In Times of An Endless Global Pandemic: Inner Closeness And Other Thoughts
I am a writer living the dream during a premature midlife crisis in the midst of a global pandemic. I started writing this novel two years ago because I needed closure to things I didn't fully understand. In a writer's world, this is often a gift or a curse. For me, it was both.
My novel is about time. It took me a while to see that. When you're writing a long-form piece, the purpose behind the narrative takes a long time to reveal itself. Sometimes, it takes the entire written work before we find out what it is about. For me, it happened two chapters from the end. I realized that the questions I've been meaning to ask have always been there.They've merely been mutating, traversing between my thoughts.
The pandemic is still happening out there. The world has stopped for a while because of the Coronavirus, a disease that doesn't require introduction. It has spread faster than the News and reached places further than the internet could ever have. Earlier in March, we were told to stay home in order to flatten the curve, because the amount of sick people would soon outnumber the health system's capacity all around the globe. Hospitals, healthcare workers, the hope that we would defeat the virus before it defeated us. All saturated. We haven't flattened the first to begin with and we are about to face it again.
The protagonist of my book seems to think she has all the time in the world in her hands. She doesn't and she'll find out soon enough. Those who know me well would say I'm a ruthless writer, a stark contrast with my otherwise compassionate and romantic nature. I do not protect my characters from the harder realities of life. Every writer flirts with the idea of playing God, of sewing together the stories of characters who initially didn't relate to one another. In this writing process, to fuse the avenues of these lives is to create something the writer might not be ready for, but, we don't hesitate to take the risk. The possibility of foisting these characters’ fates into a new world order feels powerful and intoxicating.
My novel is about choice. I have never had time to do anything I wanted to do. There was always something in my way. Family, jobs, to-do lists. Now, I have all the time in the world, don't I? In a pandemic, we are just perishable passers-by amongst these geographic islands we've built, so what does all the time in the world even mean? It means now. It means there's no such a thing as all the time in the world. It means I've waited long enough to do so many things. This realization is overwhelming, yet healing.
As I write this piece, New York City is about to go on lock-down for the second time. And, as the pandemic goes by and we all continue to talk about social distancing, I keep thinking of the idea of closeness. Not social closeness but an inner closeness with ourselves. That moment in life when we silence the voices of the world and only listen to our own. This unfamiliar moment of truth. Am I happy with the person I have become? What do I stand for? Who am I when no one is watching? It's a hard task but, there couldn't be a better time to do it.
Finishing my novel was cathartic and beautiful. My protagonist realized that having all the time in the world is a fallacy. Nevertheless, she endured the choices she made. Suddenly, time wasn't a burden anymore, it was freedom. She could never control time, so she decided to walk with it. After all, it's not about how much time we have, but how we will spend it.
There's no greater bridge in the world that connects people than a story. As we blindly walk towards an unsettling future, social distancing is essential to contain the spread of the Coronavirus. Yet, we might find the time to practice inner closeness too. For us. For those we love. Perhaps, we'll learn something new about time, people and ourselves. When social distancing is over and we're able to assemble again, togetherness will hopefully have a different taste. I daydream about the day we'll return to the streets with eager arms to embrace the new world we might come out to. A world where we've been truly given a second chance. A second chance to consider time. Ours and everyone else's. A second chance to contemplate the privilege of choice and be grateful for it.
Surviving the Pandemic With Love and Humor: a Guidance to Kindness and Self-Acceptance
I am a writer living the dream in a premature mid-life crisis during the global Covid-19 pandemic. It seems like a lot and it is. How am I surviving? Not sure yet. But I'm still here. Years ago, I promised myself I would keep on writing as long as I could breathe. The world has changed since Covid-19 has taken place. New manners, new habits. The mindset of the new normal is upon us. We are grieving things that haven't been born yet. The dream wedding; that trip to South Asia; the incredible plans we couldn't wait to run; the answers for our uneasy questions; the wonders of a better tomorrow. We, humans, love to make plans, that is how we escape the present. Reality lies in the moment we are at and the current reality kind of sucks. It was there, in the middle of the longest creative block of my life, that I had an epiphany: I am the mother of my emotions. I can not control how they are going to unveil but I can take action towards a positive response to it.
It was a regular pandemic day. Day number 176 to be exact. I woke up and nothing. I felt only the emptiness of ideas as if they have vanished overnight. I was going to write about the female body and its right to exist in the world, but the topic was too close to home and I couldn't do it. There were just too many open wounds to deal with at once. Stephen King once said that “It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.” This quote has been my daily mantra until Day 176 of this pandemic. I used to write to survive but, what happens when the one thing you feel you are really good at no longer brings you joy? What happens when the meaningfulness of something you love suddenly fades away? What can we do to survive when the tools we have known for so long don't work anymore?
