You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
I have Triplegic Cerebral Palsy, which means that even before schools and offices closed due to the pandemic, I was categorised as at higher, moderate risk on the government website. I immediately chose to shield. As a disabled person, I was aware if I contracted the coronavirus, my already limited mobility would deteriorate.
For months I stayed indoors and only ventured into my garden. My dad is a healthcare keyworker making specialist dysphagic food, but he has taken every possible precaution to keep us both safe. When lockdown was loosened, I chatted to my cousin once a week from my doorstep, staying inside with the door open as she stood on the driveway with her mask on. At the start of July, my dad encouraged me to leave the house with him on his day off, but I was honestly terrified.
He suggested going to a beautiful, local park - but so many people were posting about going there on Instagram, I was put off. I knew it would be too crowded and increase my fear of the outside world. When I refused, he asked me to think of somewhere that would gently ease me back into the outside world. The first place I thought of was our local Oxfam bookshop. It was so familiar and I had missed the smell of old paperbacks. I had only been reading books for escapism during lockdown, but only on the ebook and audiobook library app Libby. I was excited at the prospect of browsing physical shelves and finding a pre-loved bargain that someone may have read on their favourite holiday or been given with a heartfelt inscription by their ex. This hunt for obscure, worn treasures has always been something that I cherish about second-hand bookshops and is something that a chain just cannot offer.
A few days later, we went to the Oxfam bookshop and I felt my body relax as I entered. It was strange to think that last time I had been perusing the shelves, a few weeks before shielding began, my life was normal. I had plans which felt concrete, sitting my A-Level exams and my family visiting from Tasmania.
Thankfully the only other person present was the masked and gloved volunteer behind the till. I felt comfortable. It was the quiet, safe space I needed.
My dad and I wandered over to our respective haunts. The books he gravitated were some of his defining interests. As a former backpacker he was trying to be optimistic about post-Covid trips and explored the guidebooks of places he yearned to see. He looked for insightful advice in the pages of donated history books and sought out ideas for new flavour combinations for his patients in recipe books.
As I was about to embark on a literature degree, I hovered in general fiction and moved towards the classics section that had long intimidated me. I noticed a collection of Heaney poems; having studied two of his poems at GCSE and A-level, I was intrigued and wanted to read more of his work. I came across "Digging", a poem he had written about diverging from the family tradition of farming to "dig" as a writer. This resonated with me as an aspiring writer from an Irish farming family and I knew I had to buy it. Additionally, my teacher had recommended The Colour Purple the previous year, which I found moving and thought-provoking, so I felt drawn to Walker’s name. I googled it and realised it was the third book in The Colour Purple Trilogy. I then sanitised, touched and bought the other two.
It was refreshing to read those old, faded texts that held a tangible past before the pandemic in their cracked spines and yellowing pages. On the way home, for the first time since lockdown, I could picture a future beyond Covid-19, one with a vaccine and where it was safe enough to hug my loved ones again. Thankfully that life-changing vaccine now exists and soon I will give that tactile affection that I will never take for granted again.
Thanks to that bookshop, I was finally able to leave my house and I did not have the panic attack I had been anticipating, an occurrence which had significantly increased since lockdown. The visit to somewhere I have visited so habitually since I was buying books from the children's section with my pocket money grounded and comforted me. It helped to escape the terrifying reality of the pandemic by getting lost in books that depicted another world.
Through the pandemic, the government has wrongly devalued the arts, deemed them inessential and disrespectfully encouraged many in the arts to retrain. However, the arts are essential for hope and mental health in these bleak times. Community booksellers now persisting through online and phone orders give an invaluable gift through their work, an escape from the isolating pandemic by allowing people to spend time with characters that have more everyday worries. They've certainly been a lifeline for me.
Francesca Hughes is a bookworm, student and disabled freelance journalist, specialising in disability and culture writing. She shares her work on Twitter at @franariella.