Memories and Memes!
Good morning everyone,
Because when I'm writing this, it is just barely morning. 11:46am. So it will undoubtedly be posted sometime around 2 or 3pm. But know that it was morning and I was writing! I'm sitting out in our backyard in a swimsuit and soaking up the sun. Right now is one of those good quarantine moments. If not for COVID, I would be back on campus, probably still asleep, and not enjoying the sunshine. This week has been (like I'm sure most of your weeks) full of these little moments of goodness and full of some less good ones.
There should be a different, entirely separate word for a bad quarantine moment. Because half the time there's nothing even bad actually happening to ignite that feeling. A lot of the time, it just feels like your body and brain had momentarily forgotten we were in a pandemic, and then it all came crashing back down on you. Not one particular thing, like a missed birthday, or graduation, or grieving a lost job. Just some of all of it in an abstract way, that's hard to fix, and so you just have to find your good book or a puzzle, or the TV show you're binging and wait it out.
Maybe that's just me. Objectively life is good. Right now, my people are still safe. Or as safe as we can be. I have not (please read the "not" - don't want to cause unnecessary panic by skipping over that one word!) woken up to the news that a friend has contracted COVID, or that my class is canceled because our professor did. That's hard, and I don't want to diminish the things that have impacted us. My sister and I are both missing out on senior years. Our entire household, like yours, is struggling sometimes to adapt to online working and learning. We all miss contact with the people we care about most beyond these walls. Some people very dear to me have lost jobs. My internship was canceled this summer, and I'm a graduating college in a very uncertain and crazy new job market, that looked very different two months ago. I have now met a few people digitally on Facebook or Zoom that have had COVID, which was once unimaginable. I hate to see my family stressed out, and uncertain. I hate to feel disconnected from friends and family.
But my parents are both educators, and still in work. We still have food on the table. We haven't lost someone in the family. We are able to work from home, and home is safe. Life keeps moving and things find a way to work out and sometimes I am still sad. And still down. And still helpless. And I'm trying really hard to be okay with that. To accept that feeling while not living in it constantly. That's the hardest part. Feeling sad and down and then feeling helpless to help a wider community beyond staying home, the very thing that is making you in part, sad and down. So my hard moments are abstract, and dull, and cover you up like a blanket when you least expect it.
The good moments are bright and acute and specific, and if the bad moments are being smothered by an unexpected blanket, the good moments pierce you like cupid's arrow and instantly remind you in your soul that somethings right now, are very very good. Like all the books I've been reading. Ugh, I LOVE to read, and sometimes I get into a dry spell where I can't find a good book. And that has NOT been the case! Beginning of quarantine I was too unsettled and distracted to read. But now, joy of joys, I can again! This week I finished "The Giver" by Lois Lowry. Can you believe I hadn't read that? I also finished "The Flatshare" by Beth O'Leary, and "Funny, You Don't Look Autistic" by Michael McCreary. I also read a bunch of children's books this week, because you know, my secret inner librarian likes to be on the forefront of all the hottest reads, regardless of genre. Plus it was fun to reread a few of my old favorites, like "The Seven Silly Eaters", by Mary Ann Hoberman.
On a related topic, one of my guilty pleasures is reading either really good or really bad reviews of books. So when I finished "The Giver", I did just that. And read a 2,702-word one-star review about how "The Giver" is nationalist propaganda and is childhood indoctrination. Now, you could definitely read it that way, I didn't, but you could. But because I occasionally like to engage in a bit of pretentious puckishness, I am currently crafting an equally long reply to said review (from 2007 mind you) about how "The Giver" is not, in fact, a nationalist fear-mongering critique of communism, but a warning about the potential dangers of Singerist-style utilitarianism. (Professor Jothen, if you're reading this, can this count as my final paper?) Pretentious puckishness is not a good look on me (or anyone?) but I have the time and it makes me laugh. We'll see if I actually ever get around to posting it.
I've also been slowly working my way through Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" (because mmmm someone, I'm not saying who, decided that was a book they were not going to read during their college classic course. I won't say who, because I'm not a snitch.) (This is a lie, I think my 1st-grade classmate, Thomas, would remind me that I have been a snitch. So it was me. I didn't read it. Happy, Thomas?) Anyway, I bring it up because it's been a really nice book to read during this all. It's essentially a list of advice about how to live life from an old dead Roman emperor, and you know what? It's relevant af. This is one of the passages I've found most comforting right now:
"49. To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it... Does what's happened to you keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a person's nature to fulfill itself? So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune" (48).
Fear not, life has not been all book reviews and philosophy!
Grady and I went on a long walk with Oliver this week, and I saw lost of interesting things! Like...
This huge pile of sidewalk ants!
