I just breathed a sigh of relief when I read an opinion piece in today’s Washington Post by psychologist Dr. James Danckert- https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/17/boredom-social-distancing-quarantine/?arc404=true.
This afternoon I phoned friend to follow up a brief, worrying conversation we had a couple of days ago, that was cut off suddenly because her dogs’ vet was calling. We connected again this evening, and I was pleased to hear the dogs are doing better, she sounded better, and we talked about some of the stresses and worries in our lives – different for each of us, but all precipitated by the pandemic and the unknown future ahead of us all. We’ll have a driveway social gathering in the next few days, we on our folding chairs at the top of the drive, they in their car parked across our entrance just outside our front gate. In the meantime we’ll work out how to handle drinks and snacks so that no one touches anything – prolly BYO, – and chat for a while. It will do us all good.
When we went into self isolation over a month ago, despite having many interests I could enjoy at home, I went into a sort of slough. Suddenly across all my own news feeds was a proliferation of all kinds of stuff live streamed – we can tune into wonderful opera and concerts from symphonic to jazz, museum tours, regional travelogues, cooking, sewing and other needlework projects, art lessons, physical activity classes/sessions, gardening projects and much more – there’s an endless list of things people are putting forward to help keep all the isolated at home interested and occupied. I have wide cultural interests across performance art and music of all kinds, (high and low brow) a keen reader (fiction and non-, books, audio and kindle) and a multimedia textile artist. I write a couple of blogs. I play mahong, and love a night of cards. Mike and I love having friends around for a barbie or dinner. And I’ve never done so much deleting and scrolling in my life.
I have finished just a couple of books, and listened to most of a very long audio book, and read a lot of stuff on my kindle. Daily I read the several newspapers from Australia, USA and Uruguay, countries in which our family are located. I’ve started but not finished a couple of fairly minor textile art projects., like this one:
Unlike some of my book club or mahjong group friends, I haven’t tried out new recipes. I’ve hardly watched more movies than we normally did pre-pandemic, that is, about 2 per week. Late last year we did a whole lot of spring cleaning and turning out of cupboards, so I haven’t gone down that rabbit hole, either I’m not a gardener, so haven’t done what one of my sisters has:- she’s started winterising her garden.
Three weeks ago Mike bought a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle which now occupies half of the dining table, and he dips into it an hour or so at a time, several times a day. In the 51 years we’ve been married, until he took this action, I never knew he used to make jigsaw puzzles when he was still a kid, and has always been interested in them. That interesting information certainly explains/backgrounds some of his professional interests and aptitudes.
When I read these words from James Denckert today: “Maybe right now we can’t pursue all the things we normally find meaningful, but spending the time deliberately thinking about what matters most is never a bad thing. Then we can choose to act. The scope of what we do — learning a new language or just baking a cake — matters less than the fact that we are the ones doing the choosing” I felt very reassured. I’ve chosen to ditch some activities and focus on things that mean most to me, and it feels very good. Keep well and stay safe, everyone. And wash your hands!