Diary of the Pandemic Year

School is over by Frances Hudson

It’s a Friday in March, which shouldn’t be different to any other Fridays in March… except suddenly it is.  Because it’s the last day of year eleven. An unknown future stretches out ahead of us, full of anticipation but also uncertainty - because we do not know what is in store. All we do know is that school has abruptly come to an end, and the idea of a pandemic, which was once nothing more to us than the far-away, fantastical plot of some random science fiction novel has somehow become reality. Someone  claims that it will only last three weeks and then we’ll be straight back at school. If only they knew.

If only we all knew.

But in this moment, all that lingers in the atmosphere is the taste of anxiety.

Around me is the lively buzz of noise. Loud exclamations and short snippets of conversations swirl in the air, emanating from the large crowd of students bunched around the busy school gates. The conversations revolve mainly around what is going to happen to the exams we have worked so hard for over the course of the last two years. We know that we no longer have to sit them. But the million dollar  question of how our grades will be determined still hangs unanswered over our heads like a giant, invisible question mark. Something else to add to the apprehension we all feel.  Phone cameras click as people pose for snapshots to commemorate this momentous occasion. There are hugs and laughs and even tears. Emotion wells up and boils over. Despite the circumstances, there somehow still manages to be a faint buzz of excitement,  adrenaline on overdrive. Some people are relieved:  ‘No more  exams! School is cancelled!

But even in this fizzy, intense moment there is still the knowledge that something very bad is happening.

We are not off of school thanks to an early summer holiday. Instead we are in this situation because of this devastating virus which is rampaging  across the country, across the world, claiming more and more lives.

More and more hugs ensue, (we didn’t even know that a hug could spread it then). Blurry pictures are hastily taken. We acknowledge that this may be the last time we see certain classmates who are not continuing on to the same colleges or sixth forms. That is, if we even get into these colleges and sixth forms when we don’t even know how our grades will be decided.  All that hard work!

Promises to keep in touch are thrown around, the words ricocheting off  the metal school fence.

We walk through the gates for the last time.

We walk home from school for the last time.

We take off our uniforms - blazers and ties - for the last time.

This ending is so unexpected.

So bitter sweet. 

Fairies at the bottom of my garden by Helen Chambers

31st March 2021.

We’ve enjoyed a glorious ‘borrowed’ summer day which sometimes enlivens the spring,

It’s dusk.

Six of us meet in the garden. We grin helplessly, though keep our distance. The air is chill, birds sing and the sky is cobalt. I am giddy with excitement.

Our first rehearsal!

I work on blocking: positioning Oberon, Fairy King, and Titania, Fairy Queen, on opposite sides of a garden table. At only fifteen minutes long, this is our shortest rehearsal (ruled by sundown). But it’s a start.

We revisit this scene on Zoom thirty minutes later and everyone is word-perfect. I dare to think this might just work.

I should have been directing an outdoor performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in June 2020. A spectacular five-night show around Midsummer complete with fairies and a human transformed into an ass, called Bottom, which led to frequent jokes, a mischievous fairy called Puck, and two pairs of lovers engaged in a complicated  triangular affair… There was to be live music, fancy costumes, a big audience, props, staging, song and dance, … A year in the planning - it was heartbreaking to pack away those dreams when Covid struck. January and February in 2021 were lonely as I searched for a way ahead. Once permitted, I met to ‘walk and talk’ with my Assistant Director. She supported my choices unhesitatingly, and, emboldened, I wielded my scalpel and reworked my script.

Now I am directing a socially-distanced version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Lockdown, adhering rigidly to every Covid-enforced safety rule available. We work from a printout rather than our books, so we’re not reminded of textual losses. The rule of six dictates that no scene exceeds five characters (so one director rehearses them in one of the two gardens we use). Most painfully, I have to shed people: the army of musicians, costumiers, backstage crew and front-of-house volunteers who normally keep us afloat. Everything is stripped to the bone.

The final result will be videoed, as Covid prohibits a live audience. Luckily for me, a younger member has won awards for film-making and agrees to capture, edit and upload it, despite having important exams. She attends rehearsals only when numbers permit. The remaining member of our skeleton crew is the prompter, mainly busy on Zoom, but who’s spotted leaning from a bedroom window when we rehearse in her garden.