Writing has always been an expression of who I am. When I found myself incapable of writing, I was scared. Then, I realized that after six months within a global pandemic, it is a natural response to not feel ourselves. When I realized this is a temporary phase and it will pass eventually, the answer was simple: I had to wait it out. Easier said than done but, it is perfectly fine to embrace the oddness of the current times. Especially when what you do requires a lot of cognitive work. History has told us that many artists and writers have overly produced their work through a crisis, which is valid and quite inspiring; however, it is important to have in mind that many artists also made good use of procrastination through tough times. If you are feeling exhausted with everything that is going on and in need of a break, we are in this together. Here are some of the things I have been doing in order to remain sane. As far as possible, of course.
Read a book you have been aiming for. Not a classic because there's some pressure to read those, nor a best seller just because your friends told you so. Search in your memory or on your phone that one book we have been dying to read and start reading it. The more we enjoy a story, the deeper we dive into its narrative and, as a result, your brain gets a bit of a rest from everything that is going on out there.
Plan a Friday night ritual. We all know what Friday nights are about: pressure to dress up, go out with your friends or do something fancier. Gentle reminder: we are living through a pandemic that is far from an end so, be creative. Silence all the voices of the world and find out what you really want to watch. This must be a judgement free zone in order to work. As for me, I have binged The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, followed by a bottle of wine and Chinese food.
Make time to be with yourself. As for now, the quarantine has been put on hold and we are all craving for some social interaction - always social distancing obviously, with our beloved ones. Since we have been stuck in our homes for a long time, consider going out to places you have been wanting to go by yourself. A change of setting might just be what you need to recharge. I have been making regular visits to Central Park, people watching and eating snacks. Always in the company of that book we talked about earlier. My choice was Grande Sertão: Veredas - a six-hundred pages novel written by the greatest Brazilian writer Guimarães Rosa. Here's a helpful hint: as a bilingual writer, reading in Portuguese - my first language, has kept me closer to home in these troubled times.
Extend the kindness you devote to others to yourself. The reason why I didn't start this paragraph with "Be kind to yourself." is because I have always thought I was being kind to myself during challenging times; however, I was not. A mind-blowing way to figure that out is to do this simple exercise: Pick a situation in your life you feel guilty about. Now, put a beloved friend of yours in your shoes. How would you respond to that? Would you be as rigid with them? Would you consider more deeply the circumstances they are at? While doing this exercise, I realized I was too hard on myself, hence, there is no way to win this battle. The kindness I extend to others, I shall extend to myself too. That is the key to self-care.
Laugh. No matter how difficult the situation is, we are resourceful. Somedays, all we have to do is survive. Get through the night that ends a very long day. This is a long day, but it will pass. Humor is not intended to disrespect nor dismiss the emotions of a difficult reality, but humor is there to help us to get through these moments. Our entire bodies are organic machines of adaptability. As for me, it took a couple of weeks to finish an article that would normally take me a day, but that is okay. I did it for me. I did it for us. Because, sometimes, the only way out is through. The way through though can be scary and obscure but, if we hold hands (virtually), we can make it to the other side.
Life in NYC Post-Pandemic: Are We There Already?
The pandemic is far from having an end. In New York however, as we cope with the idea of a foreseeable future of mask-wear and social distancing, we seem to be rushing back to some sense of normality. Right this second, the priority seems to be figuring out what "the new normal" will look like. The numbers of Covid-19 cases have dropped and the news has reported our first day of 0 registered deaths caused by Coronavirus, which sounds like good news except for the fact that other states are still struggling as their statistics reach the peak of the curve we have all tried to avoid. Going back to socialization can be triggering for some and be a relief for others. Either way, as we witnessed the city of New York that had fallen into a long and deep coma wakes up again, we marvel at the possibility of having our lives back. Which raises the question: are we going back to normalcy? And there's an even more important one: is it safe to?
As we try out new habits and get rid of old ones, life designs itself in front of us and what have we learned since then? Many of us have left the Big Apple and have gone to smaller towns, quieter towns. Industries in the most diverse fields have adapted and so have we. As many of us are contemplating the nuances and adaptabilities of working remotely, some of us managed to stay in New York, either for unconditional love for their city or for the hope that things will look better anytime soon. Is "the new normal" believing?
