Moving on-line and into the sea: a short waterbiography.

It is unusually quiet. The early morning sky begins to lighten. The rooks will be here as soon as the sun rises, I think. I am aware of the sounds of tumbling stones as the waves wash the shore, the shrill cry of a gull, a dog barking in the distance and the wind shaking branches of the trees overhead. I am shivering. The longer I stand here, the worse it will be. The first bite of cold sea water flushes my skin pink, red then patches of blue spread across my arms and thighs. My fingers turn white at the tips all blood rushing away from the extremities to the bodys core. I plunge on, deaf now to all sound except the beating of my heart, gasping for breath as I force myself to swim, counting the strokes, one, two, three. I must get to a count of thirty before I can turn homeward. Can I stay more than a minute in this temperature? I test myself. I resolve to endure another five strokes and begin to loose my breath. I find ground beneath me and stand up, gulping air and wade home. Wrapping my coat around me, I sit and watch the sun rise over the water, as streaks of white and silver light the sky and sea. I breathe. My heart settles into a regular, steady rhythm. I become still. I listen to the sounds around me and notice the absence of that early morning hum of constant traffic on the motorway. I sit with this particular silence of lockdown, a consequences of the global pandemic of COVID-19. The morning air no longer carries the voices of children getting ready for school or sounds of adults hurrying to catch a train, bus or favourite parking spot. Restrictions on movement and travel, the forced closure of local businesses, colleges, schools and childcare facilities have brought us to this moment. I move on-line. The transition is difficult. Adopting new technologies provokes intense anxiety as I barely navigate my way across a screen towards students, who are equally stressed. It seems improbable, a project bound to fail given the technical and pedagogical challenges, but somehow I keep going, day by day, week by week. Communal solidarity and expert advice shore me up, as I prepare the next class, read assignments and think about accessible ways of connecting with students, many of whom I can no longer see or hear. I understand the reluctance to turn on a camera or switch on a microphone; this new mode of engagement is somehow more personal, more intimate and more intrusive than I expected. The collective and relatively neutral space of the classroom is replaced by exposure to the diversity of settings in which we teach, write, learn and study a kitchen, a bedroom, a sitting room, an attic and sometimes the car. The hours on my machine become days, months, semesters and now a full academic year has passed. I have adapted to this on-line indoor home-work environment, immersed in a habit forming, routinised, necessary practice.