Thoughts on the Pandemic

As we enter the last week of an extraordinary year, I hasten to put down my thoughts buzzing in my head, lest they become mere nostalgia.

At the beginning of the year, all I wanted to do was travel. 2020 was supposed to my year of big travel. Angkor Vat was scheduled for February. I had penciled in many other destinations in the calendar to coincide with special events. But as the coronavirus multiplied rapidly, spreading fear and death, the plans had to remain on paper.

The first month was claustrophobic. The home became a prison. Uncertainty hung thick in the air. News spread anxiety and little else. As the days telescoped into one another in a crazy, disoriented jumble, it was important to anchor the mind to some purpose in order to stay sane. Bit by bit, order began to be restored in the mind.

In the second month, I opened the windows wide and let them stay open all day, shutting them only at twilight to avoid the ingress of mosquitos. I sat by the window and gazed outside. And I saw light!

Soon, I was going to the far corner of the city for a performance of Mozart’s symphonies. And the next day I flew to Moscow to watch The Nutcracker in the famous Bolshoi Theatre. And in the next week I was watching Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. The mind was calmer now.

The mind was craving for novelty and each month I constructed projects to keep it nourished. I read, I wrote, I watched movies, I attended company AGMs, I attended webinars by the dozen, I signed up for online courses, I taught an online course, I listened to entire albums, I solved Sudoku and crossword puzzles, I wrote letters to editor. I was kind to my beleaguered mind and indulged it regularly. I refocused my photography skills, spiced up my culinary skills and reordered my Sudoku solving skills.

We can instruct our mind to be happy and contended. My mind has defeated the coronavirus in 2020, for which I am grateful. The pandemic did not give me time; I already have it. What it did give me was desire to live. And I am living each day as if it is my last day.