The coldest April and wettest May follow. My visions of wafting around in a summer dress are laughable because of course I’m in thermals.

It hails.

It snows.

We keep on smiling - and wear thicker coats.

I tentatively advertise online - no tickets needed, free viewing via the link on our website, donations if liked, to The Intensive Care Society.  

On the 23rd of May we celebrate 30 people allowed together in a garden, by  running a well-received dress rehearsal for each other. My cast are wonderful. The next weekend there is a heatwave and we melt in the garden whilst filming is carried out. 

It’s done!

Now I miss the fairies at the bottom of my garden…

But you can visit them at www.wivenhoeshakespeare.org

Running away by Bec Hughes

My phone pings again and I read a news alert that almost strangles.

Our sensitivity to each other’s emotions has been heightened by the days and days of only us.

My sons detect a subtle change: “Is everything ok?” “Yes, it’s fine,” I say.

But it’s not fine.

My ability to reassure is crumbling.

I can feel myself starting to shake, anticipating morphing from mum to home-schooler, and the upset it brings.

The tears and frustration of my outdoorsy ten-year-old tackling a maths problem

While his pre-school brother is silenced on the iPad.

I think of my work that’s abandoned as motherhood makes me opt for furlough –

My part-time arts job paling against my husband’s full-time, mortgage-paying, key work. 

I know it’s practical and sensible and I want to be the one who looks after them, but I also balk at it, guiltily,

Joking, caustically, that I’ll bring him lunch on a tray with a ribbon in my hair.

That perfect Stepford Wife. 

It all swirls… and curdles. 

I can hear the anxiety mutating into narcissism – “you must…can’t you see...what about me…” 

and I try to hold on.

The drops of CBD oil, the tablets of Vitamin D, the B12, the hormone-stomping pill, the superfoods diet aren’t helping.

So, I put on my bum-sculpting, high waisted, medium support 

And I run.

Away.

The black-headed gulls 

Bicker and boast above me

But I concentrate on the stones in the sea wall path. 

They trip my mind

As I follow the river 

Out.

I inhale the earthy, cool, saltmarsh air,

Into my healthy, Covid-free lungs.

Further.

To the causeway 

Where the estuary opens, 

The sky widens and 

The mud unclogs my thoughts.

I return,

The endorphins coursing, 

Girl On Fire resounding

and open the door 

Back in place.

Growing by Ray Morgan

It’s an unseasonably warm spring day in 2020. Mid morning. I should be at work, but instead I’m at my potting bench in the garden. There’s no traffic noise outside any more. I’ve got Radio 4 buzzing, telling me the daily deaths are rising. I blink them away as though they’re normal. I smell soil, it’s in my hair, it’s under my fingernails. I’m potting up houseplant cuttings. It feels good to finally have something to do. A cup of tea unfurls its steam beside me: I’m probably drinking too much tea.

While battling a creeping sense of depression I’ve found solace in sowing seeds and making cuttings of our houseplants. We were overrun at one point: every single windowsill, table, surface was covered in little pots of plants. About that time we had a family WhatsApp group exclusively to discuss what groceries we were struggling to get.

"Anyone need flour?" my sister had asked during the peak flour shortage of Lockdown 1. "I’ve got a contact at a mill".

I myself was struggling to get hold of rice, and even more importantly, Marmite.

My sister again (she’d have been great in the war) via the WhatsApp group hooked me up with a friend of hers who had managed to somehow source some boil in the bag white rice. It wasn’t organic brown rice that I was after, or dare I ask, arborio, but these were not times to be a wanker.

Said friend, Pete, had also found my beloved Marmite. I gifted him a houseplant that I’d grown from a cutting. He tagged me in an Instagram Story with a picture of the plant in his flat. I returned the gesture with a picture of the rice and Marmite. The modern way of saying thank you. I didn’t even really know this person but it felt like we were somehow all 'in it together'. One tradescantia from my living room ended up making twelve cuttings during lockdown, all sent in exchange or way of thanks for grocery tasks.

I’ve got soil in my hair and under my fingernails all the time now. Because I'm still on furlough, fifteen months in. I've started working as a gardener. So I still stand at my potting bench, or in other people's gardens, wondering when I'll be asked to go back into the real world, if at all.

I wish I could give some pearls of wisdom for the future but it's August 2021 and we’re still living through this. Ask me again in a year's time.

