An Essay Without an Answer
It’s a public holiday. I slept badly and woke early to another hot and humid day, the stifled stillness of the tropics and thrumming of insects a familiar start to the day. I don’t need to go outside to know exactly what the day feels like. It looks damp and vibrant green outside the window and I know that when I go for a walk in an hour my skin will be slick with sweat, no matter the pace. I’m sitting on the sofa while the rest of the house sleeps, going through my usual morning phone routine - WhatsApp first for a quick check on new messages - just one notification, a message from my husband the night before saying he was on his way home (I was already asleep). Next stop Instagram for a cursory glance. Instagram has lost all appeal recently. New posts look the same as previous posts - the algorithm serving me up exactly what it believes I want to see, so much so that there is no longer a spark or interest left, it is all predictable - beautiful but predictable. I watch the first Story in my feed - a friend who is on holiday in the UK posting snippets from her day. The sun is shining, the sky is blue and she is somewhere else in the world - a place that is so familiar and yet so impossibly far away these days. Instagram Stories moves on, or I swipe it onwards, a gesture I do without even thinking. I do a vacant scroll for a bit before realising that I’m not particularly interested in any of this content, it’s just moving across my screen without me really connecting with any of it. So I move on to my website searches.
The icons for the websites I will visit are already there on my Safari home page. My phone knows my habits. I could start with any of the news sites but this morning first cab off the rank is The Straits Times…what has happened with Covid numbers? Have any more KTV patrons or fishmongers edged the numbers up? Yes, they have. Will that mean more restrictions? It doesn’t say.* In fact it doesn’t really say anything. The familiarity of the article - places of exposure, a bewildering breakdown of numbers that never seem to add up (although in fairness I am terrible at maths), a quote from a minister saying something that has been said many times before. OK, so nothing on Straits Times of interest (I am totally ignoring the top article about an alarmingly tragic event that has happened at a local school recently - I find it too distressing to know about - I don’t even want to read the headlines. It feels intrusive and gossipy to be reading about a tragedy involving children when behind the headlines are families experiencing the worst, most devastating, of circumstances).
On to the ABC - the Australian news site. Is my home state of Victoria still in lock down? Yes. A small cluster of new cases - in any other part of the world this would not be news, but in Australia where they are pursuing a zero Covid strategy while they drag their heels on vaccinations, even a small handful of cases is reason to lockdown an entire state and will, as a consequence, make the news. I tell people that I am from Victoria. It’s not, strictly speaking true, but it is where I lived the longest when in Australia and it is where my parents and brother’s family live now. It’s where my kids think of as ‘home’ when they picture Australia. It is one of my homes too.
I don’t know if I will ever live in Australia again and I don’t know if I belong there anymore. The conundrum of where I belong has been bothering me recently. It weighs a little on my mind. I am coming to realise that perhaps no one country will ever be home and on some level it makes me feel wistful. On the flip side I realise that part of me likes living away in a foreign country. I want to return to Australia and a ‘normal’ life - buy a home, send the kids to a school where everyone stays put, be employed by someone else - but somehow I can never make this picture completely fit. Something holds me back. I was born in Australia to British parents. In my early twenties I moved to the UK and lived there for 8 years and I am married to a Brit. All of my closest friends in Singapore are British. I don’t feel British but I don’t feel entirely Australian either.
Which leads to my next news site - The Guardian. There seems to be a big expose on the site - something to do with listening devices and governments and spying - and I can’t really be bothered to delve into this. I’m looking for a quick hit. Nothing complicated. Scroll, scroll. Boris Johnson should be in isolation, he is in isolation, but he tried to pretend he didn’t need to go in isolation. Bored.
Last stop, CNN. Because…America. Sometimes I feel like news isn’t moving on fast enough for me. CNN’s headlines are the same as yesterday - the wildfires, the German floods and how The Netherlands managed to be spared from the loss of life that this awful event brought about. The dreadful deluge of rain and subsequent floods and landslides in Germany underscores just how flimsy the infrastructure that we build around ourselves is - how quickly it can be swept away. Homes that provide us with comfort, that we spend time thinking about and decorating, that we make memories in, that we think of as solid, and permanent and immovable…and then nature has a way of reminding us that it can all go in an instant. This thought makes me feel wobbly. And frightened about climate change. Part of me hopes that there is an upside to all of these horrific weather related events happening in quick succession this year - perhaps it means that Governments around the world will start genuinely tackling climate change. I mention this to my husband, who has far more knowledge in this area and understands economics and Governments in a way that I don’t, and he is measured. Whilst he would also like to see the good that might come from these weather related calamities in the form of action, he always gives thought to the other side as well - those that will lose out if climate change targets are progressed. We agree wholeheartedly on the issue of climate change, but he likes to discuss all sides of an argument and give thought and consideration to those that will lose out - workers who rely on industry that might be affected. He is a well considered man and I like this about him. If I had mentioned this climate change hope to a friend, she would have lent into the conversation with the same “I know I know” narrative that friends do so well. Listening and agreeing and adding to the point (and sometimes totally failing to present the alternative point of view). There is something so lovely in a session of unbridled agreement between two people - particularly between two close friends. But I also appreciate that sometimes a discussion that involves a full review of the facts from all angles can result in a better understanding overall of the issue at hand - particularly one as complex as climate change.
On to my emails. I quickly go through the three different accounts - the personal one (chock full of newsletters mostly from businesses that I will never engage with, delete, delete, delete, some admin that I don’t open because I’m not going to be dealing with it today) and then to work - not much here to consider. That’s ok. I have been very quiet on the work front recently so there isn’t much pressing for me to do on emails. Along with everything else, I seem to have totally lost my way with work over the past six months. I am sick of my inertia. I feel completely stuck on what I should be doing, or at least, what I should do next. I recognise that having choice is a privilege so I am frustrated that I am not taking action, moving things forward, pushing things along. This summer period has seen me literally grind to a halt. Friends and acquaintances have taken the risk of leaving Singapore to see family and friends in home countries. Those that have remained are feeling a bit left behind and a bit lacklustre. There is a gnawing doubt in us… “should we have taken the risk as well? Life is to be lived. Fortune favours the brave”. It is unsettling. But throwing caution to the wind whilst a romantic and appealing idea, is not really possible for our family. We really don’t have a viable alternative if we were to be stuck overseas and not able to return to Singapore. We don’t have an alternative home that could function for us - Singapore is our home and so it is where we need to stay until we can get some certainty that if we leave, they will let us back in.
Mostly I am pleased for everyone that has escaped for the summer - or have left entirely, bidding farewell to Singapore in order to be back with family in a home country (this is the first year in my 12 years in Asia where the number of people I know who have left is staggering). The bravery and joy that comes from making a decision. Sometimes just making a decision is liberation enough - to hell with the consequences. But here I am. In Singapore. In my warm humid living room. My husband awakes. We talk about the fact that neither of us slept well. We wait for our kids to wake and then head out on our own to walk the dog, sweat streaking our skin with every step. We buy pastries on the way home and while I wait I get bitten by mosquitoes. I worry about catching dengue again. We arrive home and eat breakfast together “would you like a coffee?” Another day unfolds.
Scroll. Scroll.
*apparently we have an update. A new set of restrictions. A dialling back to fewer people, fewer outings. More patience. Less joy. Sigh.