You Are Here #1: A Pandemic Life Update
Tags: Carvell Wallace, You Are Here, Journal, Pandemic Diaries

You Are Here #1: A Pandemic Life Update

For my 28th birthday this year, a friend of mine bought me a plant. It’s a white fusion calathea and, unlike my other plants, it wears its emotions straight on its sleeves. Whenever I come back from my parents’ house after a few days, its crinkly droopiness is dramatic — almost in a laughable way. I pour it a long drink of water with both guilt and satisfaction at its need for my care. Luckily for me, it forgives easily and within hours it stands up straight and pretends to not need me again.

This is my fifth plant in the apartment and my third acquired during the pandemic. Early in the lockdown, I discovered the magnificence of the Marina/Alamitos/Naples neighborhoods of Long Beach and I haven’t looked back. The Whole Foods at PCH became a frequent grocery stop and that’s where I picked up my first pandemic plant — a small potted money tree — which looks no different now than the day I bought it, although maybe a few leaves taller. It takes residence on my kitchen counter nearest the window so it can breath some fresh air and sun every so often. Unlike the calathea, it doesn’t need much attention to survive.

Things that were purely for leisure in the past have become necessitated lifelines. Whereas I used to plan my days out by the hour, I now only plan out one part of my day: securing time for the brief hours I will be outside, walking in the sunlight. There isn’t much else to plan anymore. For the week, it’s usually deciding to see a friend or two — and only one with whom I am comfortable to visit without a mask. I miss exercising and breaking a sweat. I miss exercising in groups of people or surrounded by passerbyers. I have had the urge for eight months now to wake up early at daybreak to exercise when no one is out, but the motivation to get up for the day has decreased exponentially. Rest is rare, even though I sleep about eight hours a night.

I miss easiness most of all. The ability to get up and go see someone, do something. The proximity and facial expressions of acquaintances and strangers. The light and distracting conversations with people I don’t have to be vulnerable with. I miss reading at the laundromat while waiting with my fellow neighbors for our clothes to dry. I miss finding comfort in other indoor spaces other than my apartment and my car, like eating hot food at restaurants and carpooling to a birthday hangout. I really, really miss cooking for my friends. I miss feeling unwell and not worrying if it’s the onset of a life-threatening, contagious disease. I miss not overthinking.

It’s rained the most this year and I’m not talking about the weather. It’s also been the year of the longest drought and yes, I’m still not talking about the weather. People have been keeping themselves warm however ways they can, burning thing after thing, as we’re unable to embrace one another. We’re missing a warmth that doesn’t require kindling. It’s a tragedy, this mess.

It’s interesting that being confined to one space can make a person more overwhelmed by the world than actually being in it. Being quarantined at home as a single person has made it so that most of my social interaction consists of being stuck onto a screen. The digital world and its noise has been infinite and unyielding, a million voices both personal and corporate crying out for attention. That being said, I try to spend as many hours as I can outside, either walking through my favorite neighborhoods in Naples or Bixby or biking along marine stadium. Actually being out in the world makes me realize how small my problems are — and how unscary the world’s many problems are when surrounded by real, live people and not just their inner voices. Being online kinda feels like getting into a glimpse into God’s inbox… without the perspective of being God.

I wish I was able to tune out my mental state and just be simply fixated and content with dabbling in an art project — or any project — during this strange time. It would be nice to enjoy something like that enough to the point where the physical and mental work to set it up was nothing compared to the want to do it. But the only thing that I feel that way about right now is being out near the water and trees and finding a sunlit spot of grass to lay my blanket on and nap. Chasing that ever elusive rest and quiet.