The Flyer: Notes From The Lockdown
'May you live in interesting times'
Before I go on, despite the following paragraph, this is a political and conspiracy-free zone. Among other things, COVID has caged my political animal - after thirty-something years of curiosity and judgement, I’ve temporarily lost my claws - and despite respecting freedom of speech I don’t care much for opinions about politics. Right now, they’re all just adding to the noise.
A mate’s wife was raised under Communist government in northern Europe and she’s currently seeing echoes of her childhood in people’s behaviour under this lockdown, which is in its sixth week and looks certain to last six more. The lack of social cohesion, the creeping suspicions, a distrust that spreads from federal government messaging to the behaviour of the neighbours across the road who are reacting ever so differently to the public orders than yourself.
I’m not interpreting it the same way as her, Australia has no totalitarian past, yet these lockdowns are casting an awfully heavy pall.
Isolation ain’t natural. We’re social animals, us humans, and while chatting on the internet helps, it’s no proxy for the proximity of flesh and blood. For conversations that happen organically, that have no time limits, aren’t held at a ‘safe’ distance, and more than anything, aren’t muffled by a fucking facemask.
For surfers in lockdown, and with three state capitals currently under restriction, that’s an awful lot of us, count yourself lucky if you live within 10kms of the coast. Yeah, the surf has been crowded, but at least that’s more people to talk to. Try and see it as a coping mechanism: cut strangers some slack, lay off the heavy vibes. Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about, said Plato, or maybe it was Buddha, coulda been Lopez...whatever, right now, the sentiment holds more than ever.
And if the surf drops off or the wind kicks in, then don’t rush home. Hang in the carpark a while. The Men’s Shed by the sand, or the Knitting Circle, though I don’t mean to genderfy, merely to acknowledge the salve of human connection and how you can find it there on the sun-bleached bitumen. An enjoyable place at any time, now providing an unofficial health service where you can get your daily dose of Vitamin D and shit-talk for free.
Just don’t talk about politics, yet.
- Stu
Comments
Sound advice. The potency and power of nature immersion also not to be sniffed at . Never have I appreciated a simple stroll through the bush, as much as I have when I’ve had the opportunity to do so over the last 18 months. Something about the observance of nature’s handiwork, billions of years in the making. Calms the nerves.
Second that. In addition to 'the observance of nature's handiwork' you're absorbing negative ions, abundant in the forest and the surf. After bushwalking or mountain biking in the bush, the stoke almost compares to that after surf feeling.
https://theconversation.com/why-a-walk-in-the-woods-really-does-help-you...
https://www.webmd.com/balance/features/negative-ions-create-positive-vibes
*Edit: A topless body in a white G-String may enhance your experience...whatever your persuasion. ; )
Same, the late afternoon/evening walks through the bush around Sydney Harbour have been special for me. Just a simple appreciation and does wonders mentally as you've said.
Masks on and socially distance in the Men's Shed, please.
Yeah, had our second AZ, and it's a relief that if we catch it, the odds are greatly increased that we won't be in ICU and won't die.
As Arnie would say 'don't be girlie men' get your jab for everyone around you, not just your own survival.
Nice Stu
Lovely sentiment.
Also, you forgot the links haha.
Wise words Sir.....
"Australia has no totalitarian past" - apart from just that past (and ongoing) 230+ years of colonisaiton and genocide of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations and peoples...
Yesterday morning, after my twice weekly visit to the ENT doc, who I'm on a first name basis with now, I drove to a lonely stretch of beach. Baking hot, blinding sunlight. Nobody on the beach as far as the eye could see, north or south. Surf was good, clean and overhead. Because I was alone I was a bit reticent to paddle out but dove in when a nice set came through. Water was warm but just with a tinge of coolness to instantly awaken my senses. Surf was fun, had a bit of push to it and was pretty fast- a few straighthanders but some nice corners and some speedy walls through to the inside. Stuck a couple sketchy drops too. Loving being out there, sun on my shoulders, completely alone.
Thing is, I'd started off my day pretty badly, got a bit of negative crap going on in my life atm and only exacerbated further by corona. Driving to the surf I was uncharacteristically livid, hating the world and what it seems to be reducing us to.
Thing is, for awhile, that one short little sesh yesterday restored my smile. Never underestimate the healing power of surfing.
Anyway, just thought I'd share and yep, nice words Stu.
PS. as I'm walking back up the sand, I saw a topless body with a straw hat and nice bum in a white g-string, sunbaking.
Turned out to be a dude. Still, didn't ruin my surf though.
