Canva - Woman In White Button Up Shirt Holding Two Oranges.jpg

“You want we go sexy party disco vibes beach day?” asks my 11-year old. “No, no, today want shoot a wideo, crazy crazy times,’ bats back the 9-year old. Without raising his eyes from his bowl of cereal, my husband murmurs that he is “a volcano man, a volcanic protector man.”

Reading this, you’re either thinking that my family life is highly questionable, or you’re snorting along with the joke. In that case, you’ve probably also watched Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Maybe you’ve even watched it daily every day for the last fortnight, finding something new to giggle at every time. As the weather has deteriorated and the lockdown starts to crack, we have mostly been staying in watching this ridiculous movie on Netflix and giggling a lot. We’re now word perfect in the pitch-perfect Europop songs and have the dance moves down too. Right now, I can thoroughly recommend snorting through your nose at this film, or any movie that makes you laugh like a drain and feel your long-lost abs ache from laughter. Never has spilling crisps down your cleavage or popping your contacts through tears felt so good, or so necessary as it does now.

As we remerge into the world, many of us are earnestly considering what we’ll keep and what we’ll jettison from the months at home. We are mapping out new balances of professional and home life, coming to terms with our limitations and weaknesses as parents and planning earnest resets of how we live, communicate and work. Forget New Year’s resolutions, the promises to ourselves that we will make now feel like they are our true north roadmaps for the lives we really want to lead.

And yet. All the solemn vows and hand-on-heart virtue swearing that we will read more widely, parent more compassionately and eat more locally / vegetably/ intentionally are starting to blend into one big hemp-coloured mush of virtue signalling joyless po-facedness. Yes, we have missed hugging loved ones, but we also miss everyday flirting, banter with the bus driver and celebrity gossip too. Shopping in your own wardrobe is a good and necessary idea, but oh, the thrill of Going To The Shops and finding the perfect pair of shoes or the jeans that you knew were out there for you. We have missed momentous family occasions but also blowing off steam in the pub and dancing like there’s no-one watching at a kitchen disco or singing along in the car to your favourite song.

Canva - Woman Wearing Sweater Covering Her Eyes With Doughnuts.jpg

In our rush to reconfigure everything – the move to the countryside, the throwing in of the career in favour of the notion of a career as a purveyor of banana bread – we should remember to leave some room for unplanned silliness and fun. I’ve been to cheerier wakes than some recent socially-distant meet ups with friends emerging into the new world order. Hand on heart, we take it in turn to explain just how hard it’s been for them personally. Heads are cocked sympathetically as everyone lists their many epiphanies about what must now change. I’ve done it too, whilst wondering if everyone else is secretly also wondering if we can talk about that hilarious caravan park picture of Kim and Kanye yet, or if we need to wait for Ann to finish up walking us through her homeschooling journey.

So as the world continues to tilt and shift, let’s not forget to leave some room for the silly stuff. As we start to right ourselves from the coronavirus maelstrom, there’s much that we rightfully want to leave behind. But there’s also room for jokes and laughter, lightness and brightness too. So if you feel that your face has forgotten how to smile, I can recommend a great watch for movie night this weekend. Now, I’m just off to go sex nuts at a crazy sexy beach party.

Jennifer Coyle, July 2020.