Musings From Early Quarantine

What sensory observations can you make during quarantine?

Tax Day

04.15.2020

Elise

The earth has awakened, but also gone to sleep. We spend all of this time sitting through the cold wetness, for it to drench the soil and cultivate the sweetness of spring. I can feel the pollen creep into my eyes, nose and throat, making me blurry and scratchy and drowsy. My back aches from alternating between the bed and the couch, crouched over my laptop sending emails, scheduling video calls, taking phone calls. I get up to go to the bathroom or get a cup of coffee. I make myself go on a walk in the middle of the day and after work. My brain feels blank in a way it never used to. Running things over and over was my way of thinking, repeating small interactions on the bus, in the office, at lunch until I had exhausted the interaction for the day. These thoughts are absent, as are the experiences. There is silence, but it is not calm. The silence is the quieting of the scary thoughts, that remind me of what is really happening beneath, or above, this daily monotony. 

Some other things: My hands are cracked and dry and they sting when I wash them. I wash them like we are supposed to, paying close attention to parts of my hands I have never noticed. The space deep between my fingers, the grit under my fingernails. I clench my fingers together and move them in circles around my other palm, feeling the scratch of my nails make the soap into suds. I move to clean out the insides of my rings, white foamy soap rubbing through them, moving to rub the back of my hands with vigor. The stinging is worse by the end of the day. The night gives my skin the time to rest and reset for the morning. Then sometimes I wake up and my jaw is sore from clenching, my eyes crusty from deep, active sleep.