Adaptation

Adaptation: Noun

1. the action or process of adapting or being adapted.
2. a change or the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment.

I’ve been thinking a lot about adaptation recently, from three viewpoints: that of one of my characters; that of our lives under COVID, and that of the lives of all living beings on this planet in the face of ecological change. (The latter came about from my last birding column – I write one monthly for a small community publication- where I looked at the spread of turkey vultures into Canada in the last 50 years, and the reasons for it.)

My character, who is physically disabled as a result of war wounds, is also aging. His eyesight is beginning to fail, and he’s a teacher, a reader and a writer. As my books are set in early medieval times, there are a limited number of solutions. A long follower of Stoic philosophy, he’ll approach this with the same calm exterior as he has his physical limitations, although interior frustrations exist.

Write what you know. I’ve experienced a period in my life where medical treatments made a few things in my life physically impossible or limited my ability to be active. I’m pulling on how that felt; I’m also conscious of my own poorer eyesight, and the limits it’s already forcing. I use an big external screen, and my magnification in Word is set at 140%.  But right now, what I use the most in thinking about his frustrations are my frustrations at the changes COVID has imposed on my writing life.

Full disclosure : what I’m whining about here is incredibly minor. It’s ridiculous to even complain. But we feel what we feel, sometimes, regardless of what Stoic philosophy or any other belief system tells us. I miss, sometimes horribly, the ability to write outside my home. I used to write, for part of my day, in coffee shops and the university library. Coffee shops when I needed the buzz of conversation, the supply of good coffee, and the occasional cookie – and almost always a writing friend to chat to about our respective work for a few minutes. The university library when I needed silence and access to books for research. (There was also our Monday morning writing group, three hours of coffee-and-tea fueled silent writing in a bar space above our town’s indie bookstore, followed by a two-hour writing-and-book-discussion lunch at the adjoining café.)

Plus I’d bike or walk downtown, and back, unless the weather was really horrible. So my days had their exercise built in. There’s a big hill between me and downtown, so walking was only an 8 km round trip, but biking needed an extended trip that gave me about 15 km of riding. I’m 62: I have arthritis in both my upper and lower spine; I have Dupuytren’s contracture in both hands, which makes my fingers ache after a while (thanks, Viking ancestor.) Posterior vitreous detachment has left me with more floaters than clarity in my left eye, and the right one’s not great either. All these aggravations of aging mean that taking lots of breaks, and changing my writing position during the day, are beneficial. Writing downtown meant that happened more or less naturally.   

But this is all at a standstill. Now I write for two hours at my desk (and get up frequently to make coffee, eat breakfast, feed the cat, during that time) and then I go biking or walking for 90 minutes, come home, shower, and it’s just about time for lunch. That’s the morning taken care of.  Afternoons – when I’m still on the computer, but doing other tasks – editing, beta reading, writing articles or blog posts, marketing – are not so well disciplined. I miss my in-the-flesh writing friends, but I’ve made several good virtual friends via Twitter, and we spend time chatting back and forth. A much needed and appreciated interaction, but I’m still at the computer. My phone timer goes off every 45 minutes, reminding me to get up. I clean the house 15 minutes at a time, to make myself move. I do floor exercises. I do laundry. I water our pots of tomatoes and peppers. I walk to the mailbox. I’m adapting my behaviour, because changes in our ecology – the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus – has forced me to.

I consider myself lucky that I have somewhere to channel these feelings, into the frustrations felt by my characters as their own lives are constrained by circumstance. Not just the one character’s physical limitations, but others, too: my characters all regret, for various reasons, their distance from family; the inability to hug or kiss many of those they love; the constraints on travel. They too are privileged, within their society; they too have adapted. But I’m guessing the book I’m writing, and the books still to be written, will be subtly different than they would have been if COVID hadn’t come. Adapted, you might say.