quarantine diary #5 - freedom

The 15th January was a sort of hurdle in my mind, a day I had only had to reach, and everything would dissipate. First, this date was consumed by my extended essay, 6,000 words of primary sources and secondary arguments that Oxford relishes in saving for the Christmas vac. 

Then, it became overwhelmed by the day I could breathe fresh air again. Dramatic, but also quasi-true. 

Being out was nice, and it was freeing, and I got gyoza with a friend, and ate brownies, and did a million errands for others who, in the chaos of my corona, I had also caused to isolate.

But it was also a bit anti climatic, and still a bit empty, and I wonder will this world ever not feel empty.

I've done all the silly hobbies I can think of to pass the time, I've thought all the thoughts, done all the yoga, ran, read, slept, thought about applying for British Council next year then abandoned it. I have spent so many hours thinking about expectations: expectations of self, expectations of others, whether too high demands are simply a reflection of the love you deserve, or an inherent disappointment. Whether this contradiction and conflict can ever marry. And half my friends can't come back, the other half are still isolating. It's a silent limbo that no longer feels it has the permission to be.

 

So I am stuck, sort of just waiting for the time to pass until I start my dissertation (for which my tutor kindly reminded us, we could have 'half a day off' after handing in our extended essays, and then we had to get back on it) and until my friends are free, and maybe until this all blows over.

Will it ever blow over?

It's so hard not to be pessimistic when it's dark and it's cold and it's January; libraries are closing, my working spaces are becoming more confined by the day, the world seems both simultaneously quieter and scarier, and I'm still here, thinking about what I'm doing amongst it all.

But hey, come Monday I'll be lost in a blur of 7th century female portraits, and wondering why the fuck I picked such an obscurely niche topic. 

And I'll run, and I'll walk and I'll drink wine, and probably lament on here a little more about lost youth and unstable prospects.

It'll be okay. 

quarantine diary #4 - gratitude

Shit news, shit prospects. 

Ten things I am grateful for:

My beautiful, and I mean beautiful, view over the quad.

Fortuitously bringing some art things with me, so I can paint in between the work. 

Finishing my extended essay, enjoying writing my extended essay, feeling semi pleased with said extended essay. 

Being able to try out new outfit combos in the warmth and seclusion of my room 

Friends for checking in and reaching out. 

Doing a different kind of exercise for a week, and feeling my body burn in a different way. 

Slower mornings and slower breakfasts. 

Writing letters. 

Having the mildest corona symptoms in the world. 

Being able to hear my friends singing riptide obnoxiously loudly, and knowing I'll be there in a matter of days (update: they're onto their 4th rendition and the noise cancelling headphones are going on)

Food deliveries, and extra treats people put in amongst the essentials. 

Having the permission to stop and be.

I wrote this in my diary today: 

'Have I ever had this degree of permission to stay inside, and do nothing but paint pointless, random objects covered in lashings of gold paint, and listen to happy music, and feel nothing of the angst or sickness that usually swamps me when I try and do nothing? There is no demand, I have practically finished my essay, and legally am not allowed to leave my room. So I have surrendered to the total permission to do what I want, what makes my mind go empty, what feels so natural and so soothing'

It was good moment, and there are so many conflicting emotions attached with this isolation. A wanting to get out, but an enjoyment of the pace. A need to see people but a need to retain the seclusion. 

Just another bizarre feeling to contend with in these crazy times. 

What are you grateful for?

quarantine diary #3

Here's a mood board of the kinda energy I've been feeling today.

Eclectic, agreed. But also sort of apt. I am evidently feeling a lot of passive anger. Yikes.

Today was a bleak one; I couldn't edit enough words out of my essay, had a sad bagel for tea, wanted a g&t but had no t, wanted a run but (of course) couldn't leave my room. It's felt really quite interminable, looking at the same seven thousand words, trying to work out how to rework and reshape and just do anything that will cut it down. I've basically eating the same thing for 6 days, done pretty much the same workout at the same time, taken the same (un)ironic selfies, and listened to the same 'get me out of here' playlist.

I will stop whining. 

It's a very informative process, let me tell you that. Having the time to do silly things like make a ring dish or paint a tin can is blissful and wonderfully defiant of the demands of capitalism. My gold paint arrived, and I've wanted to cover everything in my room. I also enjoyed putting up my postcards, taking them down, readjusting them. 

It's just a bit monotonous, which obviously it would be.

I haven't had any grand realisations about myself, other than I can go days without going outside, the thought of which used to make me feel sick. So I guess that's good. I also have realised I need constant affirmation, which obviously is hard to receive when your friends are together and you're apart, and the silence makes you think the world hates you. 

