Trapped Inside: A Virus in the Central Desert

Unfairly, a virus sends you inside into isolation in a landscape known for its winter beauty.  Outside, the days unfold and freedom is felt; confined to a house to prevent a virus from spreading, everything is seen through a filter. Such are our times.

Outside, the waterholes and desert will wait. The winter sunshine will still be there when the virus subsides. Not everyone has a good outcome or makes it through with safe passage. This experience teaches the sufferer not to take anything for granted. It is an individual, yet collective experience; the individual isolates but at the same time, so do many others, in many other places, for the same reason. 

Longing to be outside: Jesse Gap, Central Australia

Longing to be well again, for the illness to flee, to have a clear head and strong body once more, is felt by many. We want, once again, to be outside amongst the sunshine. COVID is here to stay, they tell us. The new normal is unprecedented. From inside the house where each day is marked with the virus, it seems that everyone else is well and life goes on, and you are pulled out of it.

However, this is a false impression. All over Alice Springs and indeed the Territory, people are cloistered in their homes, watching the calendar, waiting for seven days to expire so they are declared well and can reenter the world. We know that the sore throat and dizziness will not always feel this intense.

It is always challenging to have COVID, and to have it in winter, when the Territory is at its finest, is doubly hard. The weather is cooler, and the trails are open to explorers. This year, the flu is also making the rounds, and both it and COVID have the potential to wreak havoc with a person's health. Often, days spent indoors are just what is needed. Time to rest and restore is valued highly, as the discomfort of being ill is at its highest. Fatigue lingers. 

In the meantime, the landscape remains as it always has. And soon, this time inside will be over.