Sure, this is a challenging time but even though we are alone we are together like never before. I only wish I had children at home so we could spend time doing homework, puzzles and crafts!
Since it’s just me and my life partner, I begin the day with ten minutes of meditation followed by an entry in my gratitude journal, where I also set my intentions to be present and productive.
I have been making a morning smoothie to drink while I apply a fragrant citrus mask to my feet and elbows, at the same time oiling my dry scalp with African castor oil and wrapping my head in a reclaimed plastic bag. I sprinkle some flax seed and bran onto a crust of bread (no wasting!) and chew slowly for at least five minutes.
Obviously, with so much free time, I am starting those projects I meant to do in junior high but was too stoned or depressed to tackle. I’m learning Swahili, finally! and old Norse, and I’m arranging zoom conferences with impoverished refugee women in Tanzania. We carve things out of potatoes and root vegetables to sell on Etsy, or sometimes we just do native dance moves and draw up plans for menstruation huts.
I have started to press flowers and crochet doilies in case a wormhole in time sends us all back to the nineteenth century! I’m scrap-booking, making collages, covering the driveway with mosaics, tie-dying rags, growing tomatoes and radishes, and making my own pasta from scratch. I’m baking bread like a maniac, because it just smells so good, and also making balloon animals for charity.
I’m hand-washing and ironing all our curtains and re-grouting around the toilets and bathtub. I am nearly done writing a critique of Finnegan’s Wake, which I’ve just translated into Spanish for when my gardener can come back to work. Also, I’ve started reading Spinoza and Kant again, along with the Quran and the Book of Revelations. I still can’t get through the Hobbit, so maybe I’ll save that for the next pandemic.
I have stopped looking at twitter, since the negativity there is so toxic. Instead, I read stories about our heroic workers on the front line, sobbing and sewing masks while counting my blessings at being born in Los Angeles instead of Capetown or a poultry factory.
I’m working out with light weights, running in place for 60 minutes, practicing salsa dancing and twerking, and trying to strengthen my core with sets of 500 crunches and leg-raises. I know that staying fit and toned will help me with the uncertain times ahead.
Staying home has been a learning experience, hasn’t it? We’ve learned to slow down, to stop and listen to our inner selves, and to download food delivery apps. I think we will all be much more resilient and multi-talented when this is over, and if it goes on forever, we’ll all become Superbeings who can get along just fine with nothing but our bellybuttons and Netflix to entertain us til the end of time.
Right?
Well, you’ve done what few have accomplished. You’ve made me laugh out loud. Truly, we are kindred spirits, in the most schadenfreude of ways, dearest Madame !
Scream! Hilarious. XO
You’re such an inspiration! I’m so glad that I don’t have young children at home, what a nightmare to think about trying to home-school them, keep them fed and safe. My apartment is filthy even though I have nothing but time to clean it. Does anyone else have this terrible feeling of lethargy? I have a really hard time getting off the couch. Anxiety and hopelessness are sapping me. And I know how lucky I am compared to millions. Good luck, stay well if you can, and thanks for the chuckle, Sister Wolf.
I knew this was a joke the minute I read “gratitude journal”.
Ha ha. Well done, Sis. You’re truly a hoot. xx
Omg me too. How did you know?!
Now I am totally disappointed, if only Arkansas had initiated some kind of lockdown I could of been productive too, probably toned some too come to think of it.
Of course we’ve done ‘social distancing’ but what the heck we’ve been doing that since before the Louisiana Purchase so there there’s been no discernible improvements to my literacy either – well maybe, I quit looking at Twitter too.
Until some of the other states began to look as if they, as I say ‘some’ of the more close in proximity are beginning to appear as if they’re gonna ease up too I only been having to pay 85¢ per gallon of gasoline. Now they’re loosening up it’s got to $1.45 and so the 18 miles round trips to Missouri I been having to make to get to the liquor store (here in northern Arkansas we still have what they call ‘dry counties’ but so long as there’s no snow or ice … or tornadoes threatening come to think of it; it’s a lovely drive) Anyway now my trips to get beer – and Everclear being as it can be a ‘2-Way’ meaning moonshine when mixed into a beverage or hand sanitizer if I’d had to travel the 17 further miles up into Missouri to get to the closest Walmart are costing me roughly double what they was after y’all other states locked yourselves down.
Thanks for that incidentally, made my monthly stipends go near four times the distance than they’d been doing all the way clear through the impeachment. Far enough to allow me to buy myself a new Chevy Silverado pickup which, if you can get a smoke signal out Sister Wolf to your Governor Newsome tell him I said I am mighty grateful. This one only gets 14 miles per gallon which is 6 less than I got in my old pickup so also tell him I’d be really really grateful if he’ll keep y’all locked down for at least another three or four months. I’d like a new bass boat too.
Gratitude journal.
I go and sit in my car in the driveway – front of car facing out of course – and sit. My first thought? Thank the stars I do not have young children right now.