TWO houses with dogs on their address number sign things, but different dogs.
Some little flowers.
A really old random church that looked like a house. Expect it looks a lot like a church in this picture so I feel bamboozled!
And a garden gnome.
Speaking of creative birthday celebrations, another highlight of my week was celebrating my friend Lucas's 22nd birthday on Zoom. I made a Kahoot! (online quiz game) all about Lucas and our favorite memories of him. He's a friend from high school, and I Zoom with my high school friends every week, and it's always so so nice to see them, even if it's on a screen. I have "seen" them more in the last month than in the entire last year. They always cheer me up and we're so crazy all together but I love them all so dearly and it feels a little bit like coming home. We also have expended now to include a few significant others, Aaron, Robbie, Nathan, Ben, Erik, and Kendra, and sometimes they all pop in as well, along with an occasional college friend that stops in to say hi. It's really cool to get to know them, and that they all hang even though we're not the easy group to break into, and it has to be so much harder over Zoom. But if someone's important to my friends, well then by proxies and on principle, you are important to me, and I want to get to know you, so we can become friends in our own right. Anyway. It was just really great that we all got to be "together" to celebrate Lucas, and to hang every week. That wouldn't have happened in person, because we would be all over the country, and half of us would have never even heard of Zoom.
Because when I'm writing this, it is just barely morning. 11:46am. So it will undoubtedly be posted sometime around 2 or 3pm. But know that it was morning and I was writing! I'm sitting out in our backyard in a swimsuit and soaking up the sun. Right now is one of those good quarantine moments. If not for COVID, I would be back on campus, probably still asleep, and not enjoying the sunshine. This week has been (like I'm sure most of your weeks) full of these little moments of goodness and full of some less good ones.
There should be a different, entirely separate word for a bad quarantine moment. Because half the time there's nothing even bad actually happening to ignite that feeling. A lot of the time, it just feels like your body and brain had momentarily forgotten we were in a pandemic, and then it all came crashing back down on you. Not one particular thing, like a missed birthday, or graduation, or grieving a lost job. Just some of all of it in an abstract way, that's hard to fix, and so you just have to find your good book or a puzzle, or the TV show you're binging and wait it out.
Maybe that's just me. Objectively life is good. Right now, my people are still safe. Or as safe as we can be. I have not (please read the "not" - don't want to cause unnecessary panic by skipping over that one word!) woken up to the news that a friend has contracted COVID, or that my class is canceled because our professor did. That's hard, and I don't want to diminish the things that have impacted us. My sister and I are both missing out on senior years. Our entire household, like yours, is struggling sometimes to adapt to online working and learning. We all miss contact with the people we care about most beyond these walls. Some people very dear to me have lost jobs. My internship was canceled this summer, and I'm a graduating college in a very uncertain and crazy new job market, that looked very different two months ago. I have now met a few people digitally on Facebook or Zoom that have had COVID, which was once unimaginable. I hate to see my family stressed out, and uncertain. I hate to feel disconnected from friends and family.
But my parents are both educators, and still in work. We still have food on the table. We haven't lost someone in the family. We are able to work from home, and home is safe. Life keeps moving and things find a way to work out and sometimes I am still sad. And still down. And still helpless. And I'm trying really hard to be okay with that. To accept that feeling while not living in it constantly. That's the hardest part. Feeling sad and down and then feeling helpless to help a wider community beyond staying home, the very thing that is making you in part, sad and down. So my hard moments are abstract, and dull, and cover you up like a blanket when you least expect it.
The good moments are bright and acute and specific, and if the bad moments are being smothered by an unexpected blanket, the good moments pierce you like cupid's arrow and instantly remind you in your soul that somethings right now, are very very good. Like all the books I've been reading. Ugh, I LOVE to read, and sometimes I get into a dry spell where I can't find a good book. And that has NOT been the case! Beginning of quarantine I was too unsettled and distracted to read. But now, joy of joys, I can again! This week I finished "The Giver" by Lois Lowry. Can you believe I hadn't read that? I also finished "The Flatshare" by Beth O'Leary, and "Funny, You Don't Look Autistic" by Michael McCreary. I also read a bunch of children's books this week, because you know, my secret inner librarian likes to be on the forefront of all the hottest reads, regardless of genre. Plus it was fun to reread a few of my old favorites, like "The Seven Silly Eaters", by Mary Ann Hoberman.
