It’s a jump to the left. Then a step to the right.
And ope, look at that it’s the end of July and my wall calendar still says March. The past four months have somehow disappeared and it feels like they never happened. What did I do with that time? I keep thinking it can’t be later than April, but then, no, here comes a writing deadline with a PhD progression deadline close on its heels. Didn’t I have months before these were due? Where did those months go?
It’s astounding. Time is fleeting.
Look again, and the calendar on the wall still says March but the calendar on my laptop says July, and that seems to be the general consensus among news websites, podcasters, and the outdoor temperature. Even the sun is in on it, rising early and setting late, taunting me with its mid-summer-ness when honestly if it wanted to do its February thing right now that would better match my mood. Sure, things are reopening, but honestly, I still feel uncomfortable with the idea of eating indoors and I don’t see myself booking a desk at the British Library anytime soon – despite the fact that I would desperately love a place to work that wasn’t my one-bedroom apartment where work-life and home-life have become so intertwined that I’m constantly stressed out, but also constantly eating pizza and watching Netflix (shout out to Schitt’s Creek). I used to catch so many colds at the British Library. Best not to risk it at the moment… right? Am I being overly cautious?
Madness takes its toll.
I spent the first three months of lockdown completely alone. One day in May I looked at my hands and started crying because they were so human, and I hadn’t been within six feet of another living being – animal or person – in more than two months. A glorious spring was passing by, and all the theatre I had booked was canceled. A trip to Paris canceled. A weekend in Cornwall evaporated like a dream. Everything that motivates me to work, gone. “If I write this much I can visit a museum or check TodayTix.” Or, “If I write this much I can get a tea with a friend.” No more. And yet, I knew I was lucky. I know I am lucky. I wasn't sick. I had food and a roof over my head. But I started to feel like a husk of a person, nevertheless. Wandering between the two rooms of my flat, growing older, like that montage in the Ghost of Christmas Past bit of Muppet Christmas Carol that shows Scrooge growing up. I played so much Animal Crossing and became so attached to a few of my islanders that I began to feel like Millie from Fahrenheit 451. Every day I needed to log in to visit my friends. My computer-programmed friends. “Do the white clowns love you, Millie?”
Time meant nothing never would again.
I’ve realized that I’m an analog person. I used to never keep a diary/calendar, because I could remember all of my meetings in my mind. I could visualize myself going to a place, at a time, meeting a person. I never missed appointments or classes or research coffee hours. Now it’s all on my computer and I find I can’t make heads nor tails of the various reading groups and meetings set up through the school. Is it on Zoom? Microsoft Teams? Google Meetings? Skype? WhatsApp? Did I receive an email about this? I even forget plans I made to video chat with friends – I’m shocked every Saturday at 4pm when my computer ‘rings’ and my friend is calling for our standing date. And the school hasn’t been exactly clear about plans for next year, or about sending invoices for all the marking I did at the beginning of lockdown (!!!), and in general, I’m feeling disillusioned with academia. Is it about education or the bottom-line? Look at all the jobs being lost – is this degree worth it?
With a bit of a mind flip, you’re into the time slip.
Then I had a glorious month that flew by far too quickly of Tim visiting me, and we watched movies and cooked dinners and – after his quarantine period ended – became regulars at the coffee shop on the corner. I felt like a normal person again. We spent most of our time in my flat, but with him working, I could work, too. I managed to finish editing/re-working a paper for an academic journal while he was here, and I wrote the only bit of my thesis I’ve managed to eke out since all this began. We’d get coffees and walk through the graveyard, and visit my graveyard boyfriend, Percy (Tim knows, he gets it). (EDIT: Tim would like for me to clarify that Percy died in 1899.) And now… I’m alone again, with mountains of writing ahead of me.
It’s so dreamy, fantasy free me.
Part of the problem is finding value in my writing. Cinderella? At a time like this? ::Gestures broadly at everything.:: But what else am I doing if not distracting myself from the news cycle? Why not distract myself with fairy tales and ballgowns, and thinking more deeply about the role of adaptation and story in the world we live in? Isn’t that valuable? Because stories keep being told, even now. Clothes keep being worn, and if anything, our relationship to our clothing has been under a re-evaluation in the past five months in a way it never has been before. Isn’t that what I study? Our relationship to clothing? Has it ever been more important than now, when dress-codes have crumbled and are being made anew? When the catwalks of Fashion Weeks have moved online, or in the case of Dior, have been made miniature? When fast fashion companies are under scrutiny for their business practices, and we have a chance at pushing for more ethical fashion? Why not disappear for a bit into costume design and iridescent blue chiffon and crinolines? Maybe I just need to have a bit more faith in my dreams, as Cinderella might sing. Maybe if I keep on believing, this thesis will actually take shape.
Let’s do the time warp again.
(Image from Rocky Horror Picture Show, 20th Century Fox)
