19. The waters draw back, only to return
The first waves of COVID-19 have revealed much; The ‘flailing states’ produced by the Anglo-American model; The ambient double-consciousness of the Cold War as an analogy for living with the pandemic; Writing as control
If the first part of a tsunami to reach the coast is the trough of the wave rather than the crest, the water along the shoreline is dragged back dramatically, exposing large expanses of the shore that are normally deep underwater. Briefly, the drawback reveals creatures and living environments not usually exposed to daylight, the detritus of our habitation laid bare, the sweeps and scars of previously invisible landscapes scored by the dynamics of the displaced tides.
I wrote the first set of Slowdown Papers as a kind of rapid personal reflection, amidst the intensity of the virus’s first appearance and transmission: already well-established across East Asia and Europe, beginning to hit the UK, and largely before it was hitting the Americas, Africa and the further reaches of Asia and Australasia. I then put the pen down, though hardly pausing the reading, discussing and reflecting, along with the tallying of numbers and filing of references — but also working hard, and dealing with what the…
