaths and recoveries from the deadly virus in this Province.

Office hours seem not to exist. Working from home, easily becomes a 24 hour per day activity. All the information can be overwhelming. The pressure to produce reliable and accurate content, ensures one checks and doublechecks every number for every region. Silently one cheers for the region that reports zero or the least new infections.

To maintain a balanced life, one needs to intermittently switch off from all the news. The daily visit from a Cape White Eye against a windowpane, offers brief distraction. It is a poignant reminder that the world carries on, regardless of our fears and anxieties.

Luckily, Towerwater offers abundant distraction. Keith is on a mission to use this time to fix everything that needs attention. Those things normally regarded as a lessor priority when there is always another that needs more urgent attention. From where I sit in my new ‘office’, I can hear him plastering, limewashing, sanding, hammering, mowing, garden-vacuuming and watering. Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of him walking past the window with a ladder or other tool on his way to fixing something.

I start the day just after six in the morning. Everything is completely dark and cold outside at this time of year. The Bulbul in the orchard does not announce his presence until much later. To get my first exercise of the day, I normally rake the oak leaves scattered on the lawn. No sooner have I completed the task, then they immediately, almost magically, reappear on the freshly raked lawn.

The garden is still producing a variety of fruit and vegetables. The winter vegetables will be producing their first crop pickings in a weeks’ time.  We minimize the need for going out to shop for food. The garden provides for meals that are only limited by my imagination. The garden is a haven for creativity and a drawcard for one’s attention. The result is that one hardly experiences a sense of isolation, apart from not seeing one’s friends and family.

I am inspired to prepare meals and try new recipes with the produce from the garden. While Keith broadens his bread-baking repertoire with different styles of bread to complement the dishes that come out of the kitchen. For instance, he would bake Pita bread to go with the hummus and baba ghanoush made with the fresh brinjals from the garden.

Growing one’s own fruit and vegetables is a full-time work. Walking into the vegetable garden to span new climbing twine for the green peas or to pick a basket of fruit and vegetables, creates distance from the looming fear and desperation posed by an unseen threat.

We cherish the fact that we have a Towerwater where we can be isolated. Now we have time to enjoy our books, music and garden. Whenever I hear a new bird call in the garden, I can take my camera and try and capture the feathered visitor.

Connecting with the house and garden on a very involved level, as in lime-washing newly repaired plaster or planting a bed of cabbages, inspires us to use this time of isolation to enjoy it intensely. Until we once again become fleeting weekend visitors.