Let's say that, hypothetically, an effective vaccine for Covid-19 has been announced, would we simply go back to our regular lives as if nothing has ever happened? Historically, it takes decades to permanently change a society and yet, we are still fighting some really old habits such as racism, homophobia or violence against women. The point is if we can not guarantee that we will change the behavior that generated this whole pandemic situation, why are we so eager to get back to normalcy instead of thinking about ways to educate ourselves so a pandemic never happens again? There are many nuances under the umbrella of this subject that we must address if we want the world to actually change.
We certainly can not change everything at once but, taking time to reconsider old habits and new ones, choices in life, business we purchase from, etc, is a beginning. The list is vast but we must do the work we are responsible for. This is a small portion of the greater picture of this problem but, it is worth it to take a look into. It is a good starter to look critically and considerably at how we behave in society: what and where we purchase; how we treat people; what is our relationship with privilege and what we are doing about it; can that vacation trip to Europe wait? Can that trip to the country to see a beloved one wait? More important than asking ourselves these questions is to think about them collectively. Because if there is one thing this pandemic has shown us is that there is no such a thing as a wall setting us apart. As an unified worldwide nation, we either gather together to defeat Covid-19 or we're all going to sink. Haven't we lost enough already?
Ultimately, whatever work we do right now, we might not be able to see it in the long run. It is kind and generous to think though, that every effort we make here will reflect an improvement for the generations yet to come. To that end, I would like to propose an exercise: think of someone you love more than anything, now imagine that this person will be born two generations ahead in a healthier and happier world. If you could somehow travel to the future to meet them and tell what you have done that contributed to this world of theirs, what would you like to be able to say? At the end of the day, one's work might change the reality of the society they live in, one's collective work with their equals though might change an entire civilization.
Listening To Our Hearts During A Global Crisis: The Second Chance Everyone Talks About
Prior to the quarantine, we have only seen the world as we know turning upside down on the television. Our generation has not gone through a pandemic, neither have our parents' generation nor our grandparents' generation. Therefore, we don't have any reference to hold on to in terms of survival and adaptability. It is inherently human though to adapt through adversities. That being said, is it possible to adapt emotionally as well?
The pandemic is a war the school books haven't taught us how to fight. We have learned otherwise that kindness, generosity and acceptance make this world better. Yet, while facing the Covid-19 worldwide outbreak, we have to figure out how to survive our fears and frustrations during the crisis. Anxiety is the most common mental disorder of the century and this crisis has increased several levels of this condition. The widely scaled idea of the unknown is impacting our lives and how we engage socially and professionally with others. On the other hand, we can perceive the pandemic as a call to change, a second chance to do things differently. For ourselves, for those we love and for those we lost during all of this.
While other articles are talking about strategic ways to conquer these challenging times, I would like to invite you to reflect on this: if pre-pandemic, we were rushing through life trying to accomplish this or achieve that, now that the world is on pause, will we dare to take this moment to reconsider things? Will we dare to listen to our hearts and do the work in order to figure out life? What do we want and how do we feel about the world?
Since everything is unpredictably on hold given the pandemic, we might think we don't have a choice other than rethink life right this moment. Truth is we have always had the choice of doing that. However, life changes all the time, so do our priorities. As of right now though, it seems more urgent and appropriate to think things over given the times we are currently living in. Luckily we are adaptable, that is how we survive and endure through time as civilization.
After two months since the quarantine started, several companies across the globe have reshaped their model of work to a fully remote operation. Small businesses have closed, people have moved in and out back to their home cities and countries while we wonder what the future is going to look like. This can be a good or a bad thing. Both can be true though; however, choosing the perspective that keeps us moving forward might be worth it.
The modern world has conditioned us to prioritize certain things: money, career, consumerism, and fame. While we were living an unsustainable model of life, Earth has been sending us signs of its own deterioration but, in spite of all the scientific evidence of how fragile the planet was, we kept pushing it by overly purchasing products; we kept searching for meaningfulness behind smartphone screens; we kept using nature resources and not replacing them; we kept avoiding conflict with others and hiding behind an email, a text message or a busy day at work. Now that we seem to have all the time in the world, this might be our chance to relearn human interactions; to reconsider our role in the world as consumers; to find our true selves; to listen to our hearts for a change and figure out who we are and who we want to be; to own our right to be in this world in a meaningful and positively impactful way. Metaphorically speaking, the world has slowed down to recover and rearrange its course, maybe we can do the same.
