My Whole Wide World Went Zoom

Yes, it’s amazing, a lifesaver, a blessing, and where would we all be without it? But, all that aside – and just between me and you – isn’t it beginning to drive you mad? I use it once a day (at least), and it does give me a break from my own company, but some days I would love the person I am speaking with to jump out of zoom (like Tom Baxter stepping out of the film screen into the movie theatre in The Purple Rose of Cairo),  step into my flat, join me at the kitchen table, and tell me how many sugars they take in their tea. Zoom is my new best friend whom I have been spending too much time with, and s/he is beginning to grate on me.

This morning I took part in zoom-Pilates.  In this instance, I like zoom as I can hunker down where the teacher can’t see me and lie on my back pretending to engage my core whilst examining the stalactite dust threads hanging from the ceiling.  Each week I make a pact with myself to get rid of them, and each week, there I am, flat on my back, staring up at yet another job not completed. And then there was yesterday’s zoom writing class. Ten of us, who have never met in person, smiling awkwardly and sharing bizarre, intimate and mundane details as how each other’s week had been: my cat died; a frog has moved into my greenhouse; the haar depresses me; I cooked a lamb tagine but couldn’t find pomegranate seeds; my despair is lifting.

I’m quite partial to an evening zoom, clad in semi-darkness, when the light fades and everyone is framed up like a Vermeer miniature and the sleepy interjections turn to mumbles as you wonder if that person with the mike turned off is really watching television over the top of his computer screen. The thought that he might be, makes me think I might just check my emails and before I know it, I am reading an article about how Swedish women regard nature differently to Irish women. And then someone asks me a question, and I think of saying, ‘that would be an ecumenical matter,’ but I chicken out and instead say, ‘my sound went funny for a moment there, can you repeat the question, please?’  I’ve even watched my sister sleep by zoom. She was the host of a particular gathering for which either she was early, or we were late, so she had a little nap. Odd.

Zoom: it used to be early-eighties, soft-disco music, time for a smoochy slow-dance. Bring back those days; the days before my whole wide world went zoom!

Zoom, Fat Larry’s Band

Zoom, just one look and then my heart went boom

Suddenly and we were on the moon

Flyin’ high in a neon sky, oh oh

 

Bang, just one touch and all the church bells rang

Heaven called and all the angels sang

Sunrise shine in the midnight sky, oh oh

 

Oh zoom, you chased the day away

High noon, the moon and stars came out to play

Then my whole wide world went zoom

(High as a rainbow as we went flyin’ by)

 

Faster and faster we were higher than high

For once in my lifetime I was finally free

And you gave that to me

 

Zoom, you chased the day away

High noon, the moon and stars came out to play

Then my whole world went zoom

Moonbeams dancin’ in the afternoon

 

Shadows blowin’ as the roses bloom

Lookin’ down on a wonderland

Smack just one kiss and I was outta whack

All at once there was no turnin’ back

All so far above the brighter star, oh oh