Like a lot of you (I imagine), I received notification from ATG yesterday about my remaining tickets for Uncle Vanya.
That is good news for me – but probably will still provide a lot of disappointment for others who were travelling from farther away and will not be able to rearrange their travel plans as easily. I’m curious to see when they will put on the play and whether there will be a) enough time for travel planning, and b) a long enough interim period for safety. I would still very much like to make the journey, and I am also hoping that some of us who had to cancel their plans, may now get a second chance at watching the play. We’ll find out at the end of the month, hopefully.
Long before the crisis happened, I had decided to document my interactions with the play in a custom diary. That was in early January. I started out on the day of the play’s first preview. And then things took a different turn than expected. Since I have shown you the Vanya junk journal I made for Linda60, now you’ll get a little look at what one of those journals looks like when it is full. Alas – disclaimer: I was going to make a snazzy little video of the whole thing, but my iPhone ran out of storage space (as usual) and my tripod/filming set-up for my proper camera is unfortunately still unresolved. I got as far as this:
Well, that was a nice and natural cut there 😂. So the rest is in pictures.
It’s much to my surprise that I have found myself keeping (almost) daily records of the current crisis. The last time I kept a proper diary was in my college days. Once I had children, things really went downhill on that front 😂. Ok, and I’ll blame it on the internet as well. And even despite my obvious passion for junk journals, I hadn’t felt inspired to write a diary for a long time. Maybe it takes extraordinary times to get back into the flow? I just felt that it could be an interesting record for my family in years to come; possibly after I have gone, to see what we did and felt and how we made it through the crisis. In any case, journal no. 1 is full, and journal no. 2 is ready and waiting.
I’ve named it the Covid Chronicles. Much less deco in there, as I expect to write a bit more. It passes time and is somewhat soothing, especially when you write with a smooth fountain pen on those pages… Sometimes I feel my eyes almost go cross-eyed with relaxation 😂
So, what about you? I know it is a touchy subject, so ignore this if it is something you can’t bear to consider, but are you planning on (re)arranging your travel plans if at all possible?
And for those who don’t want to delve into that can of worms, here is a different question: Do you keep a diary? Are you keeping a journal *at this time*, for posterity?
In any case, I hope you are all well and you are staying put this Easter. Today, Good Friday, I notice a lot more traffic outside than in the days prior. It’s not a massive amount of traffic. But there was only 1 car every five minutes yesterday, now there is one every two minutes, and that definitely is a noticeable increase. I am slightly annoyed with that because people have been warned not to travel for non-essentials, and traffic checks by the gardai are in place. As hard as it may be, I just hope people stay at home, even at Easter time!
Stay safe, everybody!
Guylty Pleasure 
I find it hard to understand how ATG can say this because unless they have a crystal ball, no one knows how long it will take for the situation to stabilise. Sadly the UK could take longer to reach a point where restrictions could be relaxed and I can’t imagine large gatherings will be happening straight away. I won’t be in a hurry to reorganised my plans just yet.
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September according to me! Before, just possible with masks on actors face, nobody would hear them, except the gun shots…
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Yep, I am thinking September, too…
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Yes in the UK we are hearing all kinds of speculation from end of May to the end of the end of the year to never! One comment said nothing would get back to normal until a vaccine was available and that could be 18 months away
Bloody depressing.
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That is definitely depressing. I have been wondering, too, whether it will be much longer than we ever imagined. I am just setting my hopes on all the scientists in the world who are currently working on a vaccine.
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Same here, Deirdre. I am very cautious about the outlook for the future. So much so that I am going to ask my friend, who was going to visit from mid-May, not to come, even if travel is allowed then.
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I’m not ready to be hurt like that again any time soon, so I’m taking a “wait and see” approach to the whole thing. I don’t want my hopes dashed another time. 😐
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It’s good to hear they have plans to re-schedule the play. I hope it works out but for now I think it is safe to say that as yet it is still completely unclear when and if this will truly happen. Fingers crossed, though.
As for diaries – kept one in my teens till my early twenties but it all bled dry a long time ago. I do find myself blogging almost daily now, so I guess you’re right that extraordinary times getting me into the flow of things… I love the look of your diaries!
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Yes, I don’t see theatres opening until well into the summer *the earliest*. As long as they give us enough advance warning – for making our own decisions and arrangements – I’m fine with the way things have been postponed.
The whole diary thing petered out for me, too, when I had my own family. Later on, when I worked full time, I was doing so much writing that I just didn’t feel like any writing in my free time. Needless to say, though, that I regret not having documented some of the family events of that time. Some of it is reconstructable through ancient e-mails, though. I was just going to say ‘One of these days, when I have time, I will compile it together’. Well, it appears that time is NOW 🙂
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That’s very cool, Guylty!
When my kids were in daycare there was this diary the carers wrote about how the kids days had been and I’d send the diary back to the daycare about how the kids had been at home. I haven’t read those diaries since that time, maybe I should, it will probably give a lovely peek into what life as a young family was like. Other than that the years in my twenties and the years after the kids stopped going to daycare are a blur… 🙂
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Terrible, I know exactly what you mean about that blur. And yes, I have some regrets about not living the moment with my kids as much as I could have. I guess it is a fairly common and late realisation…
(My kids didn’t get any daycare diaries from the kindergarten. They attended relatively late only from the age of 4.)
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