Ultimately, we might never go back to that sense of normality as we knew. Again, this can be a good or a bad thing. Both can be true. Which one will you pick? Even relationships as we knew might change. This is an article with, perhaps, too many "it might's", but there are no right or wrong answers. It is just an exercise to raise deeper questions about ourselves and the way we relate to the world, the way we feel the world and how we will want to live in it. Then maybe, only maybe, we might bring to the table the right questions. Not because we know the answers, but because we didn't quite know what questions to ask. With everything that is happening in the world, where is your heart at?
How Are You Handling It? | An Illustrated Column By Ezra W Smith
What a month, huh?
As a person who is overwhelmed easily, I tried to stay offline as much as I could. I was never really reading the news that much, but eventually I stopped going to my usual information sources as well, because… guess what! Even blogs about art and crafts eventually started to only talk about COVID-19. Even lesbian podcasts, even sustainable fashion brands… I couldn’t take it anymore. So I replaced podcasts with audiobooks, and decided to only check the official recommendations of the country of my residence once per two days to know what is going on.
Another hard thing was that the majority of people (at least on social media) seemed to mostly be dealing with boredom and isolation. While I was still working as usual from home plus trying to homeschool my seven-year-old. For the last 3 weeks I was doing two full time jobs at the same time, keeping my home clean and preparing food, and taking care of 2 pets (one with chronic health issues). I wasn’t bored. I was scared and overwhelmed and stressed and under so much pressure. I wanted to yell at people— “what is wrong with you! How can you be tired of doing nothing! What the hell! Your only job is keeping yourselves entertained! This is not a real struggle!”
However I didn’t yell at anyone, even on the internet. In fact I didn’t even complain to any of my friends or anyone else about my situation. I decided that devaluing other people’s struggle in these difficult times is cruel and unproductive. Also I happened to have a child reasonably early in life, so now I find myself in a situation where I have a primary-schooler, but none of my friends have any kids at all and are maybe just starting to think about it now. So I knew nobody would relate. People would feel bad for me, but would not know what to say. Awkward. So I didn’t talk to anyone. Instead I stopped checking my Instagram, stopped listening to podcasts, stopped texting people and focused on actually doing my 2 jobs. Long story short, I survived. And this weekend spring break started so I no longer have to homeschool my child. For the whole week! What a lucky girl I am.
After this quick update on my life, let me finally get to the point. In this column I meant to talk not about myself (for once), but about a friend of mine. Let’s call her Magda.
Magda is the head of an animal shelter. She collects cats and dogs from the streets, takes care of their health, spays or neuters them at the vet clinic, and finds lovely new homes for these animals. The shelter can only function because of the volunteers - people who choose to spend their free time helping this animals, feeding them, socializing with them, giving them the love and attention they need. However, in this difficult situation we all found ourselves in, the government has decided to forbid for now any volunteering that is not connected to COVID-19. And so the shelter had to be closed for the time being. This is how Magda ended up with 6 dogs in a two-bedroom apartment.
But taking care of the animals, managing volunteers, buying supplies for the shelter, is not all of Magda’s job. She also needs to get money for the shelter. Somehow.
In order to do so, Magda has a very beautiful Instagram account where she shares professionally done photos of animals, tells their stories, and encourages people to donate money for the shelter and adopt a pet. And she has to continue to do that now as well. Because even though the shelter is shut down, the rent for it has to be paid, and medications for sick pets have to be purchased.
Three weeks into quarantine, Magda posted to the shelter’s Instagram account a beautiful picture of her, sitting on the couch, surrounded by five sleeping dogs. Her stylish apartment looked amazing, there was a beautiful antique lamp next to the couch. It looked like a cover of a magazine. She and the dogs looked so peaceful and relaxed.
I commented “beautiful”. A second later I got a message from Magda saying “call me.”
I dialed her number. She was crying, several dogs were barking in the background. And then she told me what kind of hell she had been in for the last couple of weeks. So the shelter was closed. She had 6 dogs at home who didn’t really like each other. Well, not all of them.
More than once a day there was a fight. More than once a day she would fail to take a certain dog out on time and they would poop or pee in the apartment. More than once a day an aggressive dog that is basically living in her bathroom was having a nervous breakdown, throwing itself against the bathroom door, and growling for 15-25 minutes straight. They peed on the couch, they made holes in her blanket, and they destroyed her absent boyfriend’s favorite shoes. So now she thinks he’ll break up with her when he comes back (the guy is quarantining with his parents in the countryside). And meanwhile, Magda is not mad at the dogs at all; she is exhausted.
