I’m starting week six of my personal pandemic lockdown. For my day job, I’ve been working from home since early March, and I went into full social distancing mode mid-March.
I feel lucky I live in Washington, where the COVID-19 response has been relatively sane. And, honestly, for me as a writer, social distancing hasn’t been as hard as for some of my friends.
I’m an ambivert and thrive on getting a large chunk of time alone. I have to be self-disciplined, or I’d never get any writing done, so after a few days I’m not the person who stays in bed all day. (I’m also lucky my neurochemistry supports me here.) In normal times, the need to write means I have to sit on my social butterfly tendencies. Now, in this new, weird, loose time, it’s easier. Also my editor slipped one of my deadlines. A lot has been slipping lately. That feels good in some ways (I tend to be stressed; it’s good if I can relax and slow down) and bad in others.
I’m also lucky that so far no one close to me has gotten seriously ill.
What affects me most, in the day to day, after I’ve had my daily dose of news and gotten angry at the latest outrages, is the weird, in-between, waiting quality of this time. In a lot of ways, I love liminal space. Things can come to you there that won’t otherwise: ideas, dreams, spirits. But despite all my tries, this is not relaxed liminal space. I’ve done best when I can get outside into nature. I’m lucky to have a forest behind my house.
I read, I wait. But this is not a good time to plan, and I get waves of human emotion—sorrow, fear—that I can’t help feeling come from the mass of humanity going through this plague.