Autumn.

I woke up cold this morning. It took me by surprise, mostly because I normally run quite hot, but also because I’ve entirely lost track of time. 

This year has been extraordinary. I can’t think of another word for it. So much, and yet, equally, so little has happened. 

I can count on one hand the number of places I’ve been in the last 6 months.

Usually I have the good fortune to be on the road somewhere new every other weekend or so. I could probably count on two hands the number of physical real life friends I’ve seen in person in the last 7 months. 

Putting the heating on made me feel a little funny. Where did the summer go? I’ve been so entirely consumed by the restrictions and the worry about work, about getting ill, about keeping busy and active that it’s just vanished. It’s astounding. Time is Fleeting, you might say. 

I don’t entirely know what it’s like in the rest of the world right now. We’re all going through different shared experiences of this pandemic… But here in the UK, it’s peculiar. My brain is mightily confused by everything we’re being told on all sides of the debate.

I’m anxious about being ill, so I’m wearing a mask (it’s now compulsory in Wales in indoor public spaces), antibac-ing my hands, staying two metres away etc etc. I’m anxious because I don’t know enough. Evidently no one really does. Is Covid-19 likely to kill me? Chances say that even if I got it, I’d be really unlikely to die from it. BUT lots of people have been dying from it, and lots of other people have been so ill that they’ll never fully recover from it. I don’t want that thanks. I don’t want Ness or my Mum, or anyway else to get it from me, either!  I’d rather not get ill at all.

I’m struggling to come to terms with the fact that I’ve not worked since March 2nd. The last real world job I did was a comic con up in the North East of England. I also popped to London for an audition a week or two later, just a week before we locked down, but that was potential work - not actual paid work. Either way. It’s been a bloody long time.

I’ve watched as all my booked and contracted work commitments called and postponed… “We’re going to reschedule from early April til the Summer when we’ll be allowed to go again”. And then postponed again to the Autumn. And the finally cancelled with a vague promise to get in touch when it was safe to hold events.

Now, this isn’t me writing for a pity party. I don’t want you to think “poor Chris, he’s out of work and struggling to find a bean to eat”. We are incredibly fortunate here.

The bills are still getting paid, there’s still food on the table. I’ve completely lost my entire way of life, however. I’m a traveller, a visitor. I go from place to place talking to people and listening to them. I’ve barely left town in 7 months.

It’s October now, and I’m starting to see friends and colleagues creeping out to do the odd overseas bit of work here and there. And, you know what? Good for them. I see friends getting on planes and jetting off to the continent to do an event somewhere and I have really mixed emotions about it.

Firstly, I think “God, I wish I could go and do that, I miss working!”. Not only am I not there yet, all of my work is still on hold, cancelled or put off until 2021. I also live in Wales, where we are under a much tighter set of restrictions and regulations than other parts of the UK. Specifically England. I’m not allowed to leave my town without a “reasonable excuse”…. It’s been like that for the majority of the year - even when the restrictions relaxed somewhat during August, we were still very limited as to how we could spend time with people outside of our house….

Then I see pictures of these friends and colleagues at restaurants, enjoying meals out in a country that doesn’t have the same regulations as us. They’re sitting NEXT to people they don’t live with, without masks on, laughing and talking and drinking and having a whale of a time.They pose for chummy photos with arms round each other’s shoulders.  It brings me out in a cold sweat. In Wales we’re not supposed to be there yet, and you all know how much I love a rule.

I mean obviously they’ve been tested. Their temperatures have been logged through so many places they’ve got their own little paper trail. BUT it still scares me. The unknown of all of it.

Why is it “safe” for me to breathe in next to a friend in Germany, but I can’t have my mum visit my house from 15miles away? If I’m out of the country, am I safe? and then go back to the UK a potential threat? 

Secondly I think “well, I’m insanely privileged that I’m able to keep paying bills at the moment without having to think about going to work in a situation that puts me or others at risk.”

I don’t know the ins and outs of everyones personal situations. Maybe some of these people need to go back now. That’s not my business, and let’s face it, you’ve got to do what you need to do. I have friends from the entertainment industry who are stacking shelves, delivering amazon parcels, cycling uber-eats around towns. Some who went to work at the Nightingale hospital in London and Cardiff. I know I’m incredibly lucky to have had the where-with-all to have been able to navigate the last 7 months relatively unscathed, and never have I been SO grateful for the near bankruptcy 7 years ago that lead me to be VERY aware (some have said overly cautious) of my finances nowadays. 

During this whole shebang, I’ve also had to get my head around assuming that the future will be like the past. We’re in suspended animation at the moment as creatives and live events people. But, when someone comes along and offers you the opportunity to do incredibly exciting and creative things in a future that involves performing, travelling and creating, you just have to say YES. VERY LOUDLY. While one bit of my brain is going “but don’t be daft, you’re currently under a Welsh government restriction that means you’re not legally allowed to travel more than 5 miles from your house without permission, you have to listen to the bit that goes “THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU’VE BEEN WANTING TO DO FOREVER! SAY YES, THINK ABOUT THE PRACTICAL BITS LATER”. (that’s what I’ve done by the way - I’ve said yes, and accepted that a lot of the practical stuff will work itself out as the dates get closer and the situation becomes clearer.)

I might be over-reacting, and arguably, I should probably live more along the lines that I try to -  “No Day But Today”. But I just can’t. I have anxiety (not diagnosed, clinical anxiety, but never-the-less, my brain and my body have NOT enjoyed the last 7 months). The idea of being anywhere I don’t know and meeting people in a situation I’m not entirely in control of makes me want to go and lie down in a dark room. 

I don’t have an answer to this , and I think that’s what keeps me on high alert. I like to have my own solution, and I just can’t see one yet. It’s not my job to come up with a solution - I’d almost certainly do a decidedly worse job of that than the people who ARE trying to come up with the solutions. (And let’s face it - they’re making a pretty shoddy hash of it on their own). I don’t know about other people with anxiety - but one of my coping mechanisms is to know everything. That calms me. If I’ve got an answer, then it’s going to be ok. That probably explains why I always know where I’m going. I’ve looked at a map a hundred times before. And that’s why this pandemic has sent me into a bit of a kerfuffle. I have no answer. 

My brain rattles through a selection of past scenarios like a mental rolodex, and goes “Nope! Nothing relatable”. The only thing that makes that slightly better is reminding myself that no one else has a definite answer to this either. As we are all WELL aware.

Who knows what the limits on this creativity will be - but the opportunity is there, and I need and want to embrace it. I will work out how I can persuade myself to get on that plane, or go into that tv studio. I will FIND a solution or an answer that works for me, because I need to create. I miss performing, and I know standing on a stage, however many people are in the audience, however distanced, masked, anti-bac’d or screened off we all are - live performing is essential for my mental health, and I know it is for countless thousands of others too. The audiences need it just as much as the actors.

I’ve no idea what the future looks like at the moment. There’s some really exciting, challenging and creative jobs in the diary that, in theory, will keep me rather well occupied from from Winter until late April, assuming we’re able to travel freely around Europe (Covid aside, we’ve got friggin’ Brexit looming as well!), and then Australia. These are all, obviously entirely dependent on the severity of the pandemic, the global situation, and, I assume, my health. I can only control one of those things on my own, and I’ll do that by wearing a mask and washing my hands. Then hopefully we can start to see each other again. Albeit from 2 meters away. 

Big Love, Stay Safe.

CwR xxx