She ran out of photos to post on Instagram from before, and so she is trying to photograph those 6 dogs that she currently has in the house. She basically cleans one little area of the house at a time, then tricks some dog to go there with tasty food and takes a picture. She doesn’t want people to see the chaos in her house. Because… well it is humiliating. She is ashamed of what her cute apartment has become.
She doesn’t want to discourage people from adopting animals from the shelter by showing them how hard it can be.
That conversation made me think of a certain chapter of the book about minimalism I am currently reading. It’s called “The More of Less” by Joshua Becker. The chapter was basically about how comparing ourselves to others makes us feel embarrassed by all the wrong things. Joshua basically writes about how people feel bad about not having as “nice” (meaning expensive) things as people around them. Not looking successful. Not looking respectable.
We get embarrassed that our clothes are not from the right brands (whether it’s luxury brands or sustainable ones), that our vehicles cost less then our neighbors’, or that our houses are smaller than our guests’.
I will be the first to confess feeling bad about all of these things. My daughter is going to a private school. It is a priority for me to give her a healthy and stress-free environment to study with fewer people in class, professional staff who are well-paid and love kids, and a psychologist available to her at all times. My school experience was a horrifying nightmare with hardcore bullying and exhausted teachers who worked long hours and got very little money for their jobs, who had miserable lives and were incapable of liking children at that point. My gentle, shy daughter cannot go throw this, I decided once and for all. But omg! How difficult it is for me to afford it. All of the other parents are 10-15 years older than me - I assume they were making money in their 20s and 30s and then had kids. I feel ashamed of my tiny apartment when other parents bring their children for playdates. I feel weird saying I don’t have a car so I can’t drive my daughter to their three-floor house outside of the city. I feel bad about my worn carpet and the fact that I don’t have a dryer. I am so not like them.
Joshua writes about how our current culture normalizes the pursuit of appearances, possessions, and selfish gain. I would just add that we are basically forced to live up to this universal idea of success: a nice clean (big enough) house, stylish clothes, productivity, financial security. We don’t think our lives are worth showing to others if we don’t at least look like we have achieved that mythical “success”. I think it is very much applicable to Magda’s or, for that matter, my situation.
Joshua writes, “…this feeling of embarrassment stems from our baseline understanding of normal. Nobody feels embarrassed for just being normal. Yet our understanding of normal is entirely subjective, based on the measurements most often defined by the social groups with which we surround ourselves.”
Magda is not feeling normal at the moment because she took foster dogs in, something she is always asking other people to do, but she can’t handle it. She is failing at being happy with these dogs. And of course she was never advocating adopting 6 incompatible dogs at the same time to a small apartment. But I can see how that might feel like a failure to her.
I don’t feel normal at the moment because I am supposed to be bored, and I am supposed to turn this boredom into productivity. That’s what everyone else, it seems, has been doing. I am supposed to be writing a book or drawing a graphic novel that will make me famous. And instead I am so tired I don’t remember who I am anymore, and wearing the same sweatpants for 16 days in a row.
And on a bigger scale, I don’t feel normal because I find myself among people who actually can afford private school without major sacrifices, who maybe had a better start in life or just more time to build a career and make money before they had kids than I did.
I feel unrelatable. I feel like I'm a failure.
However Joshua continues in the book: “What if we are getting embarrassed over all the wrong things? What if instead of being embarrassed because our house seems too small, we became embarrassed over the amount of unused space.” Just think of all the electricity we spend to heat those huge houses we don’t need, and how that impacts our planet.
What if instead of being embarrassed over no car, we would be embarrassed by the amount of pollution our cars produce?
What if instead of being embarrassed by not being capable of buying a third LOL doll this year, we would be embarrassed by the amount of plastic we collect in our houses and its impact on our planet?
What if instead of being embarrassed by not having a clean house with six foster dogs that had no other place to go, we would be embarrassed by breeding even more dogs, buying them for their looks and kicking them out when they fail to fulfill our expectations of a perfect pet, then let people like Magda take care of the rest?
“What if excess became the cause of embarrassment? And responsible living that championed generosity became the norm?” – Joshua concludes.
I am certain that both Magda and I suffer significantly more because we need to be handling everything perfectly and also are expected to let everyone else know how perfectly we are handling it. The reality is that we are not handling it perfectly.
And that’s okay. It’s a difficult, unusual, weird stressful time. And not all of us have to handle it with grace. Some of us are just going to be exhausted and have a messy house. And I think it’s okay. It’s not our jobs to fulfill other people’s expectations of how we are supposed to be handling it.
Our only job is to survive.
