As circuit breaker measures continue to tighten, Sunday Times writers reflect on what it is like to be in their homes more than they are used to.I dream of the hanging city of lights in the National Gallery Singapore. It is January; I am at the Light to Night Festival, its theme this year taken from Italo Calvino's novel Invisible Cities.
This is the city of memory. I wake up, and I am in another city, a city held in thrall to an invisible dread. I have not gone outside in 16 days.What will the world be like when all this is over?More often than I care to admit, I think that hell is other people.Web-based instant communication tools such as WhatsApp, Skype and FaceTime have helped to build a more interconnected world, removing the barriers of distance.
Barely one week after all enrichment centres and sporting facilities shut, my 10-year-old daughter lamented:"I miss my friends."Ashlee Simpson, one of the finest American pop singers to emerge from the noughties, once sang:"On a Monday I am waiting, Tuesday I am fading, and by Wednesday I can't sleep."
So I shifted to my white chair near my balcony, half-turned it around and changed my view of the world. Now I can search better for squirrels, feel the kiss of the sun and have discovered that there are diverse shades of white on a cloudy day. Suddenly I no longer feel stuck in the same place.