What I do know is this: plants saved me in lockdown. 

Plants gave me purpose and reason. 

Plants are what made me use my furlough time to start growing and stop worrying. 

Those little seedlings in lockdown have established their roots. 

And, I have learnt, so have I.

Disappointment by Badriya

29th September 2020. The lights are on. The lights are always on in here. My room doesn’t get any natural sunlight -  the days are always dreary and grey.  I feel guilty about the amount of electricity I’m using. But if it comes down to the environment or my mental health, I’m choosing my mental health.

A week ago, there was excitement. I only have 1 hour of in-person teaching per week, but I can work with that. One hour every Tuesday. I longed to be back in a classroom after schools and exams were swiftly cancelled months ago. But here it was – coming at last – Tuesday. What a blessed day. I had  been so careful leading up to it. Dutifully wearing masks, washing hands, and staying a bit further away than I should when interacting with anyone.

I had been trying to satiate my need for learning that summer. Online classes for any tiny interest I ever had. By mid-August, all of my notes had been neatly put aside and cast out of my mind. Endless hours in front of a screen can only do so much good before it gets...disappointing. Online classes were strange, solitary and scattered across an endless summer of me thinking, “just a little bit longer, and it will be worth it.”. But now I have my timetable and there’s, a class. With people! Things were starting to look up.

I was packing that Tuesday morning. Laptop, the book we were studying, a pen and paper for notes. (After two years, I was done with typing up my notes.) I was humming along to a cheery song in the background. Then a text from my flatmate:

"Guys, I have Covid."

My mind went into overdrive. I have to order a test, inform my teacher that I won’t be able to come into class today, or next week. How much food do I have? Do I need to ask a friend to get me anything? This is the bare minimum. But when things are this much out of your control – what else can you do?

What a gutting  day. 

Hence, me in my room, where the lights are always on, and the days are always dreary and grey. The Wi-Fi isn’t working, my data has almost run out, and the call to student services makes me want to throw my phone across this tiny box I’m living  in. Stuck in. Imprisoned in. 

“Just ask one of your flatmates to help,” Says the  cold voice at the end of the phone.

Logical, disappointing. 

I don’t want logic. I want a hug from my mum. I want a meal I didn’t have to make. I want comfort. I want an end to this chaos. I want home.

There’s music. Music that I had loved over the summer. Music that has always consoled me. Music trying to drown out the loneliness, the homesickness, the misery and the silence. Silence brings thoughts, terrible thoughts. But if I keep playing the music I love, maybe I’ll be happy. Maybe it will fill up the void of disappointment.

But there’s always disappointment.

Lockdown by Maxine Jones

A perfect storm of events starting with a vacuum-like feeling teaching in schools that were preparing to close. Sending children home and reassuring them - but not knowing myself.

Despair and frustration at not being able to buy food.

Then no work.

No money for a time.

Concern for my elderly parents: can we, can’t we, be with them? Should we see them? The fear and pressure from authority that if I had contact with my parents, I could accidentally kill them!

Then calm, the feeling of being safe in our home, escaping for walks.

Clandestine trips to see my parents from a distance.

Jokes about rationing and wartime.

Our lives became virtual, an online community of crafts, quizzes, dancing, baking, workouts and even sleepovers.

All accompanied by a roller coaster of emotions, living on adrenaline, laughter, tears, frustration.

 But then… the anger, so much anger.

Anger that the borders were not closed quickly enough,

Anger over the rules

So many rules for shops - one way, no cash!

Rules for pubs, ordering on an app, don’t forget your scotch egg!

Rules for meeting up, first a friend then 6, yet it was OK for me to be in a classroom of thirty small children.

Rules for bubbles, I have two parents, they couldn’t be in our bubble, go figure!

Following the rules for the “greater good” but questioning the rules.

So many ridiculous un-joined up and conflicting rules.

Bombarded by the media, supporting the government with their lies, untruths, back handers.

I imposed a virtual news blackout.

Much easier to survive without the constant drone of facts, figures, and films. Numbing to the images of sick and dying people, of ICU staff in their inadequate PPE.

Christmas was stolen!

Yet another set of rules ending in tears and tiers – 1, 2, 3, 4. 

More anger.

A new year and back on the rollercoaster.