What hit today was the sense that, even when my iso is over, and I can go for walks and see friends and go to libraries, I'm still not free. (from a place of inherent entire privilege) my emotions about this pandemic come and go in waves. Sometimes I feel I have made peace with it. That the change has gone on for so long, I can't remember the world without it. New normal and all that.

And then sometimes (i.e. today) I feel angry and depressed and it feels relentless. That this has been going on for so long and our liberties have been so radically curtailed. That I might hand in this essay on Friday and I might be able to leave my room, but what does that really mean. I still can't go to the pub or meet with more than one person outside for anything other than exercise, or even buy a copy of Frankie magazine that for some, bizarre reason, I am craving. And, I think, you become desensitised to it. Not desensitised so much to the stats, they are shocking regardless of how often you hear them. But desensitised to the enormity of the other problems going on in the world. How has this all culminated in the most perfect storm? As I got ready this morning, I listened this episode of TyskySour (a really, really good - non affiliated - news podcast). One of the reporters said 'the apocalypse is multifaceted', and man this sure did hit home. How can we jump from the undermining of democracy in the highest echelons of power, to a virulent pandemic, in a matter of seconds, and keep on doing our daily 'ting? 

Man!

So that's where we are at, on day five of solitude. 

A MHN quote to soothe the soul:

Let July be July.

Let August be August. 

And let yourself 

Just be

even in

the uncertainty.

You don't have to fix everything.

You don't have to solve everything.

You can still find peace

and grow

in the wild of changing things.

g'night.

(all pics can be found here)

quarantine diary #2

I think this is day 3, or maybe it's day 4? 

All I really know is I haven't seen another person in the flesh since the nice lady who stuck a swab down my throat on Wednesday. 

In a world where there is so much insurrection (see: Trump and the capitol) and crisis (see: state of emergency in London hospitals), my 10 days of iso are so minute. But they are also so alone and quite a feat of resolve, so here I am writing about it.

Things I have learned thus far:

Routine is essential, you can run a fast 10k and still find a 20 minute HIIT impossible, silence is terrifying and addictively avoidable, there's a lot of time and space to dissect yourself and feel alone and feel hated, eating when you can't taste is boring, and the days go by quicker than I thought they would. 

Tonight, it all felt a bit interminable and I was acutely aware of my life in this box. I feel stressed about completing my extended essay whilst in this hermetic space, knowing I can't get any separation from this space and this mental state. But I don't have a choice, and it doesn't matter, and for fuck sake Katie, get on with it. I'm also a bit annoyed because my outfits have been popping (see: this hair scarf, my t-shirt/dress combo in the last post) and I've got to wait for their debut. I think perhaps the moments are most hard when I am between working sessions, or can hear my friends together next door, but every second that pasts is a second closer to a run and a glass of wine!

Some other things to look forward to: 

Virtual breakfast with my grandparents tomorrow, two separate Tesco deliveries and maybe a chance to wave to someone out the window (!), a parcel for my mum that includes: pillows, running kit (for post-iso), skittles that I left in her bag, a book and all my room decs – all the eclectic things I left at home. I've also got some air dry clay (how did I bring that, but not pillows?) and have ordered some varnish and gold paint, so am going to spend an evening next week avoiding my essay and making a ring dish instead. 

Thankful for having the mildest symptoms in the world, thankful for a beautiful view, thankful for my own space, thankful for technology and for kindness. 

Peace and love x

(pics: 1)@justarthistory 2) here 3) @museelouvre 4) @palomawool

quarantine diary #1

*This in entirely in the vein of Lexie, even down to the photo, and I am almost shameless in my copying*

Today was a lot, starting with the intentions of a planned walk with a friend, and rapidly concluded with my last breaths of fresh air on my way to the test centre. What a world we live in. What a time to be alive. 

In some ways it's almost nice having time and reason to do all the silly things you don't usually, when you're cooking tea or walking or with friends. I took advantage of the room below me being empty and did a HIIT work out, I made a plethora of paper stars (pattern found here) that I have now stuck up on my wall – a decision I know I will regret when it comes to removing them. I also listened to Newscast, which I think is becoming my favourite podcast, did my washing up immediately after eating and FaceTimed my mum. 

It's sort of sad hearing my friends around me, but it also feels bizarrely adventurous and secluded in a safe way. I am also blessed with a gorgeous view over the quad and the old college buildings, and this morning I saw a fox run across the path. 

My friends cooked me pasta, I wore a nice outfit just for me, and managed to harness a lot of sympathy (for doing absolutely nothing).

I think tomorrow, on top of my extended essay (due on the day I can break free, conveniently!) which I seem to be getting more and more lost in as the days go by, I'll write a letter or two, to post when I can leave this room, call Libby, and maybe have a nap. Oh the joys.

Please send art recs, watching recs, listening recs – anything I can access without leaving my room.

dreaming of the post-covid

The past few days have been bleak for us all (see: covid restrictions, limited Christmas, Brexit chaos, threatened food shortages), so here I am on Christmas eve-eve, surrounded by wrapping paper, drinking cider and musing about my gap year in Berlin. 

