Life as we knew it is over and a brave new world begins.
I listen over and over again to people say, it’s the not knowing that’s so hard.
I keep questioning how to start, where to start, and it could be anywhere I guess. I push my ennui around the church where we’ve been staying in Vermont with our artist friends M and M — this bohemian life.
I start one thing and then promptly abandon it, looking for meaning, feeling grateful and then apathetic the arc of the day depending on who I’m talking to and what I’m doing.
In the mornings we wake up and attempt to start the fire.
It’s really hard to start a fire with wet wood, but so satisfying when you do. M says it sounds like the rainforest inside the big stone stove in the kitchen.
There’s a projector set up near the stove with constant news or movies going. M is connected to MSNBC like it’s a drug. My drug of choice right now is sugar.
It’s hard to listen to the numbers go up, or the personal stories of the doctors or nurses. I think about my own family who many of them work or have worked in medicine in Canada.
My mom was a nurse, so was my Nana. Both my grandfathers were doctors, my aunt, and uncle as well. They are all retired or have passed away. I secretly am glad that my mom stopped volunteering at the hospital. My Nana has dementia, and I think that must be nice right now since she doesn’t understand what’s going on in any way she’s immune to the fear and uncertainty. Then right after that thought, I think again that being trapped inside your mind with dementia also does not seem fun at all.
I keep trying to be useful in my community, in small ways. I do lectures on zoom about my ceramics for a friend’s NYU class that was canceled, and somehow macgyver a FedEx label from another friend’s printer to send her some old catalogs from another friend’s cellar. I do the same lecture for a ceramics studio that closed down in Brooklyn.
I find art lesson plans that I made a few years ago for kids at a residency where I taught art in a library and I decide to offer them twice-weekly to my niece. I pass these same lessons along to an after school program I worked with so they can send them out to their partners and they post them once a week.
I feel productive.
I want to share everything. I want to look at everything. I have no time.
There are one million ladybugs at the window near my desk. They found a tiny hole from the outside and they want to come inside. I find them on my side of the bed and it wakes me up because they are crawling on my arm.
I started a drawing, which feels like a pale copy of other drawings I’ve seen, but I’m trying not to be hard on myself right now. I want to make more and be creative but some invisible force is making me pause.
I started building a website, or should I say I attempted to finish building a website while learning HTML code that I signed up for over eight weeks ago, and because I got so busy I’m only halfway done. The website is for a friend that’s a filmmaker and I designed it over a year ago. We both don’t seem to care if the project is ever finished but somehow I always feel guilty about it. I want to push it into existence. I send her a proof, and she can’t even take the time to look at it because she’s so busy with work. I secretly really just wanted to work on it because I like spending time with her.
Why am I trying to learn HTML? I don’t want to be a developer, but I realize that online isn’t going away and I don’t want to be old and left behind because I didn’t figure out the basics now. It’s also gratifying to figure things out.
No one cares if you can. Just do.
I tried to write more for my book, and frustrated put it down. I make a schedule thinking that I will stick to it so I can write 75 stories. I’m up to 3 for this month and my goal is 12. Am I even a good writer? Why does it sometimes just pour out of me when other times it’s like pulling teeth?
I made apple crisp mostly selfishly so I can eat it. We have no vanilla ice cream, but it tastes like eating a hug.
I made a quiche with kale, cheddar, tomatoes, onions, and herbs. I make another more successful quiche (according to my friends) with spinach, goat cheese, herbs, and onions.
I made three dozen toll house cookies and we eat them in two days.
I made tofu rice biryani from a recipe in the newspaper, I cook it too fast and it burns on the bottom but eating it feels like we got Indian takeout.
The news is constantly on and it heightens my awareness of everything. If it’s not on and giving me anxiety I end up checking the newspaper. I probably need to go for a walk.
I make a playlist called a brave new world with my friend so that we can add songs to it that speak to our mood. T has been making me mixtapes since people burned CDs, and he was the DJ for our wedding. He has impeccable taste in music and I credit learning most of what I know about good music from him.
I put on music to try and focus if it’s not a record it’s in my headphones. I can’t with other voices. I’m never alone now except for in the bathroom or the creepy basement of the church. I used to always be alone. I realize how much I love being alone.
I am driving my new husband G crazy with how much I repeat the stories that I like to tell. He’s sweet, I love him and don’t want him to get sick.
We feel safe up here since there are a lot fewer people but some scary things still creep in, I find out that three people that I share an art studio in Brooklyn with had the virus but didn’t tell the rest of the studio. They claim to be fine and disinfect everything, but I wouldn’t go there anyway since I’m in Vermont. When I asked the person who runs the studio in person weeks ago if he would close down the studio he laughed at me.
M and G know someone who caught it installing at The Armory art fair a few weeks ago.
M is sensitive and emotional, frustrated and showing his feelings and admits to me that he wanted to cry before he went to sleep last night.
Classes are all online, I have plenty of work, sometimes I can’t focus on the task at hand and things just move in and out of my day. I look up and hours have passed, I can’t keep track of the time. I feel in the flow, then I feel forgetful and then I feel like I’m doing too much. If I’m honest with myself that’s my usual mode of being.
I think that my life hasn’t changed so much. I’m still doing what I do, it’s just that it’s online and I live in zoom. Is this the future?
I somehow push through but feel apathetic at the same time.
It’s just so so strange and feels uncanny and like a movie but it’s not a movie it’s real and I just want self-centerdly want a birthday party and for summer to be coming and for us to have taken our honeymoon to Japan that was meticulously planned and for everything to be boring back to normal.
Suck it up, buttercup.
Robin Cameron || Randolph, Vermont || March 21st — April 7th, 2020