A Post a Day in May #5: The COVID-19 diaries

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I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May. 

For me, today is Day #50 of living in social isolation, staying at home and working from home. To a large extent, I have accommodated to the restrictions by focusing on creative endeavours: These days, after work, I fit domestic chores in and around my collage and writing projects instead of the other way around, as I used to. I am enjoying this shift in focus, although, when it comes, I will welcome the freedom of nipping out to the shop for that missing ingredient for dinner.

One of the daily routines I complete is an entry into my “Daily Log”, which I’ve been keeping since September 1, 2018. I began it as a way to become more mindful about my ordinary everyday life and, largely, the entries reflect precisely this. It is not a journal of personal secrets and earth-shattering thoughts; it is a record of my days as they pass through into weeks and months. 
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

I was, therefore, fascinated to learn via CBC radio's The Current of three projects that have been launched by historians, psychologists and museum curators to capture exactly this routine and ordinary existence of ordinary people during the extraordinary coronavirus lockdown the world is experiencing:
  • A Journal of the Plague Year: An archive of COVID-19 is a digital archive, curated by historians from universities around the world, that is open to submissions from anyone anywhere. Archive co-founder Catherine O’Donnell says that archives tend to be "hopelessly slanted towards the famous” but this one is “non-judgmental, sprawling, messy and rich”. Meaning will be created later, through historians’ interpretations of the submissions.  
  • The COVID-19 Interpersonal Coping Diary Study out of St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia has its participants complete a short daily survey over a period of days. The study aims to better understand how narrating one’s own life, whether during negative or positive times, can impact one’s mental health. The data are “excellent sources for future historians and also for the writers themselves”, says Karen Blair, lead researcher. 
  • #FramingEverdayLife:Stories of Confinement is a collaborative photography project at Montreal’s McCord Museum of social history. People are asked to send in photos of their everyday life during lockdown — one photo from inside their home and one from outside. The museum may put together an exhibition in the future. 
I did not realize the import of what I was doing when I began my collage series COVID-19: end date unknown, but, today, I think I may submit some of my work to the Journal of the Plague Year archives. It would be fun to think of my pieces, created in the basement of our little house on the Canadian prairie, being part of a global archive of the year of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Are you narrating your life during these extraordinary times? We'll be in lockdown for a while yet, I think, so it's not too late to start...

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Comments

  1. AnnMay 5, 2020 at 5:09 AM

    I tried, really tried. I thought a daily journal entry might help my grieving process for the loss of my little black dog, the loss of my neighbor whom I nursed thru his final illness, and the loss of my daily routine during this plague. But I found writing, actual writing by hand, was almost impossible. My fingers cramp, and, because I was doing it at night, in bed, I couldn't fine a comfortable position. Now I'm wondering if I should start a blog to record my experiences during this time, just for me and perhaps giving access to a few friends when I can "screw your -- my -- courage to the sticking place!

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    Replies
    1. Amanda Le RougetelMay 5, 2020 at 6:11 AM

      A blog might well be the answer, Ann -- no handwriting involved. Or a simple Word document on a laptop or iPad could work, again no handwriting involved, but a place to record thoughts for yourself; you could email excerpts to friends if/as you wanted. Alternatively, you could leap into the world of podcasting! Voice your words onto the record, rather than writing them.

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