Social distancing on Bond St, Auckland. Photo / Alex Burton
Social distancing on Bond St, Auckland. Photo / Alex Burton
Opinion by Simon Wilson
Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues. He joined the Herald in 2018.
The crickets don't know, hiding in the dirt. Nor the hawk, claws down, settling to its carrion on the empty road. The plovers flying overhead have been screeching like the world is going to end, but they don't know either. They always do that.
On Sunday afternoon where I amhalf the world above was bright blue, the other a billowing, booming mass of cloud, roiling white against the gun-metal sky beyond. A storm come to teach us something.
The fantails do seem to know, pīwakawaka, two of them that day, furious against the windows, demanding to be let in, to tell us, what? If you believe the old stories, you'll know that can't end well.
And then the storm slid away. Like a great malign thing, come to take a good look and then deciding, no, not yet. Save the deluge for later.
The vegetables are planted. Broad beans are hard: their roots meshed tightly together, leafy stalks so delicate it feels like they'll break if you blow on them. They're not going to like being stormed on. Cabbages, sprouts, surely more sturdy. The beetroot will be safe underground.
Will this be over before they're ready to eat? How will that happen?
The news of our first death came hard. So much harder for friends and family, I don't mean to say different. But hard for all of us too, I think.
There are so many stories of people coping, finding ways to laugh, to share, to find pleasure in adversity, but it's awful for so many more. You want death to excuse the rules, to let the comforts of touch play their part to help with grief. What do you do when you can't do that? I can't imagine it.
We've been quick to embrace the need for kindness, even in places where it's not the norm. You know, social media. The outrage feels less outraged than before. The abuse is milder. I've seen old foes joking together. Heaven knows what will happen to the world if that keeps up.
Still no real shortage of homegrown experts with the advice, though. Name any one thing the Government has done and it's not hard to fine someone who knows how they should have done it better.
I think of it like this. Here we all are, struggling to understand how far we can stray if we go for a walk and why we can't bake a casserole for our neighbour? And there they are, doing all of that scaled up a gazillion times. Of course, yes, they have made some mistakes. So have I, so have all of us.
And of course, yes, we shouldn't just assume they're telling us everything, or are free of pressure from powerful interests. That's what Government is, crisis or no, and it's why their decisions need close scrutiny.
Teddies in their bubble in Whanganui. Photo / Bevan Conley
In my own homegrown expert opinion, I'm still shocked they've given supermarkets a giant commercial advantage over all other competing retailers, without also regulating to control profits, lift pay rates and ensure safe working conditions for their staff.
But still, I don't think it makes them incompetent. I like that health has been prioritised and economic and social necessities are being fitted to that. And I blanch at the scope of what's coming: what to do when health services really are challenged; how to steer the economy to safe ground; how to ensure we rebuild a good world out of all this.
Our homes are our arks for the deluge is to come. Will we discover better ways to live? We can start talking about that.
