Winter started off so well. ‘We got through COVID-19!’ we thought and started plunging back into life again. We celebrated Eli’s birthday with an escape to Phillip Island and made plans with friends and family we hadn’t seen for so long. ‘Thank goodness that’s over’, was the naive consensus, and we prepared ourselves to get back to the ‘new normal’.

Only it wasn’t to be. 

Before long we began hearing about hot spot suburbs and security guard shenanigans. We shook our heads and rolled our eyes but it didn’t seem as if they would actually make us have to go back into lockdown again. After all, the kids just got back to school again. ‘At home’ learning was a thing of the past, wasn’t it?

Apparently not.

Then began the lockdown like no other. Curfews, 5km radius restrictions, limits on grocery trips. We got used to the sight of supermarket shelves with great swathes of space and lamented how a package we ordered from just outside the 5km limit took weeks to arrive because for some reason it had to be sent to another state for processing first. We frantically ordered our masks, feeling vaguely like we’d wandered into a dystopian YA novel, then worked out hacks so that we could still breathe and not have painful cauliflower ears.  I went from searching places where we could spend a night away for my birthday to resigning myself to a celebration at home.

Now the ‘new normal’ is a world in which the slightest sniffle sends us to a testing centre, where people in hazmat suits turn up to our workplaces to escort us home if we’ve been declared a close contact. It’s a world in which our children show up to classes in their pyjamas and know how to mute and unmute themselves. We haven’t seen extended family for months, except through a screen, and we experience a jolt of wistfulness (and disbelief) when we scroll through Instagram and Facebook to see others on holidays or at the beach.

This winter I learned a lot. It definitely wasn’t the winter I had pictured, but along with the unexpected elements, there were a lot of silver linings. 

1. Writing a Book is Highly Rewarding (Eventually)

For those who don’t know, I’ve been writing a mystery/adventure book for children aged 8-14 for the past two years (Swordmaster: The Mastery Chronicles). I can’t even estimate how many rewrites I’ve done now, but I think it would be safe to say that there have been more than 10 (and it currently stands at 63,000 words). It has gone through so many iterations, yet every single step along the way has taught me so much about the process and art of writing, about what makes a good story, and how much patience one needs to develop if you are serious about becoming an author. 

While writing is a solo activity (usually completed during the dark hours of the morning before the kids wake up), one of the most rewarding things has been the collaborative side of it. I was terrified to share my work with anyone at first, but I took it slow, firstly letting one of my #6amAusWriters friends from Twitter give me some feedback. It was just the thing I needed and gave me fresh vision to attack the manuscript again. Then my incredible cousin arranged for her younger relatives (aged 9, 11 and 13) to read it. While I nervously waited for their response I convinced myself that the book was terrible and it would need a complete overhaul yet again. 

But then something happened. The older two actually loved it. They had some very helpful suggestions and I tweaked the book again and handed it to Eli to see what he thought. He stayed up until midnight that night and then we didn’t see him for the rest of the next morning until he had read to the last page. Then another author friend read it and described it ‘like Harry Potter mixed with The Hunger Games and a bit of Divergent thrown in, but all for younger readers’.

(Insert happy dance here).

That feeling – when all your hard work comes together and others really get what you are trying to do – is one of the best ever. I haven’t even started trying to find a publisher or agent yet, but I feel a sense of accomplishment anyway. I get to participate in the art of creating stories. The gradual chipping away at a stone block of meaning, trying to access the wonder and enduring truths that have fascinated humans for generations.

2. There Are a Lot of Things I’ll Miss About Lockdown

As frustrating as it is sometimes, being cooped up in a house with crazy kids and not being able to leave, I am trying to really appreciate the slow pace that goes hand in hand with lockdown. 

Not having to go anywhere or the kids properly dressed, waking up Eli ten minutes before his first Zoom of the day, having lunch together, making our own schedules that fit our needs, doing lots of baking and cooking, working around the kitchen table together – this won’t last forever. 

Don’t get me wrong. I won’t miss the complete lack of silence that typifies our days, the constant requests for siblings to respect each other and play nicely. I won’t miss the reality that I only really leave the house once every three weeks (to do the grocery shopping), or the chaos that spills out unpredictably and exhaustingly. 

But some things are worth celebrating, and I don’t want to get all nostalgic later and realise I completely missed enjoying them at the time. (If only our internet would reliably work and not drop out at very inconvenient moments, but that is a different matter.)

3. Indian Food is Highly Satisfying to Make

I’ve been following a cuisine-based meal plan for years now – deciding before I sit down to plot out the next fortnight/three-weekly cycle what country’s food we will be enjoying. We’ve done Serbian (based on Baba’s recipes and a constant favourite in our house), Italian, French, Greek, Spanish, Argentinian, Portuguese, Moroccan, Japanese, Turkish, Mexican, American, English, Irish and many more, but one of my all time favourites is Indian. 

I use The Curry Guy’s approach as my structure because he shows how you can bulk cook all these different components of the meals and then put them together at the last minute to get a delicious and authentic curry. This week I’ve made a huge pot of the base sauce (packed with veggies but the kids have no idea!), pre-cooked the beef and the chicken (which gave me over ten meals worth of meat as well as some delicious spice stock I’ll use as well) and I have grand plans for a home-made mango chutney. We’re all set for a yummy (and healthy) couple of weeks of food now. 

If you ever want to make life more simple, I highly recommend following his approach. I leave out all the chilli as I’m making the curry, but add it in for Dave and I later. So good. 

4. Patience Appears in Many Forms

Patience is high up there on my ideal list of attributes, but so often I feel like I’m failing at it. It doesn’t take long for me to snap at the kids when I’m grumpy or to start yelling if I’ve had to repeat an instruction more than twice. Every day I write down as an affirmation ‘I am a patient, flexible and joyful mum’, but I wonder if I’m even close to getting there. 

Then I read this quote on James Clear’s newsletter this week: ‘The most overlooked and underappreciated growth strategy is patience (more specifically, consistently producing great work over a long time horizon).’ 

I realised – this is totally my MO. It comes naturally to me to put together a routine and execute it day after day, taking tiny steps forward towards my goals, but I’m realising more and more not to take this ability for granted. It got me through school and uni very well, and has helped me break down the every day tasks of motherhood and managing a household, allowed me to work as a writer part-time and get as far as I have on Swordmaster. 

Clearly I can still work on patience with the kids, but it encouraged me to see that if I can do it in one area of life, perhaps it can be transferred over somehow. 

5. The Weather Has an Uncanny Effect on My Moods

I guess in lockdown where there aren’t many variables, the weather suddenly became a key one. I’ve found myself writing down in my gratitude list each night an appreciation for the beautiful sunny days that have been gifted to us this season. The days where we couldn’t go outside or felt cooped in by storms or rain put extra pressure on us all, but those stunning moments in the sunshine are really getting me through at the moment. 

…

What a season, hey? It hasn’t escaped me how lucky we have been to both still have our jobs and be able to work from home. I can’t imagine how difficult this time has been for other families. Here’s hoping that whatever the ‘new normal’ looks like, it is one in which everyone can find a way of thriving despite the difficulties COVID-19 has introduced into our reality.

What has been getting you through? Podcasts? Reading? Netflix? Cooking? Let me know!