THE OBSERVER: Baking, gardening, crochet … how the lucky ones lived under lockdown

Description

Dr Elisa Pieri, a sociologist at Manchester University, believes our perception of time has changed during the lockdown. “This terrible crisis has given some people an opportunity to reassess what they want out of life more generally and how they want to arrange their time,” she says. “That ability to refocus our priorities is definitely a positive outcome. We have experienced our sense of vulnerability and the impermanence of life in sharper relief.”

Livingston took up crochet when she felt bored after doing a clear-out of her home in west London. Helped along by a YouTube video, she is now midway through crocheting herself a poncho cardigan: “I feel like it’s mental yoga. It’s so calming.”

But lots of people will not have had the space and opportunity to take up new hobbies or reflect on how they want to spend their lives. “The lockdown has deepened the divide between people of different socioeconomic status. Existing inequalities have become sharper and deeper, and new inequalities are forming,” says Pieri. A slower pace of life is not available to all. “If you still need to work long hours to pay the rent, all that reflection goes out the window. It’s a middle-class concern.”