Although I am getting a little discouraged by the data, which we have been warned, will get much worse before it gets better, sometimes you have to abandon yourself to the existential randomness and absurdity of it all. It could be the weather as our splendid recent days have turned overcast and glum today. Here’s a little something on a lighter note.
This is the most ingenious thing ever invented for the kitchen and they are standard here. It’s a drain rack incorporated into the cupboard directly above the sink. It also permanently houses a set of dishes for 8, glasses and cups included. The best thing since sliced bread. Well, that would be the dishwasher, but never mind.
I am no stranger to isolation but compared to being stranded out at the house in a snowstorm or whatever, lockdown in a comfortable apartment in the middle of town isn’t as difficult, but it has its challenges. Time takes on a new dimension. It seems to pass much more slowly. One is constantly calibrating what will fill the time, not necessarily most efficiently but, most amply. The days have a same sameness about them and without the amusement of the Saturday morning market hubbub or the delight of the cacophony of the Sunday morning church bell’s call to worship, or Monday’s energizing jump start to a new week, to mark the days, they seem to blend into one another and I find myself needing to think of what day it is.
Besides reading, writing, and not ‘rithmatic, as I am conscientiously trying not to obsess about the statistics, by exercising the self discipline not to look at them before the evening’s 6 PM report, a list of things to do is a must. A plan for at least part of the day is recommended.
Lockdown or any other type of confinement requires a balance between self-discipline and reward. One advantage is, that since this will be a long lockdown period, I can have the satisfaction of putting tedious things, like house keeping, off. I really can do it tomorrow, the next day, or even next week.
However, so as not to find yourself snacking constantly or watching TikTok videos, it is necessary to establish some degree of self-discipline and/or self control.
Routines can be helpful. Sticking to a timetable for some things is a way to mark time which seems to expand otherwise. Remember: the space-time continuum theory may apply even in a severely limited static space and Betty Friedan’s feminist admonition that housework seems to expand to fill the time available. However, ditching the timetable is sometimes necessary as well, so as not to drive yourself over the edge with OCD. Although, according to Hannah Arendt, to W. H Auden, all kinds of madness were lack of discipline, and who am I to argue.
My trips to the store, with their angst ridden wait-in-line and air of foreboding calm, find me wandering the aisles yearning for chocolate and other things to assuage this anxiety. The cookie aisle is particularly enticing as cookies are a thing here, for breakfast. Who doesn’t love a country that markets them as breakfast food. Seriously, the back of the package tallies: x number of cookies, (preferably dunked in) caffe latte and a container of fruit yogurt give you all the nutrients and calories necessary to start your day right. I kid you not.
So, lockdown time management requires the judicious application of self-discipline and reward when it comes to food: meals and snacking. What else is there to overindulge when you’re on your own. As I mentioned on Day 5, and absolutely nothing has changed, I make a nice meal patiently and eat it slowly, never multi-tasking. Multitasking is arguably time saving and this is not what we need right now. So, no internet or reading while you’re eating. Save that for when you have nothing else to do, which is most of the time now. I usually make at least two portions and put the rest in a ceramic baking dish so I can just pop it into the oven on alternating days, so as not to have to cook every single day, even though I have nothing but time. I never said I wasn’t a lazy southern European, (see: Lockdown Day 8) although the laziest amongst us are your best Operations Officers and Efficiency Experts. We excel at the easiest and fastest methods of doing anything.
I am even keeping up with the laundry. In addition to making me feel moderately virtuous, it’s because there is a large window enclosed porch upstairs, with a beautiful view (reward) of the Apuan Alps, which serves as what I call, the Italian national birthright to have somewhere to hang your washing, as this is all it’s used for. There are few tumble dryers here. I’ll take any excuse these days to go up there, even laundry hanging. I have set up a reading corner which I use as a real get-away, but no one else in the building goes there for anything but hanging laundry. They are busy compassionately caring for their extended families, and their luxurious plants, keeping their homes spotless, and cooking those scrumptious meals we all know and love. Which is also, in theory (mine) why they eat cookies for breakfast, who wants to bother with anything else when you’ll have some fabulous meal later in the day, and/or have to spend a lot of time cooking up that fabulous meal.
Performing tedious tasks like dishes, not to be put off until tomorrow, requires the recommended self discipline and reward system. Doing the lunch dishes (see illustration above) takes exactly as much time as is required to make a cup of tea. So, the tedious task is rewarded with tea and dessert, cakes, cookies and/or ice cream. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
I washed the floors today. Or, maybe, yesterday; i can’t be sure. I hate to wash floors. It’s the absolute most odious housekeeping chore that exists. But the self-discipline of not abandoning myself to total shameless self-indulgence, also imparted a modicum of gratification of the satisfaction of having chosen to do the right thing. Bring on the cookies and maybe some Vin Santo. I hedge my bets. Cookies for breakfast, cookies with wine, what’s not to love.
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