Back at work, masks, distancing but try explaining that to a class of five year old’s.

Waiting for the vaccine, a ray of hope but teachers not a priority.

Then

the relief

of

my turn

to be immunised.

Feeling positive but more knock backs as dates were moved. Then “Freedom Day” and the chance to start living again, that feeling of relief, the chance to enjoy Park Runs and festivals.

I mourn for the months we can never get back, the months that we can’t live again, the friends that are no longer here. We must start living again, life is too short, we must live our best lives

Each and every day.

Speaking my truth by Preen Chakadonha

I took part in a listening forum about my experiences as a black person in Essex and this is what happened…..

For as long as I can remember I have always spoken about my experiences as a black girl and later, woman in siloes. In circles where I didn’t feel ashamed or judged. But that all changed on the 22nd October 2020.

Due to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and marches black people’s lived experiences were suddenly at the forefront of conversations with people in a way that I never saw coming. At work the leadership team decided that they needed to make a statement in support of BLM. At the centre of this conversation was an employee network from my organisation called the BAME network. It was decided that a psychologically safe environment was needed where black colleagues could talk about their experiences in front of the whole organisation. I don’t quite remember what made me volunteer – but I did. 

We were assured that we would be supported throughout and encouraged to speak our truth. I tried to prepare what I was going to say but kept struggling as I tried to summarise a lifetime of experiences. I remember thinking about how this might affect my job because regardless of assurances I had never been in this situation before. And I’m aware of what has happened to other people in other places when they have spoken out about racism. It hasn’t ended well.

I was supposed to go first but I was so nervous I couldn’t talk, but the outpouring of love from the people watching gave me strength to go next and made me feel less alone.

I spoke about my childhood in Brentwood, and the racial bullying I went through. 

I spoke about how this shaped my understanding of self and the self-hate that I then grew up with. 

I spoke about how the perpetrators of this abuse were never seen to be at fault. In fact, some of them were excused for their behaviour. 

I spoke about how this carried on into adulthood and how at work I still went through the same micro-aggressions.

I finalised by expressing how important it was to have allies and for people to educate themselves about the black experience and how it’s much bigger racial slurs – it’s embedded in society. 

After we finished sharing, we had a debrief where it was clear that any emotional support that we would need would be catered for. 

I was overwhelmed by the flood of love and support I received even after a few weeks, people were still watching and acknowledging where they wanted to do better. 

I can’t explain the sense of relief I felt being able to let go of some of the pain I had been holding on to. The feeling that my experiences being acknowledged in a way that could make a difference even if it was to one person meant the world to me.

I probably would have never done this in person so in a strange way the pandemic presented an opportunity for personal growth by allowing myself to step out of my comfort zone. 

They have linked up with an external organisation to address inequalities at work and I know it’s just the beginning, but it’s been fantastic to see.

My hope is that in years to come such forums won’t be needed but having the opportunity to share lived experiences matters but most importantly having people that want to listen and make a difference is what changes the world.

The Conjurer's Cure by Sharon Auger-Forbes

Sunday April 12th 2020.  A simple moment but worth more than money can buy; a temporary truce with my COVID angst.

It’s been 20 days since lockdown.  I’m crossing off each one on the calendar.  Some crosses are bigger and darker than others.

The physical separation has been painful.  I know, it’s affecting everyone, not just me, but I miss him so much.

My grandson, Master H is four years old and perfect. Biased? Not me. We live 98 miles apart. His Dad, my son, moved away two years ago. Pre-pandemic, weekend visits and moaning about the length of journey to see him was normal. Now I’m moaning because ‘normal’ means we’re not allowed to make the journey at all. It’s not deemed essential you see. I think it’s essential, but Boris and the scientists don’t. I’m middle aged, generally mild mannered, but right now my emotions are higgledy-piggledy. I’ve had temperatures too, but I don’t think they are COVID symptoms. A growing anxiety makes me question my flushes, my sore throat, my sense of smell. It’s just my imagination running away with me. Or the menopause! What a time for The Change. Feeling sorry for myself, my family, and possibly my G.P. if I ever conquer the permanently engaged phone queue to get through to her.

I’ve been sending Master H a weekly present via Royal Mail.  It’s been three weeks and three parcels so far.  An inanimate toy for him equates to a warm hug for me in my head.  The follow-up thank-you calls have been such a welcome and happy part of delivery day. Until it’s time to say bye-bye.

