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Dear Kitty
Mar. 21st, 2020 10:25 amThe great global lockdown is upon us, and various friends are making motions to restart their blogs, so I figured I might as well get on board and party like it's 2004 again. Before the everyday inanity starts, here is a rundown of events thus far:
I arrived in Denmark on March 7th, travelling via surface routes rather than flying from Stansted to Billund as I usually do. I have wanted to do this for years, but Ryanair was cheaper; however, the school has recently adopted a travel agent rather than booking travel themselves, and the agent does not work with Ryanair, so the usual route was no longer available. This meant I got to go on a ship! And then about seventeen trains through Holland, Germany, and Denmark – all told, about 24 hours in transit, but a good time except for having a cold.
The class was super talented and they really took on board what I delivered in my lectures, so I was looking forward to this being an exceptionally successful year ... until Denmark shut universities that Wednesday night. We were allowed back to the school Thursday to discuss plans and collect stuff to go home, but no classes. Despite only having two weeks' clothes and my laptop and tablet, I wanted to stay in my accommodation there rather than return home, but the very sensible administration instead bought me a plane ticket for that night, flying in to Heathrow. We planned to continue the class, to the extent possible, online. Before leaving, I stopped in at the local supermarket to buy my annual block of Danish yeast. There had been no panic buying – it was slightly more crowded than usual for a Thursday morning but the shelves were still fully stocked – however the yeast was cleaned out! It may have been a supply issue, but I like to think it's because the Danes have their priorities figured out, and if you're going to be stuck at home for an extended period of time, good bread is a bare essential.
Anyway, because I had used every mode of public transit through four European countries in the space of a week, I decided I ought to go into lockdown myself, just in case I was carrying something. Having eaten up most of my groceries in anticipation of being gone for a fortnight, I needed to do a little stocking up, so Friday morning (March 13th) I did a Sainsbury's run for some essentials. The pasta and tinned beans were gone, but I didn't need them; the rest of the store was fine, and surprisingly there was still ample supply of instant noodles. So far that's the only thing I wish I'd stocked up more.
Since then, aside from a brief excursion on Monday to see if the organic wholefoods shop had got their occasional Monday delivery of live yeast (no), I haven't left the house. Now, this is not an unusual circumstance for me – I spent most of my teenage years in my bedroom, and I'm sure there were weeks in the summer where I never left the house either. I find that a tiny bit of socialising is usually enough, and I rapidly reach my limit. I love teaching, and my classes are always full of excellent humans whose company I enjoy very much, but when I get back I have run out of words entirely and have to spend a week in seclusion just to let the well refill. So in that regard, situation normal.
The complicating factor here is that my housemates have been sent home from work, so instead of having the house to myself for most of the day, there are now people around, ALL THE TIME. I am reaching my social limit just hearing them bustling around and talking to each other and to other people on the phone, on top of the computer-based socialising I am doing with my class. I feel like the only person in the world who is suffering from too little isolation under quarantine, though I know there must be plenty more like me.
But there's nothing that can be done about it. I just have to put on my headphones and get on with things. Once upon a time I was very good at shutting out the world and living in my own little headspace. In recent years, though, I have made a conscious effort to be more sensitive to what's going on around me and more engaged with the real world. It has made me both a better artist and a better human, but at times like this I miss my pomelo-thick rind that nothing could penetrate. Maybe I just need to grow it again, like a dog grows their winter coat when the weather gets cold. It doesn't happen immediately but it will turn up in time.
Meanwhile I am contemplating strategies for how to cope with the new normal. One of them is to go on the night shift. I am by nature a night owl, but have somehow trained myself to be an early riser, as that enables me to do all my morning stuff and leave the house before the housemates start their morning routine (two people competing for the bathroom is more harmonious than three), and then I return when they've left for work. As newbie workers-from-home they are still at the 'roll out of bed at 9' phase, which is giving me a nice long lead-in to the day. However, being late risers, they are then up late, so my attempts to get an early night and sufficient sleep before an early start are not being met with much success. However, if I were to go to bed as they're sitting down to their work day, and rise at dinnertime, they could play their music until half midnight if they wanted to and it wouldn't bother me. I went nocturnal during the blazing hot Utah summers so am well practised at sneaking around in silence. I don't remember when I first read the diary of Anne Frank, but that and other Holocaust stories inspired a long-running fascination with how to live in hiding. I could never have expected to employ that practice in this context, but it will not go to waste!
