Five years on: How have I changed? How have you?
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| LIKE A TRAIN: From the start, I created collages that helped me process and illustrate my response to the unfolding crisis that COVID-19 brought into our lives. |
It felt like a train roaring towards us. We didn't know where it had come from or where it would take us. But, it seemed, we were already on board and moving with it. Where would it end?
Has it ended? Are we there yet? I am not sure, but I do know that art and creative pursuits have helped me get to where I find myself today, five years later.
My Daily Log recorded my evolving understanding of what was happening in those early days —
- Wednesday, March 11, 2020: Three cases of COVID-19 reported in Manitoba #coronavirus
- Friday, March 13, 2020: My employer (a college) announces that, due to COVID-19, students will be off campus the following week, while staff will prepare for online teaching and administration of duties.
- Saturday, March 14, 2020: I tried to shop at a major supermarket but it was so crazy crowded that I left and went to a smaller store where I discovered emptier shelves than I had ever seen before. By 5pm, the Canadian government had issued an advisory urging Canadians abroad to return home.
- Monday, March 16, 2020: At work, a crash course in all things technology and a race to pack up everything needed for a home office.
- Tuesday, March 17, 2020: My first ‘work from home’ day. “Good,” records my log, “but odd to be doing it without any face-to-face contact with my colleagues — though lots of conversation and connection via the screen. Odd that it works but feels so different.”
- Wednesday, March 18, 2020: “Day Two #workingfromhome…a better groove but still very odd…”
And so it went, until “odd” became the “new normal”, which it remained until I retired at the end of June 2021. I lasted not even 18 months. What kept me going during that time was the commitment of my colleagues, and the energy that came from my own creative practice.
I produced a series of collages titled COVID-19: end date unknown. I wrote and wrote and kept writing and, eventually, got a piece published. I co-facilitated writing courses. I kept moving, even when the world was locked down and the horizon seemed horribly murky.
Today, realizing it has been five yeas since those days, I am amazed and grateful. I disliked many things about the lockdowns, the isolation, the restrictions. I am amazed that it has been a whole five years, as I can remember so many details so clearly still — the lack of haircuts, the grocery deliveries, the online-only visits with friends and family, the lack of choice and diminished sense of agency. But grateful, so grateful, that I had the beginnings of a creative practice into which I could dig day after day after day.
Today, that creative practice is my new normal. I am good with that. I am well. And, against all odds, the world is, quite remarkably, continuing to turn. I keep one eye on the out-there and the down-the-line; the other on the inside-me and the here-and-now. It’s a good balance: Every day, something creative, some of the news, some meaningful connection, and an abiding belief in the power and energy of community.
Thank you for being here, in this community of words and ideas, of connections and conversation. Online though it may be, it is real and good and oh-so-nurturing. 💞
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| EVERY DAY/something creative: January 25, 2025 |
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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.
We were instructed to take what we needed to work from home on March 13, 2020 with no idea how long it might be, 2 weeks?? lol
ReplyDeleteI basically worked from home until I retired in June 2021. My job normally included visiting clients in 4 neighbouring counties. Not being able to do that made my job more challenging and less enjoyable. This contributed to my decision to retire sooner than expected, but I have never regretted that decision. Being retired is fabulous!
I’m a relatively new subscriber and I am enjoying your work 😊
Thank you for being a new-ish subscriber! So happy to read your comment here. Agreed: Being retired is fabulous. Lucky us!
DeleteI’m not sure where I’d be right now without the pandemic. If I hadn’t been in lockdown at the lake with the kids for four months, I may not have written that first 300,000 words that catapulted me into writing. 😬 We may not have moved, my daughter may still be hating her life at her old school… for my family, light was formed in the darkness.
ReplyDeleteWhat a terrific pandemic story you have, Jenn! Thanks for sharing it here.
DeleteI find your top collage interesting, delicate, rounded flowers juxtaposed with sharp angles and edges, I don't know what the significance is but the contrast is striking.
ReplyDeleteBarbara - thank you. It is precisely that contrast I was wanting to present: the sharp jagged parts of life under COVID, along with the softer human connections that kept the heart in it for me.
DeleteI work in public health, in a senior management position, and March 2020 was the start of two years of HELL. I can't describe it more accurately than that. I didn't have the option of working from home so I never had to deal with that, but I was still communicating with most my staff online. In addition to my work duties, I also had a deteriorating family situation, with a teenage daughter who wasn't dealing well with the isolation of doing school from home, and was falling deeper and deeper into an eating disorder. I am so glad that part of my life is behind me. Myself and many colleagues in public health suffer from low level PTSD and are just starting to recover now.
ReplyDeleteOh Mike, what a tough tough road you and your colleagues walked on behalf of the rest of us. Thank you for all you gave. I hope your work life is much better these days...and I hope your family situation has come through that darkness into light.
DeleteThank you, Amanda, for sharing how life was for you 5 years ago! It’s so interesting to read and hear how that unprecedented time in history unfolded for different people. For me there was my life pre-pandemic and my life afterwards. What I remember is a feeling of looking in from the outside as if I were on a movie set standing in the back watching the scene unfold before my eyes. Not being a part of it but witness to it. I remember being terrified that I would die and wondering who would look after my parents? My pets? I had heart palpitations at nighttime when trying to sleep. We pivoted to unknown territory with remote learning then a return to in-person then remote, then in-person and ending the year in remote learning. I learned to teach online and was blessed with a group of students who dug deep to support one another and stay connected. I retired after teaching for 31 years in June of 2021. I remember long lines to shop, empty store shelves, panic buying, a divided population. I discovered Paul Samyn of the Winnipeg Free Press and his nightly bulletins were one of my lifelines. I went back to baking banana chocolate chip bread, another lifeline. I found the daily drive to Assiniboine Park surreal as sometimes we were the only vehicle on the road. We watched people and dogs we’d never seen before walking down our gravel road. Teddy bears graced windows and the Canadian Snowbirds flew over the Grace Hospital to great cheers and waves. I worked on a set of haiku poems detailing this time in my life but have procrastinated and have yet to finish and organize them into a coherent narrative.
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