Phosphorescence, Julia Baird's book of essays on how to get through dark times, is perfectly timed

That was the week we began to understand that we would be asked to do without morning coffee at our favourite café; that we would forego dinner parties, barbecues, and family gatherings. We learned we could work from home, do yoga, puppy training and drinks on Zoom, and would even resist the temptation of driving somewhere at Easter, an exodus usually sacred in the national psyche.

This came, mind you, hard on the heels of the upending of that other sacred cow, the summer holidays down the coast, by the worst bushfire season in living memory. Certainly, 2020 has turned out to be like no other year.

The reflections that Julia Baird offers in this lovely book of essays chime with these times, and seem preternaturally suited to it. In the face of the fear and the constraints that COVID-19 has brought to us this book dwells on possibilities for gentle enlightenment - things that might be practiced from the confinement of one's own home.

Baird is a writer that seems to work best in her own words. For example, when writing about her own experience of ocean swimming: "Something happens when you dive into a world where clocks don't tick and inboxes don't ping. As your arms circle, swing and pull along the edge of a vast ocean, your mind wanders, and you open yourself to awe, to the experience of seeing something astonishing, unfathomable or greater than yourself." (p23)

We should think of exercise not just as something to build fitness and mental health, but as an opportunity to get into the natural world and encounter awe and wonder. Of wonder, she notes that it "prompts us to ask questions of each other and the world ... a core part of being human is wondering about creatures other than ourselves". Baird quotes many philosophers on this, from Aristotle to Martha Nussbaum. [Add to the list the recent book Reclaiming Wonder by Australian philosopher, Genevieve Lloyd.]

The "things that sustain you when the world goes dark" include stories and images, memories of people and places. Like that of her groodle, Charlie, who grew to be a giant: "It is impossible to walk him without people commenting on his size. He has been compared to a yeti, a Shetland pony, a fluffy great Dane, a polar bear, Chewbacca, a horse, a cow, a yak, a magical beast ... " (p195)

The positive impact of dog ownership is being borne out by the many people reaching out to rescue dogs in the face of the "stay-at-home" measures.

"It is Central Park that I will always think of, when I most miss New York. It won't be the astounding convenience of twenty-four-hour availability; the skull-sized chocolate-chip cookies from Levain bakery; the rooftop bars; the Catherine wheel of creative output in museums, galleries, opera halls and libraries ... Instead it will be the hours spent running past the icy rowboat lake and up through the wildness of The Ramble, of the snow-stacked branches, the sound of my feet hitting icy dirt and the joy on my dog's face." (p47)

But she surely never thought to add to her description the presence of a field hospital there. Without doubt, this last week must count as a time when in Central Park "the world went dark".

"As I write this, I am acutely conscious that it may seem as though I am suggesting we all Pollyanna our way through life, always looking for the glad things, the bright parts, the shiny bits. In truth, life is often ugly and awful, and in the face of it we can grow small, angry and obsessed with crumbs. We may end up grieving loss or lying in hospital beds with our fists clenched in fear and anger..." (p234)

The prescience of this is almost hard to read, as we now witness the twin health and economic catastrophes of COVID-19 unfold. But Baird says she wrote the book "in the hope that it might be a salve for the weary, as well as a reminder of the mental rafts we can build to keep ourselves afloat".

This seems more than timely, as we practice social distancing without allowing it to become a spiritual estrangement.