It's been a bit over a month since the official stay-at-home order here in Illinois, and about a month and a half since I've been cooped up. (I wound down my own social outings at the same time that my work sent us the work-remote orders.) So I figure it's a good time to take a quick temp check on how the quarantine has been in my corner of the world since last we spoke.
I'll preface this all with gratitude. As I write this, late-afternoon sun is pouring through the windows in my nearly-all-windows living room (I knew some years ago that natural light matters a lot to my mood, but still feel wildly lucky to be in this SE-facing corner unit) with a breeze blowing through, after a day spent in this spot. I'm grateful that this isn't the first time I've grappled with physical isolation while working from home, and that my grad school depression chapter has given me tools to manage the situation, and a benefit-of-hindsight language to identify both what's happening and what I need. I'm working, and work is stressful, but it couldn't be happening in a better spot, and I haven't felt unloved for one minute of the past six weeks. SO STIPULATED.
First, and most obviously, I have not taken advantage of the time saved on commuting (or robbed from socializing/artmaking) to catch up on editing my travel footage or blogging more generally. Part of this is down to the umbrella fact that we're living through a pandemic, there's a lot of stress and anxiety floating around in the mix, and so it's just plain harder to get things done, despite the occasional asinine and over-privileged (not to say despicable) op-eds sneering that "now that you have all the time in the world you're still not writing that novel." (There's a more nuanced point to be made about exquisite pressure, but this is not a point being made in the present moment, thanks!)
More than that, though, it's the case that the quarantine has helped me get in touch with how I'm functioning these days, and how I process stuff, and one thing that has been clear for a while and is clearer still now, is that spending time in front of a screen is more often bad for my mental health than good. It's the reason I've been off Facebook and Twitter for an age, and constantly wonder if I should quit Instagram. (It also complicates the one mode of "live" connection still available, but more on that later.) Mostly, opening my laptop when it's not for work runs the risk of sending me down "hit refresh until the glowing box makes me happy" rabbit holes that lead to insomnia, anxiety, and self-flagellation over wasting My Precious Time, and so I've been doing less of it, to good effect. I've had my devices off for days at a time, and have been pretty good about unplugging as soon as the work day is done (present moment excepted, of course).
Instead, I've been working on mindfulness - both in the moment-to-moment act of being present, in touch with my emotions and thoughts, and in being deliberate about what I do with my time. It's an imperfect project, but I'm grateful to have the luxury of working on it through all of this.
How that has manifested is honestly only slightly different than pre-pandemic life; I've done more sewing projects (curtains, masks, starting work on pajamas) and more cooking (currently on a kimchi/sauerkraut cabbage-fermenting jag) as well as some writing, a lot of reading, and a surprising amount of acting work and prep. But the pace breathes more openly. Without the need to constantly be listening to a podcast, reading things on my phone when I'm not on my laptop, constantly distracted, I've really loved the moments of stillness, quiet, and deliberation. When I take on a creative project, it's because in that moment I've decided that's what feels good, not frantically grasped at something to keep busy or to beat a deadline. Some of the happiest moments of this past month have been standing quietly in a room, taking a moment just to think about what I'm feeling. Emotional awareness....... it's good!
The social end of things is hard. Taking the "act like you already have the disease" approach seriously is real work given what a social creature I find that I am. I'm fortunate that I don't tend to ruminate on the past or agonize over roads not taken (every disaster has led to miraculous things) but every once in a while I think about the fact that I almost hopped a flight to Scotland when my office went remote, where I would have ben holing up with friends who have a cottage in the countryside and access to horses. And the upsides are obvious - I would have been with dear friends in a place with lots of outdoor space to stay active more easily than in a major city. But I also know that if I were there, I'd be exponentially more worried about my folks, missing my Chicago friends, and homesick for the hard-won comforts of my place. So I'm taking the solitude as it comes.
I've had occasional moments of merciful relief - when a friend who's had and recovered from the virus met up for a masked-and-distant walk, when friends have stopped by to shout to my window or me to theirs, when my parents drove into the city to deliver birthday love and treats at a physical distance. These moments nourish me, and I've never loved the friends and family in my life more than I love them now. But all these moments come with constant reminders of distance and difference, and that's hard to take. I'm incredibly fortunate and privileged, as always - I haven't lost a day of work, I have a home that's warm and lived-in and aesthetically comforting, I have the technology to stay connected. But it's still hard not to get to hug your dad when he finishes running a solo marathon to raise funds for a food bank, to run downstairs when you see a friend of fifteen years on the sidewalk, etc. etc.
And Zoom... well, I don't love it. I'm glad it's there, obviously, but it's a coin flip whether it feels better to connect with friends online or to simply accept the loneliness of their absence. I incline toward the former, and it's somewhat a different story with friends who weren't local to begin with. Connecting with my UK or LA or New York pals is flat-out nice, but the handful of times I've Zoomed into virtual Chicago gatherings, I've more often felt frustrated at the artifice of the medium. It's still a miracle that we have this tool for such an unprecedented-in-our-lives event, but I wrestle with that.
But mostly I guess when these weeks have been good, they've been good because I'm heeding the best advice out there, which is to recognize that this is a traumatic event to varying degrees depending on who you are in the world, and that your reaction to it is necessarily going to be imperfect and suboptimal, and that's okay. Beating yourself up over not writing Lear serves nobody, so instead I'm trying to use the time as an opportunity to embrace quiet and slowness and patience, to listen more deeply to myself and the people in my life, and when I do manage to go beyond the treading-water of work-remote-and-sleep, to take deeper pleasure in the simple focus on what I'm doing.
(I should caveat, if it doesn't go without saying, that I am also politically enraged basically every day. If you're reading this, I beg you: please find ways to volunteer your time or money for every nearby contested Senate/House/state election. The presidency is important, obviously, but the horrible, racist, money-worshiping inhumanity of the GOP will not go away when Trump does, so you are very much needed in the fight against profound evil!)
So when I feel the tug to look at my footage from last year's travels, that'll come into focus. When I feel ready to play with seams and lines, I'll turn back to the sewing machine. When I'm ready to undertake elaborate cooking projects, I'll put on a record and head into the kitchen. When I'm ready for meditative quiet, I'll take Allison's yoga class online, or I'll perch in the sun in an armchair that's exactly where I want to be, with a cup of milky tea on the end table that feels just right, and I'll page through an honest-to-god BOOK. And when I need to connect with friends (imperfectly, half-measuredly) I'll jump on Facetime or hop on my bike for some Romeo-and-Julietting. And the days will go by and the world will come into whatever comes next, and I'll be grateful I was here to see it all.
Stay safe, lovers. The world (ARGUABLY) needs you!
