Witnessing history
On the joy of pettiness in these times.
“She’s not a style icon, she’s just skinny!” I hissed at my screen. And then I scrolled down and moved on - mentally, emotionally, joyfully. Letting go brings me joy. I only care about life and death now, nothing else deserves the real estate.
I love the weekends. Working from home means Monday morning until Friday evening there’s a murmur to the brain. Even when you’re off, you’re on, because it turns out you can fix that problem right away by sitting down at the dining table and switching on the various Logitech devices a courier has brought you these past weeks. But the weekends are sacred. Getting annoyed and angry online and revelling in other people doing the same is like the electric fizz food makes as it hits a scalding slick pan. Friday night comes round and it’s like settling in for a Novena in Holycross. You’ve got no choice but to chime in and immerse yourself in the trance of pandemic social media. Maybe you’ll see a statue move.
It’s been DAYS since Adele posted a photo and people’s thoughts on that, but then we had Ms Monopoly and Alison Roman. So much to unpack. So many sides to choose. All with gendered and class dimensions! Dizzying. I genuinely can’t keep up. Before this, I was very much of the house a person can only have at most five strongly held opinions. I am delighted to have been proven wrong, even if temporarily. In theseuncertaintimes, we need to find certainty where we can. If that means interrogating the life choices of successful people, count me in. Here’s my CVV, can’t wait, love your work.
Every weekend we all seem to agree on one bad article or tweet. I wake up to breakfast on Saturday and feel like an ex-pat in a 1950s novel sitting on my Mediterranean verandah, some freshly squeezed orange juice to hand soaking in sun and drawing out furry bees. The foreign edition newspaper, crepe thin but box-fresh crisp, has plenty of room on my table and doesn’t pick up sticky jam wounds. I look for news from abroad. Who is fucking up now? Who is thinking aloud the usually unspeakable? When did editors become just readers? It doesn’t matter that I’m actually in an apartment in Dublin eating porridge which tastes like tacky maple-cured glue blitzed with dried fruit and nuts. That I’m on a laptop. Even when I daydream, I put myself in a fortress.
All this will eventually pass and all these internet dramas will stop pumping blood, but there’s something weirdly beautiful in participating in this community of ‘what the fuck’ and then getting distracted by the next shiny thing. People give out about outrage and cancel culture, but isn’t it nice we’ve all got the same cosmic itches right now?
P.S. If you are more financially secure than a lot of people and can afford to support the arts right now, maybe consider one or all three of the following: Rosemary Mac Cabe is writing a memoir and crowdfunding on Unbound. Tramp Press are Good People and have built a catalogue of great Irish books. Caroline O’Donoghue has her second novel out on ebook soon.