Yes, a second gap year. It's happening, I know it's ridiculous and privileged and honestly girl put that £30k to good use and get yourself a career.

But no. I want to mess about for a year, in a ridiculously naive blur of ignorance. And come on, I missed out on almost a year of my 20s!

But for reals, I've had a lot of conversations with myself on dark runs where I think about what I should do and what I want to do. 

I should be applying to jobs, or at least masters, and I should be taking my future a bit more seriously. 

I want to spend a year working a bit, and finding my post-degree feet, and mostly just living in Berlin. Entirely unrealistic as I can speak no German, but honestly it is what my heart is dreaming of.

And I really do think, what is the point of not doing what you want. This degree has been, and probs will be, one of the hardest things I ever do, with a pandemic on top of it, the world needs to catch a break – and that's what I intend to do. 

So, before I justify my break from the capitalist cycle of perpetual labour anymore, here are some muses that have been getting me through the grim Tier 4 news. 

Enjoy my loves!

What are your plans for next year (if you're graduating) or things you are dreaming of. 

Firstly – this song. Because it starts with 'it's my first night in Berlin, and I wanna dance', and honestly. That is all I want. Similarly, Ananas by Bleu Toucan transports me immediately to a hot, sweaty club and I've found myself almost dancing on the street numerous times as I listen to it on my walks. And Peggy Gou, mostly Starry Night. Again, just a vision of me, my friends, pres in an apartment, and hours dancing to make up for all the nights we spent at home. I also saw this quote in my reading yesterday: '...found release by dancing the night away in various gay clubs in East Berlin', and honestly – what a mood. 

My extended essay for the Christmas vac is all about the revolutions of 1989 and whether they were indeed revolutionary. Debate and semantics aside, if there was one historical event I wish I could experience, I think it would be the fall of the Berlin Wall. Beyond the discourse of what it meant, it just looked a fuckin' sick party, and I'd love to feel that momentary thrill that comes round on such improbable occasions (i.e. what I imagine the first night out post-'rona being). 

But I am also just somewhat fascinated by Germany, historically and transformatively. Man, I wanna be there. I wanna see the history I've read about play out for for real. I wanna see the Plattenbau housing and the remaining Soviet architecture and I wanna drink beer and fancy every person that walks down the street.

This is all entirely idealistic and existing in no realm of reality, but, in a year that has taken almost everything, a girl can dream, 'eh!

I had a lovely, drunken conversation with Vassia last week, over fish and chips (tier 2 vibes, am I right?), where we mused over gap year possibilities. Maybe visit her friend in Paris, or her sister in South Korea, or just live together and make up for 2020. But really – I'll go anywhere. Do anything. 

And then real work will begin, I promise! (I have actually got tangible gap year goals – get NGO experience (esp. try and volunteer with a refugee organisation), apply for a masters, join a netball club, run a half marathon, write as much as possible because I've found that is what makes me happy (even writing essays!).

(also I know this is all such a horrible privileged cliche, but today has been v. rough in terms of news (Tier 4 lockdowns, 3rd strain of corona, hospital admissions almost at peak) so I am really just trying to manifest something better for 2021)

(all pics from here)

reading, watching, thinking

I've been home just over a week and it has been a blissful sort of boredom. Early bedtimes and long runs and a lot of reading and much else. I've consumed a lot of good things, so here we go! Enjoy!

Reading:

Mid-term I read Such A Fun Age, which was easy but also super interesting exposing a sort of white-feminism-girl-boss-saviour-complex. It felt very current, and was funny in parts, and was just a good side read as I ate breakfast or before I fell asleep. 

I devoured On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous in the first three days of being home. It was shattering and raw, but so beautifully written. It was perhaps occasionally a little dominated by a 'stream of consciousness-esque' narrative, but much of it was just breath taking. It explores the legacies of migration and war, sexuality and the drug epidemic in America. It is written in the form of a letter to the narrators mother, exposing the things he never felt he could. I think I'd like to re-read it just to get a real sense of the language and poetry. 

Now I am reading The Shadow King. It seems to be a modern (and real!) take on the Madeleine Miller feminist re-telling of Greek myths. It focusses on women in the Ethiopian-Italian war of the 1930s. Again, it is beautifully written and the characters have that skilful complexity of being simultaneously good and bad. There is a lot of foreshadowing, which I feel I haven't read in a while, and I love the way the narrative jumps perspective between the chapters. I shall report back. 

Obvs also so much reading for uni, inc. the sequel to Slavenka Drakulic's 'How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed', which I just happened to stumble upon whilst in Amnesty International yesterday. How fortuitous. My brother disdainfully commented this morning, 'god, is reading all you do?', and honestly at the moment, it is. But I suppose that it is the price you gotta pay!

