麻豆约拍

By Davie Donaldson // 麻豆约拍 The Social Contributor

Scottish Traveller, Davie Donaldson, is one of 180,000 people in Scotland who have been shielding since lockdown began at the end of March. With the latest lockdown easing coming into effect, Davie can now go outdoors after weeks of isolation. He told 麻豆约拍 The Social what it has been like.

Months stuck in my house have paused my life. I was supposed to be graduating this week. I was supposed to be getting married next week – but now I can’t even go to the shop.

What’s keeping me locked away is a rare genetic disorder called . It affects my muscles, my ability to process fat and, now, my freedom.

Shielding has meant my life has completely changed, for those of you shielding reading this – I feel your struggle. For those of you who are not – let me tell you what it’s been like for me.

100 days ago I closed my front door and entered into a strange dystopian world, full of disinfectant and TikToks. The first few weeks were eye-opening! At first, I actually quite enjoyed having the extra time at home. I got to spend more time with my fiance; got around to reading all those books I had never opened; learned how to bake sourdough bread and planted a berry drill.

I felt this was a new me. I had so much more time for life. I was developing a new worldview - one that was more organic, more authentic and ‘real’.

But over the weeks, the TikTok songs became annoying, the garden lost my interest and the sourdough – well it’s just bread at the end of the day.

So, I found myself in a world, not new and authentic, but lacking human connection and I started to miss the simple pleasures of my life before shielding.

In my old life I could walk down a street, I could visit family, I could lift shopping bags straight into my home (without first worrying how much disinfectant we had), I could go out to a nightclub – I could feel 21.

Before I knew it. summer was here and the yellow was on the broom, usually a sign from nature that Travellers will be back on the road soon. However, shielding had meant that my family’s plans for going on the road, as we have done for centuries – were now ‘postponed’.

I had been so excited to get my own trailer and head out as a newly married couple. I wanted to show my new wife all the places I had stopped as a bairn, share with her those memories and to head down to Appleby Fair so she could meet my friends. Instead I watched the yellowing broom through a window. The nature springing into life was close but distant at the same time. I felt caged.

Then I got a phone call. One of my friends, who I had been with just a few months ago, had passed away due to the virus. The numbers on the TV, those hard to imagine numbers, now were more real. They included my friend.

A few weeks later I received another message – another friend, another loss. Watching a funeral live-streamed over Facebook is not something I ever thought I would have to do. No hugs, just a virtual exchange of emotions.

The initial new strangeness of my life was quickly being replaced with a heaviness of worry, confusion, and anxiety.

Now we have George Floyd and an awareness of the burning fire of social injustice across our globe. Everyone on Facebook has become an activist, everyone is enraged, protests are daily. It’s as if our nostalgia, being forced to experience all our emotions through a screen, has opened our eyes to the emotionless, unfair and discriminatory place we have allowed our society to be for so long.

Shielding has impacted my life, but it has changed our society and this ‘new normal’ - well, all I can say is it isn’t ‘normal’ - but it’s happening.