Making writing pay, or joining the bread-line.
Picture this:
It’s late morning on a Thursday in May 2020. I’m home in my apartment and the most strict COVID-19 lockdown terms are in force. Not an ‘essential worker’ at my university job, flannelette pyjamas had became my new uniform, and comfort carbs my renewed acquaintance. On coffee #4 (or perhaps #5) after a 4 am start, I’d been out on the balcony, watching the sunrise, choking on the rising smoker’s exhaust fumes, and languishing in the miserable absence of social contact with friends, family and others. My newspaper delivery had been stolen (again). I couldn’t find my authentic writing voice to get some words on a page and was spitting sparks, until I was distracted by the traffic snarl developing below.
A long line of cars stretched up the hill, going back two blocks from the driveway of the adjacent building: a food charity barn. I’d seen a hundred or more people queueing 6 deep and 100m along the footpath the week before. This drive-thru strategy had resulted from a secondary need: the new, mandated social distancing terms, while the first need: to feed those without means, continued — but with more patrons — than every other Thursday on the calendar. Busy charity workers would come in and out of the building, place a cardboard box of food into the trunk of each car, and the line slowly worked…