大使疫情手记 (双语6) —— 夏去秋来

Geoff Raby与艺术家方力钧在宋庄

作者：Geoff Raby

中文：罗曼

转自朱雀艺术

前澳大利亚驻华大使、艺术收藏家、经济学家、专栏作家 Dr Geoff Raby AO 原计划于二月底返回北京，后因疫情爆发滞留悉尼。朱雀艺术特别开设【号外】专栏，连载大使的疫情手记。今日连载至第6篇。

大使疫情手记

夏去秋来

秋天来了。一些叶子先是开始变黄，但很快变成现在的棕色，有些树落叶的速度也越来越快。这种感觉很奇怪，好像身处时间之锁，季节在周围变换，但你只是一个观察者，并非参与者。

秋天是我钟爱的季节。我一向喜欢富有浪漫情怀的收获季节。我内心始终觉得略微厚重的服饰比夏季轻薄的衣物更有型。用暖心的美食与醇厚的美酒与明亮轻快的夏日作别，更是一桩乐事。

大多数情况下，无论你关注哪个联盟，澳大利亚的秋季都代表着足球赛季的开始。

这才是秋季真正的含义。而今年有所不同。

依稀记得在我五岁那年一个秋日的周六午后，父亲第一次带我去到北菲兹洛伊区的不伦瑞克街椭圆球场，观看他支持的菲兹洛伊队主场比赛。

AFL澳式足球联赛伴随着秋天来临拉开了序幕，随之而来的还有缕缕秋霜、层层泥泞，以及落满一地的梧桐黄叶。

就我而言，六十二年以来，秋季一直是澳式足球联赛（或我年轻时观看的VFL维多利亚州足球联赛）赛季的开始，而如今这些都被病毒终结了。

新冠病毒已经中止了澳式足球联赛、澳式橄榄球联赛、F1、澳网，以及其他一切我们以为会一直在生活中延续的存在。

如今，顶级赛事纷纷宣布大幅减薪，各大联盟都在与球员们谈判降低报酬，人们就这些体育赛事的生死存亡作出种种猜测。

竞技运动员需要保持身体在巅峰状态。

与可以关闭重启的引擎不同，人体在达到巅峰状态之后会很快老化（不过有时候网球运动员似乎是个例外！）。

比赛停摆六个月或许会让一些本可以继续效力的运动员不得不提前终结职业生涯。

至少澳洲在控制病毒传播方面做得还算不错，但现在说还为时过早。

据专家评论，我们目前尚不清楚紧急情况何时才能结束。危机解除时，生活会恢复正常吗？

会不会真的到了那天，人们已经适应了停摆生活，于是在疫情后会继续过着和现在并无二致的生活，而抛弃原来的生活方式？

无论我们喜恶与否，大概是不喜欢的，我们都在书写历史。

今天，我用Skype参加了一次董事会，在Zoom上接受了一个电视采访，还在Facetime上和人聊了很久。

如果视频和数字会议还没有像现在这样成为常态，我简直无法想象蜂拥的人们每天需要乘坐飞机在悉尼和墨尔本两地往返通勤。

很多类似的事情都将改变。

这场疫情，以及疫情下我们所不得不采取的应对之策都对昔日的平静造成了太大的冲击。

夏末秋初的感怀永远不会消逝，但是如果没有了球赛，一切就再也不同了。

Geoff Raby’s Pandemic Journal 6

As summer turns to autumn

Autumn is settling in. At first some leaves started to turn yellow but have now quickly become brown, and some trees are shedding theirs at an ever, faster rate. It feels strange as if one is standing still in a time lock and the season is changing around you, but you are an observer, not a participant.

Autumn is my favourite season. I have always liked the romantic soulfulness of a time of closing up. Turning inward to warm places, thicker clothes that somehow look more stylish than the flimsy warmer weather things. Heartier foods and heavier drinks are a welcome change from the light and bright of summer. 

Mostly, however, it is the start of the football season, whichever code you follow in Australia. That is the true tribal characteristic of autumn. And now it has gone. Since I was five years old and my father took me to the football on a Saturday afternoon to watch his team, Fitzroy, at the Brunswick Street oval in North Fitzroy, the onset of autumn has meant the start of the AFL season – frost, mud, a layer under foot of crunched up brown leaves from the large plane trees.

Consider that just for me, for 62 years, autumn has been the start of the AFL (or VFL when I was young) season, and now the virus has stopped it. The virus has stopped AFL, NRL, F1, tennis, and everything else that was a part of our lives, that we always assumed would go on and on. Today, top sports administrators are announcing huge salary cuts, the various leagues are in deep negotiations with the players to cut salaries, and much speculation is about the very survival of these sports.

Elite sports people need to keep their bodies working at their peak. It is not like an engine that can be switched off and started again. Bodies age quickly at the elite level (except for some reason it would seem in tennis!). A six-month gap without performing might be the end of a number of careers that otherwise may have continued for a little while longer.

It would seem that in Australia, at least, we are doing reasonably well on restricting the virus’ spread, but it is also far too early to say. Listening to the commentary from the expert professionals, it is not clear how we will know when the emergency has ended. And when it has, will life go back to normal?

Will people by then have adjusted to the life of the shutdown so much that after COVID-19, we will continue a lifestyle closer to what we’re all living now than what we were living before the virus? Whether we like it or not, and mostly quite sensibly we don’t, we are creating history in our lifetime.  

Today I did one board meeting by Skype, a TV interview by Zoom and had a long chat over Facetime. It would be remarkable if video and digital conferencing now doesn’t become the norm and packing people on aircraft for the daily Sydney to Melbourne biz commute the exception.

Many things like this will change. COVID-19 and the way we have all had to deal with it is just too big a shock simply to return to the status quo ante. The melancholy turning of summer into autumn won’t change, but without the football it will never be the same.