The comings and goings of life in a pandemic

Matt Elliott • Jun 13, 2020

Refuelled, repurposed, up-skilled and focussed

Hello social distancers. Today I put together some words in case you thought I'd fallen off the edge of our flat earth :) I'm here. Hello!

So, homeschooling. Wow… I have a child in prep and one in year two so it was, let’s say, eye-opening in the least. Getting an opportunity to see my boys learning from a close distance had such a big impact on me.

I come from a family of teachers and so when it emerged that we would be teaching at home, I jumped at the chance to take on as much of it as I could. I had no idea what was involved before I put my hand in the air and said yes to it. Something was telling me that this was going to be up there with the great experiences of my life. I couldn’t articulate that at the time but with hindsight, I can see why I was having that gut feeling.

Just the extra time that I got with the kids was satisfying enough. Then I was able to see where they were at in their learning. I was amazed at the different concepts they were being introduced to such as change, prediction and chance. Simple at age 41, groundbreaking at 5. On top of that, we bonded over being creative together. We made hats, a cardboard house and musical instruments. The coolest part was showing them some of my methods of thinking creatively.

At one stage we had to find something that started with O. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. We looked around my office but we struggled. I asked Finley to pass me a piece of paper. I drew an oval shape and asked him to cut it out. Just like that, we had ourselves something that started with O, an oval. Simple stuff like this lit his eyes up and it dawned on me that I was actually teaching. It was a feeling akin to standing up on a surfboard for the first time and riding a wave. Cogs were turning, it was brilliant.

Trying to get any of my own work done was hilarious. I’d set up one child with his task, set up the other and think to myself, “sweet, I’ll get an hour of work done here.” Ummm, no, don't be ridiculous. Most times, I’d hear “excuse me Dad” as my bum was hovering over my chair about to sit down. I probably should have set up a camera to film my reactions. Quality viewing that would have been. At the time I had 9 weddings in the editing process so there was a bit of work to get through. And on that note, thank you to all of my couples. Your patience through this whole shit show is very much appreciated.

In the end, we spent 22 days together learning at home. There were some days we did overtime and others where we did half a day and played outside instead. That flexibility is a lesson in itself. The experience our education system has gained through this is of such great value. The teachers at our primary school gave so much to this and I’m very thankful my boys have such great people in their lives. I’m currently editing a little film we made of their last day of homeschooling. Just a bit of fun really.

Having remote learning on my plate was a good distraction because at the same time I was dealing with a wedding industry grinding to a halt. The uncertainty was the hardest thing to live with. Like everyone, this virus was unsettling on all fronts. I was proud of many people around the world inspiring us to push on, do our bit and love one another. I cried watching Maurizio Marchini sing on his balcony in Italy and Chris Martin’s virtual concert on Instagram was pretty cool too. Seeing footage of Doctors and Nurses doing their thing probably gave us all a new perspective on who is important. I loved seeing superhero posters with medical professionals instead of Iron Man.

I had around 20 weddings to postpone that were scheduled to take place between April and September. Guest lists made up of primarily international’s meant there were other weddings further down the track that had to be postponed too. Working out how to handle the money side of it was difficult and to a certain extent, even now in the middle of June, it’s still a bit unknown. To everyone that had to postpone their big day, it sucks, I’m with you. I won’t sugar coat anything or try to give you a silver lining. It just flat out sucks. What I hope is that the process of changing your date was as painless as it could possibly be. I saw a few horror stories online but from what I can see, most things were pretty good all things considered.

For me, I’ve been pretty lucky. I’ve got a great bunch of people around me. Family, work colleagues and clients have all shown amazing support. Couples making payments early, previous couples ordering albums as well as printed products through their online gallery has been a huge help. It’s blown me away. The government support has allowed me to look at my business too. The Victorian business grant has gone towards new equipment to venture into making wedding films. Online courses in storytelling and personal development have added a lot to my world. Getting a good understanding of new equipment and software has been good fun too. I have no issue admitting that I’m a gear head, I love learning the capabilities of new toys.

I’ve also mixed things up in my life by working on my house. The house had an 80's maroon/red and I’ve finally painted over it. I agonised over colours too, that was a nightmare. I’m an over-thinker with a background in Graphic Design! I shake my head at myself daily.

On the topic of overthinking. I’ve been stewing on what to write for weeks. I haven’t been active on the socials or my blog for over a month now. I had two beautiful people check up on me this week which told me it’s about time I say hello. Most of you will know that I’m an introvert so I’ve been using this downtime to recharge the batteries. It wasn’t until yesterday that I fully nailed down what I would write about either. I love writing but it can be frustrating for me at times. On this occasion, there’s way too much to fit into a caption on Instagram so a diary entry type of thing is what I’m attempting to do here.

I go over everything I write a thousand times before I post it. I’ve deleted so many half-written things, telling myself I’ll come back to it another day. Rattling around in my brain is whether I say something about topic A, give an opinion on topic B. What I know is that I feel things deeply and the issues of the world weigh heavy. I’m an idealist with a passion for equality but at the same time, I prefer to go about trying to make things better in a quiet fashion away from any spotlight.

I asked myself the question. What am I doing to help change the world and eliminate racism? The answer to that is I’m starting at home with what I teach the kids. Our words and actions can do so much to heal the world. It’s playing the long game but the reward is big. I’m a long way short of having all the answers and this bit of writing isn’t intended to be an instruction manual. I have two kids learning from me that I can have a positive impact on with my words and actions and so that’s a big focus for me. We’ll learn together and I’ll give them all the tools they need to go out into the world and be a good influence.

There’s been a few articles come my way that have all centred around love. Love is where it’s at. It’s the core. It’s our starting point. I photograph love for a living. That’s a pretty special thing to be able to say and there’s no plan to stop now. If we start with love, the rest will fall into place.

I find a lot of inspiration in lyrics and so I thought I’d end these ramblings with this...

Come on people now

Smile on your brother

Everybody get together

Try to love one another

Right now

- The Youngbloods

Much love,

Matt

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