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Rona Maynard's avatar

It’s striking how little is written or said about the great unraveling that began five years ago. I don’t think people want to remember. I wouldn’t remember the sad, frustrating, sometimes downight alarming details if not for a series of Facebook posts in which I did my best to capture my disintegrating world. Like you, like many, I thought the pandemic would come to a tidy end. It was in fact the beginning of a still-unfolding dreadfulness that’s bigger than long Covid. January 6, 2021 ushered in the second year of Covid. From Covid denialism to election denialism to the madness threatening the world today.

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The Unhurried Reader's avatar

It’s staggering, isn’t it, that the world is the way it is, in the wake of what it was then? We experienced a vast unifying event, and yet its aftermath has only served to push us further apart.

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Wendy Pratt's avatar

Beautiful writing xx

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The Unhurried Reader's avatar

Thank you so much. xx

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Yasmin Chopin's avatar

Thankyou for your look back over five years. It’s interesting to frame it with a book review and I hope you have lots of positive energy for the future.

My five years has been framed by two things: cancer and academia. I was diagnosed with cancer and had major surgery just before our first lockdown so these last five years have been all about getting better. And I kept my sanity by focusing on a creative writing MA and PhD.

It’s all good, I’m cancer free and I got my qualifications, though like you, I lost my dad. And even when the world politics and human rights news is shit, we have to carve out a little bit of sanity in each of our own ways.

Happy reading! Keep writing! Your work is appreciated.

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The Unhurried Reader's avatar

Thank you so very much for this.

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Tony's avatar

Thank you for this thoughtful post. I know that I’ve blocked from my memory those early days of lockdown; they are too scary to revisit at present. Unfortunately the world feels very dark now. I hope that things will get better, perhaps at least for a while.

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The Unhurried Reader's avatar

At the bottom of Pandora’s jar, when all the evils had been let into the world, hope remained …

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Terri Windling's avatar

Thank you for this beautiful post.

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The Unhurried Reader's avatar

Thank you, Terri.

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WellHouseCircle's avatar

Thank you for this. So much of it resonates. My experience at the time, the hopes engendered and the subsequent disappointment, are expressed well by you. I can't bring myself to write about Covid anymore, I am so disappointed by the way nearly everyone has chosen to respond and 'live with it' (ie pay no more than lip service to its ongoing presence and refuse to do basic things like open windows). I'm glad you wrote this piece.

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