Using my passport again!

Passport for getting through borders… and for eating cake. Some reflections on mandates and life now.

=======

I’ve been tentatively starting a Facebook comment based conversation with my second cousin about the vaccine mandate in NZ. He’s housing a couple who have lost their job because: they won’t have the vaccine (my view) or the government is creating a divisive society that is forcing people into abject poverty (his view). 

He’s a good man, always been kind, is housing and feeding them as they can no longer afford rent (my view) or is allowing and fostering a cluster of dangerous political views (another relatives view, and also mine a bit). Or both. 

The UK has only just now announced that the vaccine will be compulsory for NHS workers (https://www.politico.eu/article/covid-vaccination-mandatory-nhs-england/amp/)… by next spring (March-ish 2022). It’s a very heavy handed soft handed measure, and consistent with all the other British public health policies that slam the door hard well after the horse has bolted.

=====

I remember years ago my sister saying to me that when you visit a place; you visit a time also. That’s why she keeps the lonely planets books from her time travelling. The fact they become out of date is part of the appeal- they capture advice for the place but also for the time.

To travel in these times isn’t just to encounter another culture, it’s to encounter that culture’s interaction with a pandemic. The response of collective and individual psyches and the different governments approaches to enforcement.

When I landed in Hannover, Germany, I was to wait at McDonalds to get picked up by a mate. I bought a cheeseburger to kill time and they wouldn’t hand it over to me until I presented proof of vaccination. My German is non-existent so there was a bit of hand flailing: I think they would have given it for take away, but they wouldn’t give it to me to sit in until they were happy I was safe.

The stickers on the floor imploring people to keep distance are adhered to. I guess that’s not surprising, very stereotypically German. These are the people that don’t vacuum on a Sunday for the sake of their neighbours. 

Back in Exeter, similar stickers and signs are scuffed over and ignored, a relic from pre freedom day, to be adhered to as per peoples sense of what they think is right for them. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.

I feel more comfortable with the German approach (Keeping in mind I know not all Germany is like this). The last few years have unlocked a nascent pedantry in me that I’m not sure I’m proud of. But it’s not this fondness for rules that’s drawn me in- it just this approach feels more honest.

A few weeks ago I went and saw Bond at the movies in Exeter. It was full, hardly anyone wore masks, more than one person had an active cough. It was fine for me- repeated tests after confirmed I didn’t catch covid from it all. Moments like that make it tempting to think this is all over. 

But then I go to work and see it’s not all over. I wish it were all over. But what is “over” anyway? 

=====

I spent much of this week hanging inside with old friends in Hildesheim, with their amazing kid who is on the cusp of walking. 

Another friend had come across from Dresden and we wandered through the streets with the fluorescent autumn leaves and the bleak grey sky. We ducked into a cafe and again had to flash documentation for permission to sit. That didn’t diminish how nice the cafe was.

The Christmas markets are being built but it remains unclear whether they will be allowed to go ahead. Regions each make their call whether to shift in or out of their own kind of traffic light system.

I  made the most of the amazing cakes routinely eaten at 4pm (Kafe und Kuchen), and steeping myself in tea and conversation. 

And the meditation of putting wooden balls at the top of a toy slalom. 

Of bashing wooden pegs through small holes. 

Of waking at 3 to the sound of parents soothing eachother, trying to sooth a teething child.

Listening to childrens songs in german (childrens choirs!) and English.

Slow cooking with hard to find meat (lamb).

Noticing commemorative plaques in the footpath; naming Jews who  died in the holocaust who had lived nearby. 

Learning new rules to board games.

Listening out for the cicadas on Lorde’s new record. 

Figuring out ways to be in touch better; when we all just want to throw our phones in the water too.

Bringing the washing in. Putting it on, putting it out…the slow constant daily pattern, like breath. 

Realising how we had been formed by algorithms the last few years.Swapping podcasts. Sharing books we have no time to read.

Spraying the the lemon tree with neem, and bringing it in off the deck before the frosts.

Chats about freedom fridays and the smell of petrol, migration and language, national identity, farts and love.

The tug of the side of your sweatshirt by searching small hands when you sit at the table and the little one wants your attention and a lift up to join in.

Avocado mash squeezing between the fingers of small fists.

Not exactly exciting touristy stuff but pretty exciting life stuff. 

My bag coming home is stuffed full of chocolate and marzipan.