Life in the Times of Coronavirus: Lockdown Day 6
Lots of people have asked me how I’m keeping sane in this government-enforced lockdown. How does one deal with the inescapable anxiety about everything from your physical well-being to your financial security to whether you’ll be able to find fresh fruit at the grocery store the next day? How does one “take the edge off” when you have to stay indoors, especially today, the first day of spring which was so bright and beautiful it felt almost cruel?
Before all this happened, I’d head outside for lunch and sit in the sun for a bit, and probably work or read. Now, of course, we can’t even head out without probably being questioned by a police officer. We don’t have to show any documentation to justify our leaving the house like they do in France, but they’ve started enforcing the lockdown more strictly, a fact that I can attest to given the seven times that a police car has creeped down our street. With nearly 18,000 confirmed cases in Spain as of today, and with the Catalan healthcare systems on the brink of collapse according to the regional president, I can see why they want to keep everyone home. We’re certainly committed to doing our part.
We’ve only been in quarantine for a week. And when you’re locked indoors so much, the days just bleed into each other. I really do mean what I said in my last post: other than the fact that I translate or proofread from 8 to 6, there’s not much to differentiate one day from another. No post-work drinks with friends (#Winesdays, as we’ve dubbed them); nothing to really look forward to on Saturday or Sunday night. Don’t get me wrong, we’ll manage with something other than Netflix or YouTube, but I have to admit that being confined for so long poses a unique set of challenges. It’s uncharted territory for me and a lot of other people, I daresay.
The last time I was forced to spend so much time indoors was back in the summer of 2012. I broke my tibia and ankle in a freak accident at the beach near Badalona (on my first day of summer vacation – yes, really) and wound up needing surgery to repair the damage. Long story short, I wound up with a plate and several screws as a result. I also had to spend eight weeks – the entire summer, my favorite season – inside my tiny flat. Back then I shared a 40-square-meter flat with an Italian dude named Giovanni who smoked more weed than I thought one person could handle. My roommate would head off to the beach or the park or perhaps to have a drink with some of his friends, but I was stuck nursing my broken foot and slapping at mosquitos with whatever I had within reach. Giovanni would almost apologetically announce that he was off to whatever fiesta or house in the country for the weekend, and after he left I would sit alone in the slowly darkening living room, my recently-operated leg propped up on a stool.
My point is that I managed. And in very much the same way I am dealing with things now, actually. Social networks, phone calls, films. Books, of course, and The New Yorker. I don’t smoke and I’m a social drinker, so I don’t turn to any substance to deal with whatever I might be feeling. Not one of those 8:00 a.m. buzz types like I saw on Twitter the other day. (No judgements, just not for me.) Instead I talk to my husband or a friend or two and do my best to stay positive. I don’t watch the news anymore, and only read a quick summary before bed to stay up to date with the day’s latest developments. And, of course, to check to see if there are any new restrictions. (The latest one is that we have to go everywhere by ourselves.) Writing helps a lot, too, and I’ve been managing to find the time to catch up on projects that have been stalled for a long time. So in some ways, I feel like I’ve been through this before.
Evidently, though, these times are something else. Back in 2012 I was disappointed at having to spend so long indoors when I would have preferred being at the beach, but there was an end date in sight, so I made the most of the situation. Plus, there was no fear of contagion, nor was the world crumbling down around me. My friends weren’t losing their jobs. I didn’t feel a stab of dread when I saw that we were out of disinfectant spray, meaning we’d probably have to embark on an odyssey to the store. Now the uncertainty is excruciating whether you’re hunting for fresh vegetables or wondering if business will get so bad that you’ll have to start digging deep into your savings. Like most people, I hate not being in control, or at least feeling that there is nothing that I can do other than pray for the best.
Prayer, in my own form, has also been something I’ve turned to as of late to cope. Anyone who knows me is also aware that I’ve largely shunned away from organized religion, but this does not mean that I am not a spiritual person. Just the other day, amid so much bad news and turmoil on the markets, with my mother-in-law complaining of a fever and both my parents at a higher risk of contracting the coronavirus because of their jobs, I turned my eyes heavenward and sent up a silent prayer simply asking for help. A request to be seen, a supplication to be heard, an appeal for relief.
On this note, I was interested in a report I read on Pope Francis visiting the Church of San Marcello last Sunday to pray for an end to the coronavirus. There is video footage of the pope bedecked in his white robes, wandering the eerily empty streets of the Eternal City as he makes his way to the church that houses a famous crucifix that supposedly brought the end of the plague in 1522. Something inside me stirred at seeing the pope driven to such a symbolic act. 500 years later, a different pestilence stalks the earth, and though I am not a Roman Catholic I could understand the appeal of prayer in these difficult times. The body of man is brittle indeed, but the soul houses his true mettle. This situation and all it entails are beyond our control, at least for now, and asking for some kind of spiritual intervention feels all too human in these difficult times.
I just hope somebody’s listening.