During this time of social isolation, the day to day experience of life can seem remarkably uniform. The differentiation between days begins to blur, until all of life becomes like a gentle stream, flowing serenely past; its surface is glassy smooth, unbroken by the ripples and disruptions typical of other times in our lives.
Instead of the Class III rapids that have largely made up my time in graduate school, this final semester has slowed to a crawl, where I can hardly tell one day from the next. I find myself clinging to the rare moments that still create a sense of progress. The weekend is a welcome change, since my husband’s work schedule remains a typical Monday through Friday commitment, yet there is almost a stronger sense of restriction during times when we are normally the most free. My son’s new video conference Preschool also contributes at least one commitment to our week, but wrangling a four year old into listening to his teacher talk about letters over Zoom is hardly the highlight of my week.
But adjustments are made over time, for better or worse. After four weeks of serious social distancing measures, we find schedules, we find structure, we find a way to survive the disruption.
I find myself checking the news only a dozen times a day, rather than cycling through various news sites, constantly refreshing them, seeking some kind of knowledge that will allow me to believe that I have some semblance of control of my life. I have prioritized spending more time reading, though that varies depending on the day. This morning I woke up and wanted nothing more than to just take a nap, despite all the work I'd put into planning activities to keep my four year old entertained.
Through this all, I struggle to find a place to communally process this experience. While there was a comfort in venting to friends at the beginning, that seems less soothing now.
I am struck by the repetitiveness of our ability to verbally process this pandemic, this social isolation, this quarantine. I have spoken the only adjectives I have to describe this experience to the point that their insufficiency reverberates every time I say them anew.
Crazy. Surreal. Insane. Overwhelming. Unprecedented. Weird.
I keep circling back, casting them out across my socially distanced networks, as I hear them echoed back to me in every conversation I have.
In moments of crisis, our vocabulary fails us. The repetition serves to capture the uniquely indescribably nature of this experience. We have no other words that encompass what we need to communicate, yet we are partially conscious of their failure. So rather than using them descriptively, they become a sort of code.
We seek these responses, these shared, flawed words, like a liturgy. A call and response that we have all fallen into. They create a sense of solidarity between souls, captured in an inexpressible moment. These words represent something larger than themselves, something deeper than language. They cease to function in a purely semantic way.
In our isolation, we find ourselves tapping on the walls, searching for the change in sound that might indicate a hollow space on the other side. We are tapping, tapping, searching for the predictable response that will let us know someone else is trapped here too.