I arrived in Denmark on March 7th, travelling via surface routes rather than flying from Stansted to Billund as I usually do. I have wanted to do this for years, but Ryanair was cheaper; however, the school has recently adopted a travel agent rather than booking travel themselves, and the agent does not work with Ryanair, so the usual route was no longer available. This meant I got to go on a ship! And then about seventeen trains through Holland, Germany, and Denmark – all told, about 24 hours in transit, but a good time except for having a cold.
The class was super talented and they really took on board what I delivered in my lectures, so I was looking forward to this being an exceptionally successful year ... until Denmark shut universities that Wednesday night. We were allowed back to the school Thursday to discuss plans and collect stuff to go home, but no classes. Despite only having two weeks' clothes and my laptop and tablet, I wanted to stay in my accommodation there rather than return home, but the very sensible administration instead bought me a plane ticket for that night, flying in to Heathrow. We planned to continue the class, to the extent possible, online. Before leaving, I stopped in at the local supermarket to buy my annual block of Danish yeast. There had been no panic buying – it was slightly more crowded than usual for a Thursday morning but the shelves were still fully stocked – however the yeast was cleaned out! It may have been a supply issue, but I like to think it's because the Danes have their priorities figured out, and if you're going to be stuck at home for an extended period of time, good bread is a bare essential.
Anyway, because I had used every mode of public transit through four European countries in the space of a week, I decided I ought to go into lockdown myself, just in case I was carrying something. Having eaten up most of my groceries in anticipation of being gone for a fortnight, I needed to do a little stocking up, so Friday morning (March 13th) I did a Sainsbury's run for some essentials. The pasta and tinned beans were gone, but I didn't need them; the rest of the store was fine, and surprisingly there was still ample supply of instant noodles. So far that's the only thing I wish I'd stocked up more.
Since then, aside from a brief excursion on Monday to see if the organic wholefoods shop had got their occasional Monday delivery of live yeast (no), I haven't left the house. Now, this is not an unusual circumstance for me – I spent most of my teenage years in my bedroom, and I'm sure there were weeks in the summer where I never left the house either. I find that a tiny bit of socialising is usually enough, and I rapidly reach my limit. I love teaching, and my classes are always full of excellent humans whose company I enjoy very much, but when I get back I have run out of words entirely and have to spend a week in seclusion just to let the well refill. So in that regard, situation normal.
The complicating factor here is that my housemates have been sent home from work, so instead of having the house to myself for most of the day, there are now people around, ALL THE TIME. I am reaching my social limit just hearing them bustling around and talking to each other and to other people on the phone, on top of the computer-based socialising I am doing with my class. I feel like the only person in the world who is suffering from too little isolation under quarantine, though I know there must be plenty more like me.
But there's nothing that can be done about it. I just have to put on my headphones and get on with things. Once upon a time I was very good at shutting out the world and living in my own little headspace. In recent years, though, I have made a conscious effort to be more sensitive to what's going on around me and more engaged with the real world. It has made me both a better artist and a better human, but at times like this I miss my pomelo-thick rind that nothing could penetrate. Maybe I just need to grow it again, like a dog grows their winter coat when the weather gets cold. It doesn't happen immediately but it will turn up in time.
Meanwhile I am contemplating strategies for how to cope with the new normal. One of them is to go on the night shift. I am by nature a night owl, but have somehow trained myself to be an early riser, as that enables me to do all my morning stuff and leave the house before the housemates start their morning routine (two people competing for the bathroom is more harmonious than three), and then I return when they've left for work. As newbie workers-from-home they are still at the 'roll out of bed at 9' phase, which is giving me a nice long lead-in to the day. However, being late risers, they are then up late, so my attempts to get an early night and sufficient sleep before an early start are not being met with much success. However, if I were to go to bed as they're sitting down to their work day, and rise at dinnertime, they could play their music until half midnight if they wanted to and it wouldn't bother me. I went nocturnal during the blazing hot Utah summers so am well practised at sneaking around in silence. I don't remember when I first read the diary of Anne Frank, but that and other Holocaust stories inspired a long-running fascination with how to live in hiding. I could never have expected to employ that practice in this context, but it will not go to waste!