Nice work Zen, it's amazing how many times I have been in a really bad mood or had some sort of negative event happened but as soon as I get into that ocean I feel like I have been cleaned again. Great to hear you got the same. Far out man I'm so over these restrictions they are laying down, there's so many unanswered questions about the direction the Govt is moving in. I am definitely not an anti-vaxxer I believe they have a purpose and I. Some cases are great for us and my children are vaccinated but it just doesn't feel right that a rushed vaccine should be forced upon me which is where I feel things are going to go maybe not by the government, maybe by my employer I don't think this is right. We should always have a choice
My physio (who surfs, and who also acts as a psychologist as quite often we just talk about mental stuff, and is a proponent of the benefits of meditation) mentioned to me how surfing is very similar to meditating. As you experienced Zen, when you go surfing it's like resetting your mind and removing all noise. Amazing that so many people strive to attain this through various other techniques, and all we have to do is go out and do something that we love to do. And also include some fitness as a bonus. Fucking amazing really when you think about it.
Amen.
Hey Zen, hope the crap things in your life part like the seas before Moses and allow you a clear run through. Thoughts with you big fella.
Haven’t seen much from you on here, but that may be because I have to limit my visits. Trying to avoid too much of the political generally, like Stu, and coming to swellnet for political discussion can be a bit like going to the bakers for a haircut.
Been keeping myself attached to the ocean, either spend half my day looking at it interspersed with actually diving in. Loving the body surfs but surfing is a bit out of the question with rarely less than 200 at the local. Doesn’t matter, I can always find a way.
hahahahahah, nice one Zen.
seen a few fall prey to that illusion.
Zen, classic.
I met Gough Whitlam when I was 12 and he thought I was a girl. I was a bit confused and insulted at the time but looking back now I don't blame him, I had long hair and was very pretty at that age.
Stay strong, Stu.
Your neighbour is onto it!
Thanks for posting this blowin interesting watch
The series is so well done. The illustrations draw you into the narrative. This episode is particularly relevant and interesting. Some great examples. It’s a fair step to burning witches but you can sense the instinct even in some posters on here. Witches are a danger to society!
Interesting. And I love the powerful art. Thanks blowin.
Not totally convinced though, in particular it seem to take the position that there's some "absolute truth" and that, not surprisingly, the authors have access to that truth while the rest of us are deluded. Keen to read some of the referenced books.
Some words from Joel Fitz
Surfing saves me.
Literally. Things get weird without it.
Amen to that, Blowin.
And thanks for that very good piece, Stu.
Nicely put Stu.
Oh you NSW'ers. Particularly you coastal dwelling folk. You call this a lockdown!?
The plight of the inner city Melb crew was strong!
Where's your ring of steel? The curfew? The police hassling you for not wearing a mask whilst stopping to take a break from jogging. The properly empty supermaket shelves (I remember pasta and rice being hard to come by for weeks on end!). Playgrounds were closed, schools shut and childcare reserved for the essential only.
We went through all that.....whilst being laughed at by the rest of Aus (being labelled 'Sicktoria' hurt!)......whilst the rest of Aus continued about their days unaffected....with no light at the end of the tunnel from pretty much July to Oct. Cold, long days (well short from daylight perspective) they were!
The stories, the tales, the conspiracies.....were endless. To some this was our new normal....we didn't even really know if/when the vaccine was coming. Communism...police state etc etc. We all resolved to the fact we were all probably going to get Covid and somehow be removed from the Commonwealth.
But, you know what happened? End of October rolled around and all of a sudden cases went to zero. Dan Andrews made a joke about drinking top shelf whiskey, outdoor dining/drinking became the new norm for the city and freedom was back. Stronger and better than before. Summer was great, like really great.
Point is - just like any storm the long days of lockdown will pass, and try not to let your mind run wild with ideas, because it will return to how it used to be (if not better). Sure we've been yo-yoing a bit this year and are working our way towards double digit lockdowns, but seeing how Melb recovered last November, to be honest it was pretty inspiring.
Also yes, don't whinge at all if you can surf during lockdown.
Hey Stok, it was pretty much the same here in the first lockdown, empty shelves, fights over toilet paper. Eventually people settled into it, as did you. My thoughts were always supportive of the Melbourne folk during the long second lockdown, there was no schadenfreude here, and I think that’s true of most of us.
My daughter has a coffee mug with one of those pithy sayings, but it’s a good one. ‘Life is not about avoiding the storms but about learning to dance in the rain’. Been dancing plenty here. I’ll wait this one out and come out the other side. What else is there to do?
Thanks Stu. Pretty much agree with all you have said. If I wasn't surfing I'd be dead.
