I…don’t even know what to say or where to begin. The only thing I know is that I’m here, with my laptop, and finally emotionally ready to write. Kind of.
I’ll start here. I haven’t been able to make it to Friday Bites for the past few weeks. Not only because of the coronavirus, but because my mom was in the hospital one week and I was sleeping in a vinyl recliner at her bedside, getting canker sores in my mouth from stress. And then the week after, I was busy trying to catch up on rest and also making panna cotta for my mom’s birthday because that was a better dessert for her chemo mouth sores than cake. And then I was flying back to Indiana through eerily half-empty airports while washing my hands at every opportunity, not touching my face, wiping everything in my general vicinity down with antibacterial wipes, and not touching anything I hadn’t already wiped down.
It’s been two weeks since I returned to Indiana, and I’ve only left the house five times. Twice in the past couple days to go for a walk in the sunshine (it’s been cloudy, gloomy, and stormy for days at a time), and three times for grocery runs. Every time we leave the house, M and I are vigilant about washing our hands, not touching our faces, staying 6 feet away from everyone we see, and wiping high-touch areas and everything else down with disinfectant. We’re doing our best to eat well and stay hydrated. I video call my mom every day. I try to check in with my friends to make sure everyone is healthy and okay.
You would think that with all this home time I’ve had, I would be cooking and baking up a storm. That hasn’t been the case. I’ve cooked plenty and I’ve baked a cake, but it hasn’t been an adventure and I haven’t really taken photos of anything. Surprisingly, I’m not interested in the fact that everyone else who’s self-isolating is suddenly learning to cook, and they’re learning the value of dried and canned beans. In fact, I’m annoyed that everyone is suddenly a baker, and the flour and the sugar and the butter is all gone.
It’s actually a thing that should make me happy, but instead, I’m irritated.
I cannot recall from memory what I’ve cooked in the past two weeks. When I look through my camera roll, I remember that the first dish I made during self-isolation was shepherd’s pie.
The second was a black-eyed pea stew (sorry, I don’t have a link for a recipe because I made this one out of my own brain and the notes I took on my mom’s recipe).
The next food photo in my camera roll is chopped butter and pieces of baking chocolate in a bowl, ready to go on top of a saucepan of boiling water for a double boiler situation.
That was for a Lisbon Chocolate Cake. It’s a recipe from the cooking section of the New York Times, and I made it because all I knew I wanted was a rich chocolate bomb of flavor. Just chocolate on chocolate on chocolate. It’s like a brownie cake with a layer of chocolate mousse on top with cocoa powder sprinkled on top. It turned out delicious, even though I knocked all the air out of the cake itself.
One night, I fried up some lumpia that my mom and I had made and stashed in my freezer a few months ago. To go with it, I microwaved some frozen veggies and mac and cheese. It was a meal that made no sense, but it also was one of the most comforting things I’ve eaten recently. There was one night where we had sausage and rice and brussels sprouts.
Last night, I made creamy braised white beans with garbanzo beans, great northern beans, garlic, milk, radishes, and kale with toast.
Which brings us to today. I have a vague idea of what I want to make for dinner. I keep forgetting what my idea is, and then I remember it again.
So here’s the thing. We’re grieving and we’re anxious. I don’t just mean me. I mean all of us who are in self-isolation. We all thought we were going to be incredibly productive with our home time. Or some of us are introverts and/or some of us work from home already, and we thought things were going to proceed as normal because being inside all day is already our lives.
It turns out that needing to stay home and distance from people because of a global pandemic is vastly different from choosing to do these things because it’s just want we want to do. For the first week of isolation, I kept forgetting why I was staying inside and then I kept remembering why I was staying inside. It felt like a lightning bolt kept hitting me. Over and over and over and over again. That sensation of everything feeling normal and then suddenly remembering that everything is not normal at all and there’s potential danger everywhere is jarring.
Then the anxiety of knowing that the world is different, and it’s constantly changing, and there’s no end in sight to this chaos. And whenever it finally does end, we don’t know what the world will be like. There’s no way to know.
And then the fear and worry — what if M gets it? What if my mom gets it? What if my dad gets it? What if my brothers get it? What if I get it? When will I get to see my family in person again? What if I have it and have been spreading it to others when I go to the grocery store? What if what if what if. I don’t let myself dwell too long in the What-If space because it’s a recipe for a panic attack (one of which I’ve already had in this time period).
