Having spent most of my pre-pandemic days working from home at a desk in my living room, I can tell you where and when the light will cast colour, reflection, and heat from dawn to dusk. At ten o’clock in the morning, as that yellow orb shifts a little higher in the spring sky, the light piercing two corner windows turns the whole place into an inferno.
It’s a stifling and sweaty distraction. On any ordinary sunny day, I pull the curtains closed during peak heat hours, so I can type at my desk in a climate that doesn’t resemble a sauna.
But these aren’t ordinary days. And work has slowed its tempo from that of water gushing to the floor from an overflowing sink, to a leaky faucet’s steady drops echoing off stainless steel. My desk stands largely dormant.
Nowadays, I sit untethered from my screens, intentionally distanced from the news, in a mustard yellow armchair, curtains flung aside, breeze from an open window stroking my neck. I want to feel the scorching sun on my skin. I want to feel everything and anything other than the uncertainty, fear, and loneliness that intermittently seize my body.
From this corner perch, I can watch leaves burst from the trees like popcorn, the snow drip off faraway mountains, a father teaching his young son how to skateboard in the alley below – everyday occurrences that may go unseen or unabsorbed inside the hurricane of life.
As I witness what’s blossoming around me or simply stare into space, my mind journeys to places it hasn’t dropped in on in years.
Like, the vodka bar I bartended at, for two consecutive summer breaks during university, in a town just outside London, England. The gorgeous stench of stale, spilled alcohol is still dizzying, along with the sweet aroma of the vodkas specially infused with English candies. I could never remember how to make the sugary cocktails, mixing together juices and sodas and spirits and lord knows what else. I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about for these elaborate drinks that all tasted the same. Mind you, my palate was simple and crude back then – Malibu Rum with a dollop of orange juice was my beverage of choice.
Perhaps my failure as a bartender was a result of my greater interest in what was happening in the bar – amongst the patrons and my co-workers – than in what I was mixing together.
Now that my mind is minutely focused on these pages of my history for the first time in years, I can clearly replay scenes in my head: the wily, tattooed skinhead who asked me on a date, and me too timid to say no; the Prince Charming-like man I would’ve run away with, when we both turned to look back at each other at the exact same moment; the two, three, four sets of lips I would kiss in one night, without a care for what people may think; the baseball bat kept behind the bar that I only once saw raised when directed at a group of particularly riotous punters, and feeling the naïve and youthful thrill of something dangerous about to happen.
What a gift to travel back in time, to roll around in the recollections, to compare the young lady I was then to the woman I am today. I was unsure and inexperienced and away from home, and everything was exciting. I lived completely in the present, and fell into beautiful friendships with people I only knew for two summers, people I haven’t seen in almost two decades, people I still feel warm towards.
And what about the woman today? Butterflies still swarm at the thought of unexpected eye contact with someone I’m attracted to. But, other than that, the metaphysical walls around me have accumulated layer upon layer of insulation – protection. For the most part, I’ve tumbled into a lackluster routine involving Netflix and early bedtimes. I’ve isolated myself inside a home office devoid of people. Is this age, is this introversion, or is this just me?
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In the weeks since the coronavirus forced the world into homes, snipping ties to the people and places we love, a heady perfume of nostalgia has fogged above roof shingles and chimney stacks and scalps of greying and growing hair.
My social media feeds have showcased a continual stream of images hinting at happier days – arms slung around shoulders, wine glasses clinking around a table, hugging, kissing, laughing, touching. Every day is #TBT. Which works, because nobody knows the actual day.
Memory lane is the only destination we can safely travel to. Its sidewalks are lined with comforts and familiarities still open for business. We are wistfully rappelling into the past and a life that once was. It’s healthy. It’s how we manage the disorder in our external lives, gain some semblance of internal control.
It’s also showing us how we’ve changed, what we once loved, what we value. This yearning for nostalgia has opened a door to insights we haven’t had the time to unravel until now.
Giving that younger me more space in my mind today, her likes and dislikes, dreams and hopes are coming to the surface. She has a voice again, and she’s still so relevant to who I am.
I’m ripping out my insulation. I’m freer.
I recognize that this sense of freedom is privileged. I’m one of the luckier ones, with a home, food, and enough work remaining to cover my bills. There are people struggling, anxious, overwhelmed, grieving, and terrified.
A couple of weeks into Vancouver’s orders to stay home, when we were in the early stages of shock, and freshly mourning the sudden change of life, I woke to a kaleidoscope of red on my bedroom wall and shouts drifting up from the street. I smelled smoke. I bolted up, panicked, my half-asleep brain sure there was a fire inside my home. When the grog cleared, I realized the burning was outside, in an apartment building only a block from mine.
I could see people sitting on the sidewalk, closer than six feet apart, wrapped in blankets, shoulders slumped. There were no fewer than three fire trucks and at least one ambulance.
In the best of times, it’s a tragedy to lose a home. Today, the catastrophe feels doubly awful.
I think about those charred apartments almost daily. The building is now surrounded by a temporary metal fence, the blackened living rooms visible through lifeless windows.
I wonder about the comforts lost: art picked up on travels, postcards stuck to the fridge, books with notes in the margins of curled pages, a dress that reminds of a first kiss, wonky furniture passed down through generations.
I have all these things. They are the roommates that console me as I, along with neighbours, friends, family, the world, weather this pandemic. They are items I took for granted. They are part of the nostalgic trip so essential to my current wellbeing.
Speaking of comforts, I’ve even brought a stuffed animal between my sheets. Not to replicate the feeling of a body (the bodies that have fallen into my bed are, thankfully, not that small, furry, or unresponsive), but to clasp onto a sense of security as I fade into sleep.
Life can turn in an instant. I never thought that possible until now. The appreciation, gratitude for what I have – my home, my life, my health – has tripled, quadrupled.
As we sit with our thoughts, escape to the past, and ponder the future, we’re shifting. Once it’s safe to sit in restaurants and kiss dates and hug friends, we’ll remember how we lived during this upset. We’ll remember the things that became important. We’ll remember what we dreamed of changing.
Or will we? Perhaps we’ll return to a life that’s a little blurry, moving too quickly to ascertain whether this is really who we are or where we want to be or what’s best for us, for the world.
~
I’m realizing that, in those “before” days, whooshing my curtains closed was less of a need for a cooler clime than it was a desire to shut out the world. I spent most of my hours alone before lockdown. I didn’t want to know about the beautiful day outside, the curious things happening, the people doing what they do, when I was handcuffed to a keyboard. That’s not how I want to live in the “after” days.
I forgot what makes me happy. It took a crisis, paired with idle time and the need to elope with nostalgia, to show me.
I don’t know exactly how things will change – who could know that? But I do hope that my curtains stay open and my hours involve more people.
And while I may be reminiscing fondly on those sticky, coming-of-age days, I’m having no sentimental yearnings for Malibu Rum.
Illustration: Aly Jones<