Update #9 from the Department of Nearlyology which at this stage of our unlocking instructs an element of doubt to infect human encounters, a quelling, a coolness, a quiet curiosity. No rushing into arms nor towards other body parts.
Where once loud clapping and howling were deemed essential, now The Dept recommends most citizens perhaps once a week or so to stand in the street outside their homes and engage in humdrumming: a mix of body percussion and the creation of sound through a closed mouth, activities which sit between shutting the fuck up and shouting the heart out, are how we know ourselves from within, unrecorded, un-reflected, and through which we re-render heard songs, remake and repercuss them for our own purposes to express the inexpressible or almost ignored, those scraps of sorrow, bitterness, love, lunch, the everyday and in-between.
This humdrumming, the Dept suggests, can send out a forcefield of emotional complexity guaranteed as much as anything else so far to eliminate most mild symptoms shown of various viruses and hypochondrials. Here lockdown drifts towards the looking into various abysses of grief, ruination and fear, the whole planet staring just now into deep dark.
The Ministry prepares to make defining statements, number the sadly dead, hurriedly moving on to the cheerier rates of infection and frustration, to put an assertive stamp on proceedings, working twentyfourseven on a reboot up the planetary backside to be greener fairer kinder budgets allowing, keyworkers black and all shades of lives mattering some percent moreso.
Meanwhile the humdrumming right across the globe is growing, the pattering on bellies distended by stark staring hunger or anger or grazing on comfort foods, the lips closed, buzzing, ruminating on a tune embodied within us, performed falteringly, to ourselves and those round about, the best means to inhabit these weary skinbags. Let it out but in not quite yet. Hold it in somewhat but still be heard. Humdrumming and look down at our tiptapping fingers, look up to the stars, we are coming up out of lockdown, we open wide shoulders, stretching our backs, pushing out chests, to breathe, resonate, breathe, we must breathe. We are humdrummers no going back and shake.