And then the rage — this administration and some of these politicians are truly heinous, and I have to believe in hell and that they will rot there because otherwise, I will drown in my own anger. And all the people who are panicking and treating grocery store workers terribly and hoarding toilet paper (who knows why) and food. And the people who don’t care that they may be spreading the virus to vulnerable people. The people who think there are no consequences for them.
And the despair and helplessness — all the people who are losing their jobs, the small local businesses and restaurants that I love shutting down, all the people who cannot pay their rent but their landlords are demanding full on-time payment, student loan service providers and credit card companies who are carrying on as if the world is exactly the same.
It’s a lot. So much. On top of all the personal crises and emergencies we all may be experiencing without all of this chaos.
So we’re grieving and we’re anxious, and we can’t do anything but flit around the house, and not focus on anything. Even the things we love. I want to read, but I can’t focus on anything. I don’t know what music will soothe me. I don’t know what I want to cook. I don’t know what to bake. I don’t know what to watch on tv. I don’t know what to do.
My therapist reminds me: I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing: staying home, washing my hands, not touching my face, staying away from people. That’s the best possible thing I could be doing right now. There will be plenty of time for “helping” later.
As for the rest: focus on the things I do want, the things that soothe me and comfort me, rather than on the things that irritate me. If I don’t know what I want to cook: open a cookbook, randomly choose a recipe, and cook it. If I don’t know what to watch: just choose something; if I don’t like it, I can stop it and choose something else.
The point is to just make a decision and try something. These decisions have the lowest possible stakes; if I don’t like it, I can always choose something else.
The second week of isolation has gone by faster and also slower. Individual ten-minute increments of time feel an hour long; a week feels like it’s only been three days. I’ve decided to limit my time on social media because even though it’s important to be connected to the world and know that we’re not alone, it feels like a giant room where everyone is screaming at the top of their lungs in anger and panic, and it’s exhausting.
This has all actually been a preamble to what I really wanted to write about: all the things that have brought me comfort and joy this week. It’s my favorite: a top 5 list, in no particular order and with probably more than 5 items on it.
Life of the Party, by Olivia Gatwood
This week, I was finally able to read a book cover to cover, and I loved it. That book was Life of the Party by Olivia Gatwood. It’s a collection of poetry inspired by true crime, which is the last thing I expected to bring me joy, but it did. I highly recommend it for those who love poems, for those who love true crime, for those who are, have been, or love girls.
The Great British Baking Show
When I’m in the shit, I rewatch episodes of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix. I know most of the contestants’ names from the Mel and Sue and Mary Berry seasons, and I remember exactly who the final three were for each season. I have favorite bakes and favorite contestants and favorite episodes. It’s calming and nerdy and fun and I am forever learning something new every time I watch.
All Elite Wrestling
The past two episodes of All Elite Wrestling on TNT, sans audience, have been awkward and brilliant and the most entertaining avant-garde black box theater. Because I didn’t love wrestling growing up, I didn’t know I could love any wrestler or wrestling show this much. But I do.
Dispatches From Elsewhere
Dispatches from Elsewhere is created by Jason Segal. I fell in love with him as Nick Andopolis on Freak and Geeks, but you probably know him better as a stoner in a Judd Apatow movie or from How I Met Your Mother. Dispatches is based on an actual documentary, and it stars Jason Segal, Sally Field, Andre 3000 and Eve Lindley. I won’t say more about it because watching it is like unwrapping a mystery present, but it’s refreshing and funny and profound and heartbreaking and so, so good. The last time I checked, you could stream the first 4 episodes on the AMC website.
The Detectorists
After years of nudging from our good friends, we’ve finally started watching The Detectorists on Amazon Prime. It stars Mackenzie Crook (who was in the British version of The Office as the original Dwight) and Toby Jones (I know and love him from Berberian Sound Studio, but he’s in lots of things that you’ll know better than that (brilliant) obscure art horror film) as two men who are avid metal detectorists. It’s quiet, and it’s funny, and it’s nerdy, and I love it so far.
The Highwomen
The Highwomen are what you call a country supergroup, comprised of Amanda Shires, Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile, and Natalie Hemby. They released their album pretty recently, and I’ve loved it from the moment I listened to it. It’s just so good. If you listen to it, you’ll understand why it’s brought me comfort these past two weeks.
There’s so much more to say, but I’ll leave it there for now. I want to leave on a love note. I’m already planning my bakes for the next week, and I’m kind of excited for them. I might even write about them, but I can’t promise anything.
I hope that each of you are washing your hands (and counting to 20 when you do it), not touching your face, staying home, and holding close to every thing and person that brings you comfort and joy. We really are all in this together, and even if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes, we are going to make it out the other side.
xoxo
