Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

You can read too much news. I confess I’m a news addict but I don’t watch it on the square screen thank god. If you have a progressive outlook on the world and what we can become as humans then the world right now is depressing, sometimes overwhelming. It seems there is a fight over ideas, about what the basic rights of humans are and you get the picture. Throw Covid 19 in and that’s some foul smelling liquid right there.

We lost Ruth Bader Ginsburg this week and as happens when someone famous dies and you get to read a bit about their life. RBG’s life was amazing. There was someone who had the brains, the will and seized every opportunity. I am awed at what she achieved, starting out in a male dominated world.

Along a similar theme, I’m ready The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal and I’m being blown away by how many contemporary notes it is hitting. It reminds me of Hidden Figures a lot, except Hidden Figures was set in the real world. The Calculating Stars is an alternate past in the same era. It picks up a lot of the themes from Hidden Figures, although the protagonist is white Jewish but she mingles in the world of black America in the rocket flying world and women ‘computers’. It goes deep into the established misogyny of the period, as well as the tech, the social mores and fashion and also discusses anxiety and how it is viewed by others. It also discusses climate on this planet. I haven’t finished it yet. I’m listening to it on Audible and the author reads the story herself and I find it enchanting. No wonder it won awards!

Both of these…the passing of RBG and The Calculating Stars remind me of the remaining misogyny alive today and the fight for women to be considered human, to be equal to have a say about our bodies and our reproductive rights is still ongoing. We can’t be complacent and let laws change and go back to the way they were.

There are positives arising from being socially isolated. Not many I agree, but one that gave me pause was the stop with the travel, the spending, the doing. I don’t have a high income but all of a sudden I had some money. First I spent it to help keep companies going. Books, toys etc. But it also made me realise how focused on consuming we are. That’s the basis of our economy. Spend, spend, buy, buy, produce, produce. The pandemic gave that a big shock. I knew this before, of course, but I couldn’t think of an alternative way as it seemed to me that we were so caught up in this capitalist/consumerist merry go around that we couldn’t get off. And now we were shoved off. I think we should hesitate before getting back on. In some ways we won’t have a choice. If like me you travel overseas on discounted fares…well I’m not sure there will be cheap trips for many years. I even wonder if I’ll be able to travel again. My son is flying out with his daughter back to overseas employment. His flights were $5000 each for economy seats. That’s a flight that might have been say $1200 return previously. I’ll try to be optimistic but I’m also being a realist.

Another aspect of being forced to stay home was the focus on the home and on family. Not only was there iso baking but iso gardening. But beware of watching too many Do It Yourself Videos. To some extent a focus on what was important. In Canberra, and in this house, we had a death, a passing of a loved one, bushfire smoke that made me think the apocalypse was here and we were forced to stay inside, then a ravaging hailstorm that wreaked havoc, actual fire threat and then Covid-19. This has happened elsewhere too. Parts of the USA are experiencing the fires, on top of the Covid-19. It is a trial.

It is hard to focus on the future, on dreams. For me though I’m focussing as much as I can on things I can control. My weight, my health, my family and so on. I had a bit of glitch last week as my GP didn’t want to refer me to the specialist about my knees but she did refer me for an xray. Today she referred me to the specialist as my xray showed issues that weren’t there before. I am happy with that but for a few days I thought she had taken control away from me and I reacted to that. I pay for private health cover these days so I have control over when things happen. So I’ll move forward on that at my own pace.

Creative wise I’ve stalled (again). I’m reading and stuff but I was disrupted last week (mostly due to the knee issues) and I haven’t put my feet on the ground yet. I’ve been socialising too, almost to pre pandemic levels. It’s weird. I’m going to visit a friend this afternoon for a cuppa and then in the morning I have pool exercise with another friend. Next week I am visiting Bourke with my son and a couple of my grandkids before he leaves.

What a year it has been. Nearly the end of September. Wow.