You know what perked me up last week? You.
In retrospect my column may have sounded more like a plea to get in touch, rather than a suggestion.
Like so many, I feel disconnected from the outside world at times and this probably shone through in my words.
There’s Zoom chats with family and friends, but sometimes you just crave making new connections randomly and regularly.
First up, came John’s email. He’d read my story and like me, once forgot his anniversary – all the worse because it marked his first year of marriage.
Commendably, he thought on his feet and booked a romantic trip to Jersey – except the date of booking showed up on their joint account.
His wife made a very funny quip upon spotting this, alas it’s not quite appropriate verbatim for a family paper, but I felt the marital warmth and humour from it.
Read more from Martel Maxwell here
Next, Ian, whose wife works in the children’s ward at Ninewells, who agreed that we could well be living in two parallel time universes where one goes slowly and the other quickly.
And yes, rereading that sentence, I can see your emails were perhaps to check I was “OK”.
One mum asked for anonymity (you’ll see why, and I’ve changed a couple of details to guarantee her cover remains entirely intact) to tell me that every day she steals an hour of time, telling her husband she has to catch up on work emails away from their two young children.
What she actually does is head outside, finishes her work in approximately seven minutes and uses the remaining time to read, sit in peace and eat Cheesy Wotsits.
Brian suggested my big pants (bravely shown last week) could make a mask for shopping – in fact, he said, it could make five.
Smiling, I took a drive to get something for tea at Grewar’s Farm shop, where a lovely couple asked if I’d got my ideas of what to write about for this week’s column.
And that’s when I decided to write about you all.
I’m lucky I could reach out and ask for a hello. Not everyone can.
These snippets from you may have been tiny but to me last week they were needed and they were huge.
The simple art of human contact, of connecting and talking about nothing much at all. It’s something we all miss and will one day have again. We will.
So hold on tight and – as my mother might say, chin up, chest out.
We’ll get there and we’ll be all the stronger for it.
https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/the-feelgood-feed-martel-maxwell-discusses-homeschooling-haircuts-and-how-lifes-changed/
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