The Days of Lockdown - a tale of our times. week 2

27 March

Day 12 of lockdown – the art of boredom

This weekend is apparently a crucial one when it comes to the spread of the virus, so Minister Grapperhaus (yes, that’s a name) has implored us to really stay at home the coming days. “Yes, your weekend may be more boring than other times,” he said, “but there are other things you can do, like have a good conversation, read a book, turn on Netflix.” I thought it was interesting that he mentioned these things in that particular order. He, like me, grew up in the days before internet, before mobile phones, before Netflix, and television was something that started at around 6 p.m. and there were only two channels. So, what did we do to entertain ourselves?

Having a good conversation was the first thing Grapperhaus mentioned and that’s exactly what we did. I remember long evenings, sitting around with friends, philosophising about everything we could think of. We would discuss music and deconstruct a certain baseline, or comment on the sound quality of somebody’s loudspeakers. I guess me and my friends were a bunch of pedantic intellectuals, but we sure knew how to pass the time.

Reading loads of books was normal. For my final exam – and this part counted for only 10-15% of my final grade – I had to read 30 books for Dutch, 20 for English, 12 each for French and German and 6 for History. That’s 80 books in about 20 months, about one book a week. It did seem a bit much, but not outrageously so.

There has been one time in my life that I was in true lockdown. When I was around seven, I was locked in my room up in the attic for three days, only allowed out to use the bathroom. I was Rapunzel in her tower, but with hair that was too thin and short and no prince to save me. You might think that I had done something truly horrific to deserve this, but believe me, it is merely a reflection of the insane household I grew up in. So, what did I do to not go crazy? I did a lot of “niksen” (more on which later), I stared out the window, I day-dreamed, but above all, I read. As long as I had my books (which I hid under my pillow, lest they might take them away), I had a whole other world to live in. A big book of fairy tales was my favourite. I have no mementos, toys or trinkets left from those days, except that very book. The three days went by quicker than I expected.

The Dutch concept of “niksen” suddenly came back into vogue when Time Magazine published an article about it last year. Niksen literally means to do nothing, to be idle or doing something without any use or purpose. Pottering about. Eve Ekman from Berkeley University says “the research is strong when it comes to the benefits of slowing down, from emotional perks (like reducing anxiety) to physical advantages, like curtailing the aging process and strengthening the body’s ability to fight off the common cold.”  If “niksen” can help fight the cold, maybe it can also help fight off Covid-19! Allow yourself and your children to be bored. Plenty of studies show that boredom has a wide range of benefits. It sparks our creativity, makes us more inventive and also more altruistic. These are the characteristics we would like our kids to develop, aren’t they?

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Of course, there’s always Netflix. But might it not be nice to step away from consumerism for a change and allow ourselves to just be? So, I wish you all a pleasant weekend full of “lekker niksen”! The rat-race will resume soon enough.  

26 March 2020

Day 11 of lockdown - memento mori

“Come to terms with death, thereafter anything is possible,” Albert Camus said. So easily said, but so difficult to do for most of us humans. We are supposed to “fight, fight, against the dying of the light.” When someone has a serious illness, we tell them, “You can beat this thing, stay positive!” When we have a life-threatening condition ourselves, we play it down, tell everyone we’re fine, pretending we don’t see the shadow in the corner.

A skull bracelet,
given to me by an Indian
guru in a wine cellar
in Tbilisi. Memento mori!

Many years ago, I worked as a clown in an amusement park. One day, myself and a colleague had decided we would dress up as fortunetellers. We would make up silly stories and tell pensioners they clearly had a career in classical ballet ahead of them. Suddenly a man approached me urgently and asked, just like that: “Am I going to get better?” I took one look at him and knew with complete certainty this man would not be long for this world. What to say? I thought for a second that I might tell him one of my silly jokes, but that would simply be wrong. So, I said: “It seems to me that you should make the most of the time you have left.” A moment of silence, suspense. Then relief washed over his face and he thanked me profusely. His family had been in denial about his situation and he could not bear it any longer. We shook hands and parted ways. He came to terms with death. It was a beautiful moment.