Today’s plan is a Zoom chat. It’s sunny, I’m excited, even put on a bit of make-up.  So looking forward to seeing him.

"Nannnnnny!" a shrill voice shouts out from the IPAD. I notice his hair is longer. I can feel the excitement in the pitch of his voice. Love fills me, spills into my face, my eyes crinkle up smiling. "I got it yesterday" he says. I beam. This time it was a little electronic panda money box. Put a penny on the top, the paw reaches out and grabs it saving the penny and my postal love into the box.

I’m ordered to sit with Grandad (the Mr) and GG (Great-grandmother, my Mum). We crowd around the IPad, almost piling on top of each other to see him. He takes centre stage, with a magician’s hat, a red cape over his pyjamas and the compulsory wand. He has a cardboard box as his table. He takes a bow. His hat falls off.  He is being helped by his dad, and despite his serious face, the show chaos makes me belly laugh. I feel like I am there. The magic connecting rings won’t disconnect and the cones hiding the ball keep toppling over. I don’t care, this is pure treasure.

His magic show lifts me high onto a cloud.

I'll live in this moment now.

He won't be four forever; And nor will covid 'normal'.

Stepping out by Alice Violett

It’s a balmy day in late May, and I’m on a train from Colchester to Chelmsford for the first time this year. I’m feeling jittery, not only because more people board the train at each stop and I’m worried about social distancing, but because I’m seeing my colleagues in the flesh for the first time since last March. We’re going for dinner and drinks to bid farewell to two members of my team with whom I’ve worked closely but only seen on a screen for the past 14 months.

I’m not quite sure I remember how to be with people. How to talk to them.

After so long shut inside with nothing happening, I’m not sure what to say.

The three of us started at around the same time and worked together in the office for two weeks before being sent to work from home. Throughout the three lockdowns we’d been saying to each other ‘when we’re back in the office…’, and we really did believe we would return there before too long.

But the date for going back out to work kept moving further and further away, and now my team-mates are moving on to pastures new. I’m excited to see them advance in their careers and their new jobs sound brilliant, but I’m going to miss them terribly.

For the first few months, lockdown was a novelty. I found it quite nice not to have to get up so early, make so much of an effort with my appearance, or deal with the time and monetary costs of public transport. I had more opportunities to read and listen to music. 

Over time, though, I started to miss my old way of life. The clothes and make-up I used to wear. Going to the gym at lunchtime, except on Wednesdays when I took myself to a café for lunch. The fellow commuters I knew by sight but never spoke to – I wondered how they were getting on?

Most of all, I missed being around people. I missed the spontaneous conversations that helped us get to know each other when we were together all day. Being socially awkward, I never thought I’d get used to, let alone enjoy video calls. However, before long, seeing everyone’s faces at our daily Teams catch-ups became a highlight of my day. I realised how much I needed other people around to get me out of my own head.

We pull into Chelmsford and I make my way to the pub, missing the turning at first. Then I fumble with my name and phone number, which I’m legally obliged to give to the member of staff on the door. I hope that no-one here today comes down with the virus, so they won’t have to contact me. 

I find my colleagues at a large table inside, and start to relax. We talk about things like work and our families, and while I find myself doing far more listening than talking, it’s okay. I’m going to make the most of being out and am enjoying seeing my team-mates ‘in real life’ for the first time in a very long while.

Bubbles by Karen Hughes

In 2019, how could I have known how significant ‘bubbles’ would be to me, now?

I live alone. There’s only me to keep-up my spirits.

Although retired, I hadn’t seen myself as vulnerable or in need.

I avoid TV and media, carefully selecting my online viewing, instead.

So, I had to get to grips with the idea of having a pandemic bubble and what it really meant!

Initially my son shopped for me, knocked on my door and stepped back.

To protect me, this loving and demonstrative young man wouldn’t come close.

Then, I moved to regular online food-deliveries. Later I bubbled with him, anyway.

Soon afterwards, he moved away from Essex… within a few days of my daughter leaving for West Africa!

Suddenly I was completely alone. I had to ‘swap’ my son for a friendship bubble.

These friends hold a door-key for me, so were my obvious choice. (Luckily, they said Yes).

Ah! Safely bubbled, again! Relax.

