Notes from a Small Apartment

It’s Wednesday, probably. It might be Tuesday – it could even be Monday. It’s hard to tell anymore. It’s mid-morning by now, surely. I haven’t set an alarm in weeks, relying on my internal body clock to nudge me awake around the same time everyday. That, or my neighbour’s alarm, that he started setting after that one time he woke up at one-thirty in the afternoon by accident and swore very loudly. 

In the first few moments of being awake, the uncomfortable tight feeling usually returns to my chest. I take a few breaths, trying to lessen the anxious pressure that likes to settle heavy and early as the weight of the day floats to the front of my consciousness. The sensation will be gone in ten minutes or so and will leave me alone until late night settles in and the worries return.

I rub a hand over my chest and turn my face to the window. It’s nice out, I can tell that much from the little nest I’ve created in my bed. The sun is sneaking through the slats of my blinds. Outside, the scene remains unchanged. The cars parked up in a row, where they’ve sat untouched, day after day. It’s dry, so our neighbour from the adjacent building will likely be down later in day to do squats on the path by our window. We don’t know his name but he gives us a wave, from time to time, when he comes down.

We joke, sometimes, my roommate and I, that our lives have become even more of a sitcom than they were before. Between one neighbour and the other; in how the walls rattle as we do our own morning workout; in getting dressed up to eat pizza and drink gin and tonics. This isn’t how life used to be, I’m sure, although in such a short time it’s become difficult to remember what normal life was like. A time when I didn’t watch the sun rise, peak, and set through the one and same window. 

(Who am I kidding? I’m never awake in time for sunrise anymore).

Yesterday, I was supposed to have a dentist appointment and go see one of my favourites bands with a close friend. Next week, I was supposed to be flying home to Scotland to see my parents and watch one of my oldest friends get married. Plans don’t mean much these days. After several years of jumping between contract work and freelancing and erratic scheduling, my life had finally been getting to a real place of stability and routine. Of course, there were certainly moments of tedium in that routine, moments when I wished for a break from it. I can’t say this was exactly what I’d had in mind, though.

It’s quiet out there.

“I suppose I’m going to have to write about isolation,” I commented to my roommate on day two or three, when I thought ahead to my next post. 

“What else is there to write about, right now?” She agreed.

In the following days, I drafted up a few thoughts on reflections or realisations I’d had from this sudden change in the norm. These still stand – thoughts on how I approach food, and waste, and resources that we take for granted; thoughts on how we interact with our outside environment; thoughts on our liberties in balance with responsibilities – but none of them really seem relevant right now. They will be. In a few weeks, or months, or maybe a year’s time, I will come back to them, at a time when such thoughts seem important. But we’re not there yet.

(I hear denial is the first stage of grief). 

In many ways, the first week was a state of denial. The first week was plans. Oh, a workout program! Oh, how about a games night? Wine and cheese! We can turn the living room into a cinema! The first week, maybe, didn’t feel entirely real. The news cycle and the numbers, the constantly rising numbers, felt a million miles away from our small apartment and the world we’d built in it to keep ourselves going.

Afternoon sun, another day inside.

Reality started to settle in. I couldn’t maintain that level of optimism, of motivation, towards anything. Every day started and ended the same, with some stuff in the middle. None of it seemed to matter. There would be more days, and more, and more, and eventually, at some point, it will end. 

I got myself out of bed in the mornings. I continued morning workouts with my roommate, religiously. I left the apartment for walks, occasionally, learning to master the swerving two metre distance manoeuvre on and off mostly deserted roads and pathways. I called family and friends, regularly. I kept myself going. 

This week, I’ve been angry. 

(I didn’t do the stages of grief in order).

I’m not sure who or what I’m angry at. Maybe, I’m angry at the world for pulling the rug out from under us at a point when I finally felt I’d got the creases out. But being angry at the world doesn’t really get you anywhere. 

Certainly, I’ve been angry at myself – or, frustrated, at least. I veered wildly between extremes. I’d grow frustrated at myself for not doing anything productive, for not writing, for not creating. Then, I’d tumble into anger at myself for putting so much pressure on myself to achieve anything in a time like this. Yes, as everyone has pointed out a dozen times, Shakespeare did write King Lear during a quarantine. Shakespeare also didn’t have the news or social media pinging in one ear all day and lived in an age where the life expectancy at the best of times was about 30 years old. 

(I was going to add that Shakespeare was likely a bit of a dick, from the way history usually goes, who didn’t lose much sleep over how others were faring around him. However, according to the five minutes of research I just did, Will is generally regarded as having been well-liked and generous. So, my apologies to Mr. Shakespeare for trying to slander his good name in the pursuit of easing my own ill-placed guilt).

The new normal.

This situation has forced me to reevaluate the way I live, and the way I work. It’s forced me to reconsider the notion that I always have to be doing something, that any time not working is wasted time in an already fleeting timeline. Because time always seems so impossibly fleeting, months and years flying past at a speed that makes me wonder how I’m ever supposed to do all the things I’m supposed to do. 

A friend sent me a message recently, the words coming at exactly the right time.

You don’t have to produce anything to prove this time was worthwhile.

I have so much life ahead of me. I have time to work, and to learn, and to travel, and to grow. But I also have time to spend with friends, or to read a book, or to build a six bedroom, eight bathroom mansion on The Sims. 

This situation has forced me to stop, and remember to be kind. To myself, to those around me. To have compassion, to have gratitude. To talk to those I love, and to ask how they are.

I woke up one morning recently and, coming to, mumbled: “Another day in purgatory.”

I remember embarrassingly little of what I studied of Italian literature at university but Dante’s Divine Comedy has always stuck with me. I dug through some old notes and translations and found a few lines from section two, Purgatorio (Purgatory), that felt fitting.

And he said to me: “This mountain is so formed,
that it is always wearisome when one begins the ascent,
but becomes easier the higher one climbs.”

Or, for those who prefer the Old Italian: 

Ed elli a me: «Questa montagna è tale, 
che sempre al cominciar di sotto è grave,
e quant’ om più va sù, e men fa male.»

Stay home. Stay well. Take care of yourself, and those around you. And, please: be kind. To everyone – and that includes yourself.

P.S. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommended this short parody piece the New Yorker published on what Shakespeare’s time in quarantine probably looked like: What Shakeseapere Actually Did During the Plague.