Going back to current affairs, in a recent interview, former GP and philosophy professor Marli Huijer stated that “We have to accept that the risk of death is part of life.” She talked about how, in this Covid-19 crisis, government decisions seem to be based solely on the number of confirmed cases and deaths. There is no debate on economic, psychological and other values we uphold, no debate on quality of life (or quality of death, sic). The fear of death rules everything. On TV, I saw a former nurse, who had just volunteered to come back, talk about what she had seen in her two days at the ward. “I was shocked to see how ill people were, I had not expected that. But what was truly heartbreaking was that everyone was alone, as they were not allowed any visitors. That felt harsh.”

Is it really day 11 since we were told to work from home? It’s so easy to lose track of time in this new reality. I know the reason for this lockdown is terrible, but I would almost not want to go back to how things were. It’s so peaceful and quiet everywhere. We go out for midnight strolls in the crispy, fragrant air and it feels like we are walking in a cosy village. We enjoy ourselves with small things. I have started to sort through old photos. I cook healthy meals and haven’t eaten so many vegetables in years! I have bought some seeds (more vegetables!) and plan to grow them on our balcony. Even work is better, despite the fact that this switch requires a lot of extra effort. We live by the day, and make choices within the restrictions we’ve been given.

Going to the supermarket is one of the few challenges now, very much like Pacman, moving forward, sideways, back, always trying to elude the ghost. To celebrate another day alive, I buy a couple of Corona beers. By accepting the inevitability of death, we can live a more spontaneous life. That’s what Camus meant. And he is always right. Well, almost. 

23 March 2020                     

Day 8 – peering

We peer into the darkness, into an unfathomable void stretched out before us. Nobody knows how long this crisis will last. The walls of our existence slowly move inwards, making our lives smaller and smaller. We’re in the trash compactor, but C3PO won’t save us.

This weekend, many people went out in droves to beaches, parks, markets. It was as if they knew it was their last chance, that ‘lockdown’ would become an increasingly heavy word, with mounting consequences. Social media exploded in outrage over these trespassers of the 1,5-meter edict. The government responded with a nation-wide text message, a ‘friendly’ reminder and then a press conference, not so friendly, with more restrictions, for the first time threatening with fines for those who still didn’t get the memo.

You’ll see lines everywhere. Lines drawn by shop-owners and supermarkets, to guide the distance-awareness impaired. Lines of people, queueing up to be allowed into said shops. We pass each-other furtively, barely looking, as if you might catch the virus by making eye contact. I walk around with a big, encouraging smile on my face, trying to remind and reassure people that we are still us, we are still human, we are not enemies, despite the fact that each of us could be a hidden hazard to the other.

We look for peers, people who have the same beliefs about this pandemic. We get annoyed by those who do not share our views. Quite a few times, I have tried to be the voice of reason this week, but people do not want reason, they want to stay safe within their walls of assumption. And they call for the walls to be closed further, for a total lockdown. Are they right? And how long could we bear it? By going out, we are putting older and more vulnerable people at risk, but what if those people preferred company to a prolonged life of loneliness? Do we hear their voices?

We also find our peers. With Zoom, Hangouts, Facetime or whatever platform, we are starting regular family meetings, after-work drinkies, board-game sessions. After all, we are a resourceful, social species. I have had more contact with old and new friends than I’ve had in a long time. Meeting my students in the virtual classroom has been a joy – and classroom management is barely an issue! Perhaps this small, simple life isn’t so bad.

When I peer into the looking glass, I see a dark time. And after the dark time, a lighter time, the opportunity to change society to become more humane, more caring towards people, animals, nature. The time of the individual has passed. We cannot do without one another. If anything, that’s what this Crowned Contagion is showing us.