It is 19.13 in the evening of a Wednesday, our first day of lockdown. I haven't gone anywhere and I woke up rather late (relatively) because I went to bed at about 3am this morning. Maybe 4. I was struggling through my cover story (but thank God, I had someone on the other end of the line helping me, working out the knotty problems with the tech bits etc).
Waking up, I moved around in a fog, aware that I had to feed the cats (Sheba had already thrown up magnificently in the study room, a sign that her breakfast was late), clean up the puke, have my breakfast, clean up the kitty litter...before I could really start my day.
I'm reading Yiyun Li's memoir right now: "Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life", which is apparently a quote from Katherine Mansfield's diaries. She has a thing for diaries. I love the book. It is her only memoir, written to try and understand her own depression, and I wonder how she feels revisiting this memoir, in the light of her 16-year-old son killing himself.
But the book is very compelling. I came across Li through a New Yorker article she wrote where she said if she stopped smiling, she would have to weep. And the tears would never end. How does it feel when you put away those feelings, knowing they are there, waiting to leap out at you, when you least expect it?
My pullout is not closed -- mainly because of me and the cover I took so long to write, the one where I struggled through every word. And at the last minute, I have had to put something in, which means the closing has been delayed even further. Oh well.
What I can say is, I have been listening to various free podcasts on Audible (Mel Robbins' Start Here and Mary-Ann Ochota and Charlie George's Happiness and How to Get it and yesterday I listened to the last podcast of the series on brain food and realised that my dietary habits are terrible. I decided to mix it up today and have nutritionally rich food, so I got take-out from Salad Atelier - with runny eggs and wasabi honey and brown rice and salmon and a whole host of vegetables - and it tasted so good - and after the meal I didn't feel bloated or awful. I'm still quietly full now - think I'll just have a cup of tea before bed -- also since I can't order any food now as Grab Food closes at 7 with the lockdown rules).
I will take more advantage of this lockdown than I did of the last one. I shall plan a menu and order some really healthy food for me to put together. I shall read more books. I shall do my daily complement of steps.
(It's 19.24 right now and I've done 7,516 for the day, which is not too bad - three quarters of the day is gone after all, and I've done three quarters of the steps - just one more walk up and down the apartment and I'll be done).
Life is really what you bring to it, isn't it?
Later that day: Almost closed. Kenneth messed with my quote. But have asked for it to be corrected.
Still later: Still not closed yet. (It's 19.51 now)
It's 20.08 and I have discovered that I cannot order groceries online because there are no more spots available. Also, Pathma says her aunt picked up Covid from shopping at Giant and she asked us to be careful when going to the supermarkets.
Sigh.
Well, OK then.
Still not closed. But nearly. Have looked at all the stories.
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