I love learning, so I used my time during lockdown to study. I also explored my creativity.

In doing so, I guess I became my own bubble.

Truth be told, with Chronic Fatigue, I needed time to rest! I was quite burnt-out.

After decades with this health condition, it was wonderful to spend time alone, to just ‘be’.

No pressure to ‘do’.

I began to enjoy my own company – possibly for the first time, ever.

I’ve gradually ventured into shops – small shops initially – and eventually, supermarkets.

24th July 2021 was the first time I went out properly since lockdown.

It was to a most unusually, bubbly event: “Music of the Spheres”.

A friend invited me. I realised on arriving I had NO idea what I had agreed to!

Have you seen people dance, play instruments, or perform on a trapeze before? Possibly?

BUT, have you seen them do so, INSIDE an enormous bubble!?! Probably NOT?

As part of the event, other performers played medieval instruments: a lyre, hurdy-gurdy.

And sound therapy tools: a gong, Tibetan Bowls.

Or Mongolian throat-singing: overtones/undertones.

It was such a surprise. I was totally captivated. 

I studied sound therapy in 2006, and it fascinates me.

I spoke to one of the musicians afterwards.

That morning I’d pulled a muscle in my shoulder. I mentioned it was still painful.

The musician was also a sound therapist.

He placed a Tibetan bowl on my shoulder-blade and sounded it for a minute or two.

The deep resounding note from the bowl worked perfectly. The pain disappeared.

He demonstrated how he used the bowl and explained its deep note helped it work so well.

It took me a few days to connect the performance bubbles with my own pandemic bubbles!

Lockdown placed me in a bubble as their performances locked them into theirs.

I’d been initially reluctant to attend my first ‘large’ event.

Yet now I see this small gift from a stranger – in releasing my shoulder – as a release from my pandemic experience!

And its bubbles.

I would have hated being locked into their performance bubbles.

Yet my pandemic bubbles mean something different to me.

They offered me: Companionship, Closeness and Creativity.

But I don’t ever want to go back into isolation bubbles again.

Please. Let’s return to normal, now!

The Wall by Pippa Bloom

I have been awake long enough to watch the inky black sky turn into a washed-out orange to an obnoxious blue.

I arrive early.

The hospital is already busy despite the early hours, so I walk down to the memorial wall; shocked into a sombre silence.  I take in the thousands of hearts hand-painted across the concrete. Flowers are placed carefully below messages from loved ones… ‘I miss you mum’, ‘rest in peace my lovely daughter’, ‘in our hearts always’, ‘grandma- expert apple pie maker’.

A morning jogger passes, jarring gasps filling the cold winter air as their feet slap against the pavement. A family of tourists, out of place in lockdown, stop and ask me to take a photo. I stand with the red hearts, carefully holding the stranger’s phone as I capture them in front of The Houses of Parliament: smiling, mask-less, oblivious. The family asks if I’d like my own photo taken- I try to be polite- ‘no, thanks’. I don’t bother telling them that I’ve seen that view of Parliament hundreds of times with each hospital visit. It has lost its charm. With each invasive scan, each infusion, each bruising blood test. It loses its charm in every IV bag: filling my veins with a startlingly clear poison. Some days I feel like a human pincushion. 

I decide to head back to the building, disinfecting my hands and reading each message on the wall as I go. A man stops me and asks me if I have a pen. Clearly, I look like someone who has their shit together enough to have the foresight to bring such a thing. I don’t. I tell him ‘I’m sorry, I don’t, but I wish I did’. I wonder if he has lost someone and wants to write their name. With one last look at the long stretch of red, I wipe my tears and wince when the residue of hand gel causes my eyes to sting even more. Then I head into the hospital. 

The waiting room brings an odd sense of comfort. It’s the familiarity of these bland blue walls and the scratchy sanitized leather chairs, the buzz of nurses calling names and the occasional beep of a machine from another room.

It feels like home. 

My name is called. 

We go through the standard routine: Name? Address? Are you pregnant? Could you be pregnant? Date of Birth? 

‘It’s 2002’. 

The nurse pauses after I answer. Looks me up and down. 

‘You seem far too young to be getting your vaccine this early,’ she says.

I smile at her from beneath my mask, thinking about the waiting room of 80-year olds behind me. 

‘I know’.