Nice thread
+1 who is saved by surfing
Surfing is so wonderful because it allows us to connect with something larger than ourselves and it allows us to express ourselves. Remember separation is an illusion, it is impossible not to be Connected to Life, but it is not impossible to think that you can be. Sure, being with someone is great, but even then you will still be with yourself and with Life. So enjoy being with yourself and play, for I play with myself all the time.
Me too Dave.
Times 3. :-)
Nice thoughts Dave, as usual. My wife and I have walked, I think literally, every street from Coogee to Maroubra and about two kms inland, multiple times, in the past 7 weeks. We go through parks a lot, have found nooks and crannies we never knew existed, little pathways connecting cul-de-sacs we have never been down. Have looked at every garden, every plant, and enjoyed the colours, the textures. Walking through a local park yesterday we were followed by swallows darting around us. They followed our meandering trail the whole way. There is always a new way to look at the world.
Agree with most of the above. Obviously surfing is a great therapy when we can access it. I also find just reading other comments here helps in getting through difficult times.
Talking to people, who'd of thought it'd be a luxury item..? Was feeling super fucking brain wierd the other day -knee surgery plus lockdown = no outside communicado. Managed to pull it together for a walk to and dip in 'the bower'. While there, stayed for a while, talked to a bunch of folks, 90 yr old with a sick wife, 60 yr old with bells paulsy, bikini babe dressed in pink, latin snorkelers. Felt normal after, repreived, relieved of a burden I didn't know was even there. Thoughy, 'holy shit, socialising is so important'. Wasn't the salt water immersion, it was the people. Seems society as a whole is becoming socially awkward -hot female housemates just want a guy to come up and talk to them, ask them out on a date, but with the digital era in full swing, people are so afraid to take a risk. It'll come back around, but there might be some wierd-arse generations in the meantime. How long will the technocratic empire last? 200 years?? How is this progression?
In Mongolia, people are snowed-in for half, if not, three quarters of the year. Ain't a whole lot of "socialising". A country a Buddhists, what do they do? They get intellectual! (and drink a truck load of fermented yak milk..) Welcome to the "international Intellectual Museum", may all your puzzled and curious minds be puzzled and curious: http://www.iqmuseum.mn/en/
Yeah, people need people. Who knew. Imagine if we came out of this a kinder, more considerate and less screen obsessed society. We can dream. Best wishes apeman.
There is a great Divide at the moment and it’s tearing family and friends apart But it’s Not over political ideologies ,It’s a difference in ones “Hope”
One side hope for “Safety “, they hope for every man, women and child to get vaccinated ,wear masks and opt into vaccine passports to
make them feel safe in their community.
The other side hope for “Freedom “ they hope everyone will wake up and see this for what it is before it’s too late . They wish to be left alone to live their lives how it has always been , with freedom of choice and the choice to take their chances with a virus that has a survival rate of 99. 7% ..
The surfing life is beautiful and full of risks but one side believes they can control these risks but in doing so they take their own an others freedoms.
Nice words Stu.....there’s a song about people who need people.
Thoughtfully written Stu.
Zen, congratulations to staging a wonderful Olympic games. Yes I know the money and priority could have been elsewhere. But the Japanese people gave humanity a gift, oneness by being human, celebrating by participating. Itchiban.
You know Dave, you're absolutely right. I was pretty bummed at first that they decided to go ahead with it in the face of pretty uncharateristic public opposition. But, It's been a welcome diversion and I really think faced with many many hurdles (pun intended) the Japanese have put on a pretty good show.
Yep I agree, was a good distraction and to see the camaraderie!
The Olympics has been hugely positive for the world showing life and big complex events can go on with care and thought in a pandemic. Tough call to make to run it and the motivations to do so were in part tied up with money interests but it showed many locked into super risk adverse perspectives what is possible more than any words could.
Aside from the usual downtime lockdowns bring ,I'm blessed to have 20km {10km north and south of me} of quality coastline to 'exercise' in.
For as much as I thought I'd take pleasure in it ,I feel for anyone who can't surf at all because they live just outside a boundary , I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have the same disposition I have today if I couldn't stick my big toe in the briny at all because of lockdown regs.
I think surfing is one of the wonders of the world, and I'm fortunate that I don't have any mental health issues which make it even more special or necessary. I had 13 years of not surfing because of a bad back and understand what it's like to go without, but I did manage to get a semblance of a dose through bodysurfing and stand-up paddling (though I don't miss the shit I was served up on a SUP). I'm lucky to live close to the beach (it's a 5km rule in Victoria at the moment). I love a bit of "shit-talk" in the carpark, hate wearing a mask.
