Isolation

A few days ago we used up our monthly internet data allowance. When that happens we get "speed limited" for the rest of the month - meaning accessing anything on the internet is almost impossible. Fortunately my phone has a data allowance that I rarely use. So this morning I had my phone as a data hotspot to allow me to use my computer to join my first ever Zoom meeting:

I have sat in on a couple of Zoom sessions before, but this was the first time I had to actually join the meeting from my computer. It was an interesting experience. I would not have travelled to Melbourne for the meeting, but joining in from home was relatively painless. But I didn't feel like I had actually participated in anything. Most of the participants seemed to know each other, but I have met only 3 of them in real life. No-one said "hello", or interacted with me, apart from one person asking how my name is pronounced. So in some ways I felt more isolated than I would have if I hadn't joined the meeting at all.

In the afternoon I went to visit my mother, but she was fast asleep so I didn't disturb her. I had taken my sewing kit with me to fix a bit of the binding on her quilt that was coming loose, so I did that and left without her ever knowing I was there.

As I was in town anyway, I went to visit my sister, but that was my third alienating interaction of the day. There are a lot of topics we don't discuss because we just have opposite points of view. And today I found a few more.

It was actually a relief to spend the rest of the day at home, really on my own. I did a bit of quilting while listening to an audiobook in splendid isolation.