TWISTED GILDED GHETTO by Eric Page

STEP IT UP!

) Up, stretch, eat, work, sleep; and again, yawn, ache, munch, work; and again, wake, move, do the same thing again and again, sleep, and wake, sleep and sleep, and when will this repetitive regularity of the Pando end… Covid had condensed my life to that of a medieval nun, just without the bell ringing, and believe me I’ve tried to sign up to the Camp Campanologists of Kemptown association, nine months waiting list. So back to the cloister it is with a hot boyfriend to spend the groundhog days with.

My medieval life has it all; village life, a touch of overwhelming doom, plague, a world as wide as I can walk, a hot baker with sky blue eyes, the rhythms of my day dictated by the rising of the sun. Why the Downs behind Roedean hold as much excitement as the Jungles of Cambodia to me, Old Stanmer on the weekends with manicured prairie and boreal province smacks exotically of Saskatchewan and Hove is my own little Manhattan. Is this sad to take such small mercies of excitement and joy from the mundane (very mundane) excursions of my days or is it some kind of gift? To rein in demanding expectations of travel, and luxury, of excitement and the Thrill of the New, of different food and language, strange people and customs, why all of this is laid out in Hove for me, like ripe fruit on heavy laden branches.

Supermarkets have become the new clubs, with their doorman, queues and hotties in masks, grumpy chunky daddies sly eyeing me, svelte twinks with a touch of blusher, muscle boys slowly turning to lard in their leggings, Bold Queers from the outer-lands slaying the aisles with their sashaying otherness and couples playing tug of war over the last packet of wild rocket. With no Queer spaces open, no mobs of peers! No Prides, parades, post-clubs, no street or night life, no travel or Queer migration to parties, cities or beaches, this Covid wasteland is all we have. The supermarket is the place I see more Queers than anywhere else, one or two I’d rather not see, but even a hiss and an exaggerated eyebrow from behind the discounted beans is passionately embraced for the five-star Jane Eyre social engagement that it provides.

Miss Rona has opened up this startling prospect to examine the minutiae in our lives, up close, over and over. For those of us who live with others we’ve also been blessed with 24/7 opportunities to explore patience, understanding and unconditional love. For those of us who live alone more opportunity to look upon ourselves and gaze in wonder at our creations and tinker with perfection.

There is no doubt it’s hard, and going to be so for a while yet. We feel powerless, adrift, but we are not. We have our routines, however small, we have each other, even if we only catch a glimpse of each other. We need to share more of the pent-up Queerness that we have, tiny weeny us, put on a smoky eyelid, do slow baroque dances in the endless queues, mince like f**k in public, dress up for that food shopping trip, hats, gloves, heels! Winter is coming, which means even less light and time to shine, so drag out those LED lights from Pride and swaddle your rucksack, we need to STEP IT UP, for all our sakes. Be the brilliant denizens of the Twisted Golden Ghetto that we are, by dazzling right of being, and then go home, smiling under our masks to start over, be exquisite and never explain.