Biggles Is Having A Good Pandemic

In which the world is in a death spiral but Biggles is the naughtiest goodest boy

Here’s the thing: the rest of us may be gripped with weltschmerz, but my smallest child Biggles is an eternal optimist.

He loves a gusset above all things, but he’ll eat whatever. Animal, vegetable, mineral, he’ll give it a crack. Just this morning, a stack of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies resting on the countertop.

This hopeful outlook on the world is a beautiful energy to live with as the world spins askew, tilted just slightly off its axis, and we try to find safe footing while waiting to see if the whole mess will right itself, or if we are, in fact, on a death spiral. End of empire, death of planet, etc.

Good times, as they say! What a time to be alive!

No wonder so many people have found themselves with a pandemic puppy. Caring for a baby binds you to the present. It requires you to envision a happy future, no matter what the news says.

Biggles came to us before Covid. He arrived just before Christmas, while Australia was burning. It all happened very fast. One morning we were a family of five, and by dinner we were six; one fluffy.

It was just like bringing home a new baby, except that, unlike our previous three, this baby didn’t like to crap in its own bed. We all fell in love with the little fluffball, but Life before Dog disappeared – it was all puppy, all the time, while the summer fires grew in scale and ferocity.

From the first, Biggles, a rescue of mysterious parentage, failed to thrive. On vet advice, we started feeding him only poached chicken and rice, and tried to post water into him by all means necessary, ministering fretfully with baby bottles and syringes and home-made broth. Were we creating a monster, we worried? Would this puppy soon be demanding only hand-reared spatchcock from the highlands of Azerbaijan? We weren’t sure Biggles was going to make it. He was a very sick little fluffy boy.

Keith and I took to passing each other several times a day to trade information about the state of the dog’s stool - frequency, size, consistency - the same way we used to pause and trade information about the Trump administration. (To be fair, it was not an altogether inappropriate replacement.) In a spirit of romance, we vowed to open a bottle of champagne the day that Biggles produced a healthy poo.

Fires burned at increasing frequency over Christmas. The sun glowed red, the sky lowered and the towering bush escarpment behind us disappeared under a permanent hazy doona. Hundreds of displaced fruit bats screamed and squealed every night above our house. Everything felt otherworldly.

On New Year’s Eve, the fires on the south coast of New South Wales rose up, so fierce they were generating their own weather, and began to devour familiar, beloved towns. Roads were closed. Our friends were trapped there with no power. The puppy got worse, and then the children started throwing up. I nursed the creatures on my watch and checked the Fires Near Me app compulsively throughout the night.

As the fires blazed, each report was more heartbreaking than the last. Whole towns razed to ashes. People dead. A billion animals lost. It was hard not to feel desperate and hopeless. I worked my usual shift on the phones at Lifeline and realised the looming mental health crisis that would be the inevitable consequence of the fires. On the other side of the world, Covid was quietly growing teeth.

Some rain fell, eventually, and Biggles produced a poo so gloriously healthy on the Bristol Stool Chart that Keith and I cracked a bottle in celebration. But the smoke changed the sky above us for weeks, and when the coronavirus arrived, the fires had barely stopped. The children started their school year, leaving Biggles bereft of his playmates for only the briefest moment before we went into lockdown. Back they came. Biggles, surrounded by all his friends again, was so delighted that I googled ‘can puppy sprain tail from wagging’? (Answer: yes. ) Covid-19 began to change the fabric of the world around us in every way, permanently.

Biggles turns one this month. Post-apocalyptic storms and plagues and collective anxiety are the only normal he’s ever known. He lives his best life daily, zooming about in sudden joyful fits, digging in the backyard ditch, stealing sandwiches from the countertop and greeting every person he meets with the desperate, hopeful wish that they will rumble violently on the floor with him.

As a little puppy Biggles slept curled up with his favourite objects: sandpaper, brooms, dishwashing sponges, scrubbing brushes and his rubber chicken. As a big fluffy boy he sleeps on the ottoman in the loungeroom (after eating both of his beds.) Every night, one of the children invariably tucks him up in a blanket. He is dearly loved.

In his short life Biggles has eaten a full wheel of blue cheese set out for a party, all the socks in the house, several favourite shoes and hats and the mattress off the couch on the deck. He is the naughtiest, goodest boy there ever was. As the children grow up, up and away, there is a new creature in our lives who does not give a fig for personal space. It’s a beautiful thing. Biggles lives in the moment, gloriously, enthusiastically, and optimistically; completely unaware that the moment is terrifying. Even if everything goes to shit, we will all go down cuddling Fluffy Boy.

But enough about us.

HOW ARE YOU MY COMRADES?

Everything is weird. Why not become an artisinal picklemaster? Pierce your frenulum? Start a newsletter?

I read Rodham, with my mouth open. How did the brilliant Curtis Sittenfeld get away with this outrageous premise?! I read Tales Of A Black Chef, hungry. Kwame Onwuachi weaves tales of his upbringing that are as evocative as his recipes. Loved Endurance by explorer Louis Rudd, who presents a new argument in favour of owning a vagina: it means one is unlikely to suffer the affliction known as Polar Penis. Huzzah! I’ve been adoring Annabel Crabb’s Further Back In Time For Dinner, and reading the depression-era cookbooks in my collection.

Loved watching Indian Matchmaker on Netflix, the Office with the kids (Dwight 4EVA), The Australian Story episode about the Spanish Flu, Surviving The Virus, the British Covid documentary by Operation Ouch twins Chris and Xand, and Planet America, with Keith, Chas and John forever and ever, amen.

On Amazon Prime (free trial month), I loved Bear Gryll’s Worlds Toughest Race and the documentary Generation Wealth by the photographer and Queen of Versailles director Lauren Greenfield. With her incisive eye, she captures the end point of a decayed culture. ‘We are dying, as other empires have died. The difference is that when we go down, the whole planet is going to go with us’.

Podcast-wise, I’ve been loving Just The Gist, where Rosie and Jacob dissect pop culture. My faves: the first twelve minutes of the famously terrible 88 Oscars; also the pettiest, funniest art-world feud ever described. Also, the terrifying prescient Bunga Bunga: before Berlusconi, Italy had a vibrant feminist culture. After billionaire media boss turned politician Berlusconi took charge (a leader who referred to his Viagra-dealing physisian as ‘Doctor Fuckanini’), it devolved into a cesspit of tits-on-TV and took decades to recover. I’m a long time fan of the charming Help I Sexted My Boss: Jordan and William, etiquette and smut, gin and Dubonnet. A treat, I tells ya.

How do we reconcile our daily lives with the fact that we are living through an extinction event, ask the wonderful hosts of wonderful podcast You’re Wrong About? By leaning in to the distracting frivolous, like their Lady Di season; and for me, also by spending an hour every morning in the bath. I hope you are finding your self-care where you can.

Writing-wise, I’m honing a new habit of getting up at 5.30am to hang with Biggles and work on a novel. It all started when I wrote this piece about Pete Evans and Qanon and this article about the Ubud wellness world. I’m also trying to maintain and sharpen my grit muscles and NOT STRESS about my beloved Mum’s illness and the publishing conversations happening around my memoir Mothering Heights, which are entirely out of my control.

Next time, I will explore the dark art of writing. Send me any questions you have! Tell me what is sparking your joy. And share this newsletter, if you can.

Curious and trying times, comrades. Most peculiar.

xRach