On a related topic, one of my guilty pleasures is reading either really good or really bad reviews of books. So when I finished "The Giver", I did just that. And read a 2,702-word one-star review about how "The Giver" is nationalist propaganda and is childhood indoctrination. Now, you could definitely read it that way, I didn't, but you could. But because I occasionally like to engage in a bit of pretentious puckishness, I am currently crafting an equally long reply to said review (from 2007 mind you) about how "The Giver" is not, in fact, a nationalist fear-mongering critique of communism, but a warning about the potential dangers of Singerist-style utilitarianism. (Professor Jothen, if you're reading this, can this count as my final paper?) Pretentious puckishness is not a good look on me (or anyone?) but I have the time and it makes me laugh. We'll see if I actually ever get around to posting it.
I've also been slowly working my way through Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" (because mmmm someone, I'm not saying who, decided that was a book they were not going to read during their college classic course. I won't say who, because I'm not a snitch.) (This is a lie, I think my 1st-grade classmate, Thomas, would remind me that I have been a snitch. So it was me. I didn't read it. Happy, Thomas?) Anyway, I bring it up because it's been a really nice book to read during this all. It's essentially a list of advice about how to live life from an old dead Roman emperor, and you know what? It's relevant af. This is one of the passages I've found most comforting right now:
"49. To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it... Does what's happened to you keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a person's nature to fulfill itself? So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune" (48).
Fear not, life has not been all book reviews and philosophy!
Grady and I went on a long walk with Oliver this week, and I saw lost of interesting things! Like...
This huge pile of sidewalk ants!
TWO houses with dogs on their address number sign things, but different dogs.
And a garden gnome.
Oliver got very sleepy and very dirty. AKA nap time then bathtime.
My boyfriend Aaron and I watched two movies this week that I hadn't seen. Yay for digital dates! I chose "Gone Girl", which actually lived up to the book(?!) and Aaron chose "The Prestige" which I can't believe I'd never seen before because that's such a Cristiana movie... It's been hard not being able to spend actual IRL time with Aaron during all of this, and the only good thing is that I have so many friends who are in the same boat right now, who I can call up and ask for advice or just rant or share ideas.
Last Thursday was especially hard because it is Aaron and I's two year anniversary of dating. Considering I told Aaron on our first date that I "give this thing two weeks, tops", that's a big deal. And you know, we're only 22 and 23, so that's like 8% of our lives or something like that I didn't pull out a calculator. Well Aaron, I'm sure glad it lasted more than 2 weeks. To celebrate, Aaron made me Korean beef for dinner and left it on my front porch, with some Sebastian Joe's ice cream. (He knows me so well!) I sent him on a Scavenger Hunt, where he walked around some of the places we have good memories together and had to decipher my clues consisting of bad poetry. He wanted to watch "Gone Girl" later that night and I had to put my foot down because I already only think of "Gone Girl" when I come across scavenger hunts, and frankly, it's not a good association. Aaron, I miss you, and I'm glad we found creative ways to celebrate even if it wasn't what we would have planned two months ago.
Aaron and I trying out video-chat filters :)
Speaking of Aaron, it was Aaron's brother Nate's birthday last week, and his sister Bekah enlisted us to help create a movie to send to Nate who's deployed in Guantanamo Bay. That's a convoluted sentence. Aaron has a sister, Bekah. Aaron has a brother, Nate. Nate is in Guantanamo Bay. Nate had a birthday. Bekah made him a video. Bekah asked Aaron and me to help. So I animated the beginning and stalked through the Lauby family's Facebooks for pictures of Nate, Aaron put it all together, smoothed out all the animation, edited, and put in the audio, Bekah recorded an acapella version of a song to play over the whole thing, and Aaron's parents submitted a video to put in with the photos. It was a testament to digital working together because we're all spread out. You can click here to watch it.
Also. Quarantine confession. My cousin Jack has gotten me absolutely ADDICTED to this app called "Monster Legends", and I'm in. I'm so far in. Like, I have never played an iPhone game this diligently and without shame. Quarantine is good for gaming. And you know what? I will game! I have the time! And sometimes, that's all I have the energy for! So bring it on. Jack, let's win this monster team war, and also please send me cells.
You also probably know at this point that my fam bam and I do nightly concerts, and call ourselves "6ft Apart". We're regular Von Trapps. A few nights ago, Dad played piano while I sang Sara Bareilles, and it was one of my favorite nights in terms of actual vocals. Sara Bareilles is so hard and so fun to sing! You can watch that here.
I'll wrap this up now because it's Saturday, it's sunny, and I'm ready to stretch out and nap in the sun like a cat. I hope you are all doing well, and finding moments of peace and joy in every day, amidst the chaos. My grandma will be guest writing a post soon, about my grandpa having unrelated-to-COVID surgery during this pandemic, and how absolutely crazy that experience was. If you have a story to share, or artwork, or photos, send me an email at cristianahawthorne@gmail.com, and I'd love to post it here.
Peace,
Cristiana
P.S. Here's some #relatable memes. xo
(not related to covid but still funny)
Comments
Post a Comment