But I do have a wife who's a medico in a time of Covid-19, and it gives me a different perspective on the so-called sacrifices people are making. I know a lot of crew who have their own battles. But I'm also aware of the pressure on medicos and the knife edge that this whole situation sits on - ie the knife edge of the pandemic over-running hospitals and the knife-edge of medico burnout. There are only so many hospital and ICU beds, and they still need to deal with the everyday emergencies rather than be clogged with covid. We only have so many medicos. Once they're exposed to the rona and in isolation there's no miracle workforce waiting to fill the breech. We just have less people under more pressure trying to do more with less. By the way, they're also the same people who could be keeping you alive after a car accident, or an aneurism.
Until covid-19 we lived in the promised land, there's no doubt. And I know some people do it extra tough without social contact. But I can't help wondering whether there's not an element of selfish entitlement creeping into all this lockdown talk.
On that note, I agree that we should cut people some slack, but I'm not keen on someone from outside the area thinking their need to surf trumps the local community's need for safety. In Victoria we're into Lockdown 6. In NSW it's the Claytons Lockdown. It will pass, but only if everyone hooks in and does the right thing. The longer people flaunt it, the longer the lockdowns will go for. The 5km limit isn't designed to stop anyone surfing, it's to stop everyone travelling outside their local area and reduce transmission of a virus, regardless of whether you used to drive daily for a paddle. If you're lucky enough to be local, have a quick chat but don't hang in the carpark. Go home.
I think Joel Fitz's comment that the benefits from surfing are essential to be a good example of that entitlement. If surfing had been around for a few millennia he might have a point. Surfing isn't the only way those health benefits can be attained, and suggesting that surfing is essential and, by extension, should be undertaken at all costs during a pandemic, is simply dangerous. Don't get me started on the crowd impacts of everyone taking up surfing for it's intrinsic health benefits, either.
I think a bit of perspective with surfing vs pandemic could go a long way.
Appreciate all the replies in here...
After missing most of the south swell last week - seemed like every surf check was during a bad tide phase, either too high or too low - I scored some fun leftovers on Saturday while riding my new mid-length quad.
Not a mid-length twin, you understand. A quad. Get on the bandwagon before it speeds up, people.
After that, I had a christening / ribbon-cutting / sign-hanging of the new local trail. The evening before we had the beer-drinking aspect of it - the bush standing in the for the beachside carpark - but on Saturday I lugged a ladder up there and hung the new sign to make the naming official.
Epic.
Great name. Surprised you’ve still got some creative juice left after the WOTD Olympic pun conundrum. Felt for you there.
This one came surprisingly easy.
I mean, there's the band of course, then there's how fast you go through the trees on sections of the track, and then there's the crazy guy who lives in a grove nearby and hollers profanities at the top of his voice for hours on end.
One of societies forgotten people gets a plaque of honour.
There’s a few scrub dwellers starting to appear around here too. Depression era stylings.
Could you hear the screams of the tree as you nailed that in there Stu? Hope they aren’t copper nails. Have heard that’s a great way to kill a tree you no longer want around.
Well it's a privet so it deserves a copper nail, but instead it became a signpost.
Nice work Stu, good to keep busy.
There’s a cracker of a soundtrack for your trail….
https://m.
Certainly, interesting times Stu. Your opener about the Covid lockdowns is the best I’ve read about living through these difficult weeks, that I’ve read in quite a while. For this oldie, it’s getting out in the yak, on the river, and having a yarn after the paddle. Cheers
Well said! Coming from someone who hasn’t been in the water for 12 months but I still agree.
saw the Screaming trees at the Old Piggery in Byron when they came out there.
great band, great. night.
I’m pretty sure I posted an article, somewhere on swellnet, from The Guardian about the mental health benefits of being in the water. Apart from the immersion in salt water, there was the inevitable swathed in blue, and they think that is a large part of it. They also referred to the amniotic fluid we spent our first 9 months growing as being basically the same, and that the blood that courses through our arteries and veins being 98% same.
The other benefit, but judged to be lesser than the ocean, was walking through nature, the green. A mate who had been going through a terrible time was talking to his counsellor when the guy ‘It’s all about the blue and the green’. What’s that, my mate asks. ‘It’s about immersing yourself in the ocean and in nature’. Hard to argue against.
The local is totally overrun with surfers. Many locals are just calling it crazy, including me, but also many are just saying ‘I can understand it though’.
Will be very interesting to see if the 5 Km limit will see a reduction in numbers.
All I've seen Batfink re exercise is that you can do it in your LGA, so that means I can go to Palmy! Crazy if they want to keep people contained.
Watch them clarify that one tomorrow to 5km full stop.