Thinking about those with less than me during the Coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic

It's really easy for me to say "Stay at home you inconsiderate little pillocks!". 

I have a garden, my Mum enjoys making tasty food for us, and before he passed away my Dad had managed to pay back the mortgage he bought our house with in full, a feat which seems staggering to me right now.

But I'm thinking about how some of my friends live. Those who have never really shared close relationships with their parents or guardians and perhaps prefer to just get in touch once every 2-3 months to exchange some meaningless platitudes in order to be reassured that they are still alive.

Many of my mates are living in various concrete cities, devoid of nature's presence, scattered around the UK and abroad with only themselves to rely on and trust. 

The thought of having to stay holed up in a shared house in THE HAROLDS in Hyde Park, Leeds with housemates who mean nothing to me, knowing my XBOX 360 is still in storage somewhere, and all my real physical books I stupidly foisted on POVERTY AID to free up space in my box room... My food reserves dwindling because I thought everyone around me was just overreacting and very soon they would start chilling the hell out and calm would quickly be restored.....

I'd hate to be someone in that situation whose sense of claustrophobia or cabin fever might soon become inflamed in the next few days if they run out of things to give them a boost.

Two things I'd recommend (which you may already be doing - I don't want to assume too much here), is bringing your bedtime forward a lot. I've been getting up at 6am each morning and riding/walking to the local woods and inhaling tree farts. It's amazing that a tree's fart is what I call fresh air!! 😄 

On second thoughts it's probably tree burps that I'm inhaling. I'll look into this...

Two massive beech trees could be standing next to each other on a path that I'm walking and be silently communicating with each other totally unbeknownst to me.

"Sid....Sid.....Sidney!!!"

"What??? What is it? What do you want?"

"Here comes that boy again. The one who's always taking revealing photographs of us. Damn pervert!!!"

"It's what humans do you stupid oaf!"

"You're wrong Sidney. It's a violation of our privacy is what it is!"

"I'm going back to sleep...."

*Ben gradually approaches with camera in hand snapping away*

"Right you little pest, I've been storing up a right stinker for you here. Inhale this you meaty little cretin!"

*tree exudes huge burst of oxygen of the purest quality*

Me: "My God! The air which surrounds this fine looking beech is the freshest I've ever had the pleasure of inhaling!"

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So getting up at sunrise to inhale tree farts deep into your lungs at full capacity is the first thing I'd recommend. 10 of your deepest slowest breaths which feel like you are drawing in the universe and then you keep it there when you are totally filled with air. Put a cap on it when you can't inhale any more and then carry on sucking in air like you suck up cream soda through a straw to fill in the remaining space in your lungs and bring them to your actual full lung capacity. Then hold it....HOLD IT!!!!!!.....

And then exhale................

AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!.............

Do 10 of them in a your local wood or forest when you wake up and I promise you, very soon......Instant ZEN Monk Mode! More inner calm. Increased lung capacity. Increased brain power due to increased oxygen levels in the blood. Improved circulation. Great mental focus and concentration. The whole nine yards mate! The full flaming monty!

The second thing I was going to recommend I'll recommend some another time because this post has gone on long enough already and I want some breakfast.

My Heart Attack Turned Me Into A Photographer

I've written next to nothing since the election result. Which is fine. But I have been taking pictures in the woods every day. 

I started taking pictures of the trees and nature in the woods after they helped me get better. I'd had what at the time felt like a mini cardiac arrest, induced by the constant chain smoking of cigarettes long into the earlier hours, fuelling my while writing and chess playing, sometimes for up to 3 days without sleep or any exercise to ameliorate the negative impacts.

Then one night I was overcome by peculiar bodily sensations. Nodes. Individuals points started presenting across the top of my chest which felt like blockages. Blocked arteries desperately gasping for clean air they could breath.The number of nodes grew and spread across my chest. My ability to exhale was suddenly capped to a minimum, as was my maximum intake of air.

Then my torso felt as though it too had become riddled with these nodes, these blockages, that now restricted my physical mobility; issuing darting spiky pains like pulled muscles whenever  a shift in movements transgressed the newly enforced curtailments.

I proper shat myself when the nodes finally made their way to the top of my arm. I remember how will power, perseverance and  determination had all become remote memories. Luxuries one can endure only when one has a modicum of certainty about the longevity of one's existence. 

I began stretching myself and massaging my chest like a mad man in vain. No one was in the house at the time. Mum and Kim had gone out to Wales for the day. I kept stretching all different ways to relieve the internal discomfort and continued massaging my chest hoping to improve my circulation. At some point I felt like I knew the chest and bodily pains had peaked and would not become any more intense, so like a true addict I went back outside for 3 more ciggies!! It was a very sad to witness myself incapable of exercising the necessary rationality to do the right thing despite being in a life or death scenario. 

Mum and Kim came back from Wales and I was conspicuously muted for the rest of the night. I went to bed and struggled finding a comfy position to sleep in. The next day mum enquired what was wrong with me. She had two wrong guesses before guessing correctly that I had chest pains. She gave me one of her unopened asthma inhalers and two dissolvable aspirin to thin my blood. It was my day off work, so I went back to bed and slept. 

I woke up mid-afternoon, a little less riddled with chest pains but lung capacity was still bare minimum. My body's maintenance dept needed more time to carry out essential repairs, so I went back to sleep.

I woke up late that evening, with slightly greater lung capacity now but the chest pains had returned as before. It was around 8pm and dark outside. I had an impulse to be proactive to help open my arteries I'd foolishly clogged up with tar and plaque, but walking any distance had become a exhausting chore requiring delicate navigation, especially if it was to at least look half natural. 

I told mum I was going to the local woods to breath some clean forest air. She questioned whether that was such a good idea given my restrictions but I said I was going anyway. 

The woods is only 5 minutes away. I got there and didn't go too far in, but far enough to know when to try and breath deeply. It felt good. Consecutive deep inhales and exhales of clean air really helped break up the heavy shit that had been sitting on my lungs for the past months.

The next morning I decided that visiting the woods each day to inhale its restorative air would be part of my new daily health regimen. So that's what led me to start taking pictures there and posting them every day on my facebook.