Watching: 

I devoured Emily in Paris, which I hated and loved. Honestly, I'm craving the second series. I also, like everyone else, adored Queen's Gambit, which successfully portrayed chess as the sexiest game ever. Who knew! The Crown was wonderful, even though I only jumped in at the current Diana series. Although I controversially didn't think Gilian Anderson played a very good Thatcher. My heart broke for Diana, which was evidently the intention, and I realised I am partial to a posh man with a signet ring – which is a partiality that needs to quashed quickly. 

I've also been watching a ridiculous amount of Grackle, purely for the Christmas cooking content, and Helena Rose for the intuitive eating and positive food energy. Perfect in time for Christmas and all the bullshit insta content that is telling us how to not gain weight. Fuck off.  

Listening:

In terms of working entertainment, I am enjoying both this Christmas carol playlist and this one. My MT20 'body in the library playlist' still seems to kind of slap, and makes me happily nostalgic. 

For non-work, my 'time in between' playlist brings me a lot of joy – but mostly I am just listening to 'If It Wasn't For the Night' by ABBA on repeat

Feeling:

Honestly, pretty good. I had a very happy evening playing cards with my family and laughing. I perhaps feel a little resentful of the workload over Christmas (who sets an extended essay due January, after a term of relentless work?), but it also keeps me busy and thinking. I am feeling a little anxious about after, and the conflict between what I want to do and what I can realistically do. But I am hoping they will marry up. I am feeling a little challenged by food, but that always seems to happen when I come home, and distanced from and alien to my home friends – but again, what is to be expected?

Really, I just want to dance until 4am and be sweaty and achey again. Please?!

Doing:

Playing a lot of cards, going for a lot of runs listening to this playlist, spending so much time on Ebay looking for clothes (I just want something fun!), and making up for 9 weeks of no kitchen. One of my happiest moments when I got home was 2 hours in the kitchen, alone, with my tunes, making a ridiculously lavish Tuesday lunch. Bliss.

I miss my friends, libraries and the pub – but am also happy and blessed to be home. And I am seeing my best friend tomorrow! 

Good vibes yh!

both terrible and wonderful

'This has been both terrible and wonderful. At the end I am so grateful and it will all matter in a way you cannot fathom. You've got this, keep on keeping on'. 

This was scrawled on the walls of a toilet cubicle in the Sackler library, along with other sentiments of 'Oxford broke me inside so many times' and 'there is something so beautiful and so terrifying' about this city and this institution. My feelings of this week felt sort of heard. 

It is so deeply impossible to explain the paradox of hatred and adoration I have for this place and how both punitive and exhilarating it is. 

I love it, and have loved every second of it and what it means and how at home I feel, and know if I had a choice, I would never leave. But so many parts of me just want it to stop, so I can catch a breather. 

You get so ridiculously caught up in it, and the intoxication to work a little harder, read a little longer, sleep a little less is so palpable. Only when I look beyond this bubble do I see how intense and destructive it is. That most people aren't expected to work 40 hour weeks, and don't feel burdened by the pressure of everyone else seemingly working all the time. That most unis don't place their crippling mental health crises in the hands of students. That it actually isn't healthy to get up at 6, and have 6 hours sleep, and never be able to catch a break because if you do, you'll fall behind. 

But all of this seems so normal and so necessary and so important because it's what everyone else is doing.  The entire culture is work harder, push yourself further, because you'll probably still not be enough. 

And this 'not being enough' was an intense feeling this week. My tutor called me out in my class week, asking whether I had actually done the reading and reminding me that I could 'just pop in at any time with my thoughts'. Yes, I know, I thought – but why would I say anything when these seven boys are all so articulate and intelligent and confident? What would my stuttering hesitation bring to this discussion?

 I've cried quite a lot about feeling stupid this week. Feeling like I'm struggling, when it seems like everyone else is thriving (another problem: stoicism), and not even being able to comprehend half of what they are saying. It's rough, man. 

But, and here is the real contradiction, I can't even articulate how deeply I love it all, and how really I could just do this forever. And how, even in a pandemic, I am so happy and at peace. And how, finally, I realise the progress I have made and the things I have learned, and how I have academically developed. 

I have never felt the love, or the loneliness, or the happiness, or the pride, or the anger that I feel here. 

***

This was written three weeks ago, what a three weeks its been. Some decisions were made, some very difficult things were dealt with, my tutor was a queen, I cried every day for a week, and now it' the end of term. I still feel stupid and I am unfathomably exhausted but also so content lying in bed hungover knowing I finally can relax. And even if I am stupid, who cares, I'm here – I made it this far. I am excited to go home and eat proper food (not sitting in a perspex box), see my pup and avoid work for at least a day.