Untitled Pandemic Journal

August 28th, Friday

Today I got stuck in my shorts and had to wait four hours to take them off. Is this real life? Wasting away a perfectly good day off because I zipped up my shorts a bit too far the way I’m supposed to and couldn’t unzip them?
I had to wait four hours until my dad came home and saved me. I hate asking for his assistance but it would’ve been another two hours or so before my mom came home. Luckily I didn’t have to use the restroom; I kept my water drinking to the absolute minimum so I wouldn't have to use the restroom. Fortunately, I was freed.
It’s funny, because I’ve always had this sort of phobia about getting stuck in your clothes and not being able to get them off. I’ve had panicked moments in dressing rooms where something was too tight and I’ve thought oh no, how do I get it off? And it reminds me of how it would suck if you lived alone, because what would you do? No one to help you get out of the shirt or dress or shorts, so you might have to grab a pair of scissors and hack away at a perfectly nice outfit in order to free yourself from it.
Luckily I don’t live alone right now, since I’m hiding out at my parents’ house. Luckily (ha!) it’s a pandemic so I didn’t have to go anywhere, trapped in these coral-colored safari-print short shorts. What a look.

August 29th,  Saturday

I don’t know what day it started but I suddenly don’t feel like myself. I don’t feel like doing anything. I don’t care that I’m not checking off all the silly things in my planner, things I’ve been distracting myself with since the end of May. 
But it’s not just that I don’t want to do anything. I don’t examine things the way I did. Even though I’ve been out here in Sag Harbor for five months, I never stopped appreciating nature. But suddenly I feel like I don’t appreciate it. 
Maybe this is depression setting in. You know the five stages of grief, which people always love to talk about in a sort of meme-y way but which in reality aren’t funny at all? I feel like I’ve gotten to the depression part. The denial was the first few months of the pandemic; where I don’t really know what I did besides survive. The anger part came—well, I had felt simultaneous bouts of anger with the denial, but I think I was low-key angry when the guy I had been talking to decided to stop talking to me because I was apparently taking up his time. But I didn’t really notice it, maybe because I had channeled it into my little planner and checklist.
The bargaining stage one could say was this summer: the few attempts to go out and socialize with my sister and friends. Trying to make some semblance of normal, of old life. I don’t think it worked.

August 30th, Sunday

It is weird to see the house across the street all black. I had grown accustomed to looking out at house, where I could make out the vague silhouettes of people sitting around a big table under a kitchen lamp, while vague indiscernible words floated across through the dark. 
Now, though, it is September in two days and the family is gone. After over thirty-one years they sold it, packed up what things they wanted in their trucks and a POD container and left. That was the end of their happy summer home.
I hadn’t known them personally, even though there seemed to be plenty of guys and girls around my age or younger. They seemed like a nice, normal, typical American family. Nothing special. It was sad because I knew the next family that moved in there would probably not be so average and simple-minded.

August 31, Monday

How…interesting. You know that feeling, when you’re waiting for something super important, and then it happens, and it’s just like “oh, it happened.”

September 1, 2020 Tuesday

Now when I look out across the street it is completely dark at both houses. The people who were renting the remodeled house are gone. Even the nice outside lights that light up the bushes from below are off. Once again I feel that unsettled feeling, because I’ve seen lights on and people there the whole summer.
Today is September 1st, which means the August rentals are all up. Some people manage to get rentals through Labor Day, but others are not so lucky. That might account for the lack of traffic on the streets, and a general quietness that seems to exude even if you don’t leave the block.
Are people going to return to the city, now that it’s fall? France Bleu went on and on today about “la rentrée”, but its only students and the 1% that have truly modified schedules in the summer. Since New York is going through with partial school opening, maybe parents will be forced to go back to the city with their kids, although the schools across the Hamptons remarked on the hundreds of new families that applied to their districts.

September 2, 2020 Wednesday

Three huge Amazon boxes were delivered today. I had to pull them off the front porch so they wouldn’t get damaged in the rain. I guess Daddy was getting carried away with online shopping again.
The first box had enough paper towels, according to my father, to last us till next spring. Don’t ask me why he bought them; maybe he was flashing back to the early days of the pandemic, when you couldn’t find paper towels or toilet paper anywhere. I expect there were a lot of clean houses in those early days.
The second box had a leaf blower and Coleman lanterns in them; the third had a chainsaw. I asked my dad why he bought all of these items. He said firstly, that the leaf blower and chainsaw he had in the garage were ancient. Secondly, he said that in case there is a hurricane that you need to be prepared; you need to buy a chainsaw before a hurricane, he said, because if you wait until afterward you won’t be able to find one because they’ll all be sold out.
I wonder if a hurricane will hit Long Island this year; it would be so typical of 2020. Why Daddy always seems so excited at the prospect of a hurricane I’ll never understand. I had to help put the batteries in the Coleman lanterns, as they are modern and not kerosene-burning wick lanterns. They shine pretty bright, so if a hurricane comes I guess we’d be pretty prepared.

September 4, Friday

Why did I volunteer to record my life during a pandemic when I have nothing interesting going on? I could see if I was an essential worker, or working in a store or restaurant, how I would have much to say. But who cares about a single girl holed up in her parent’s house in Sag Harbor, who’s working remotely and barely ever goes in public? What could possibly be interesting about this?

September 5,  Saturday

Another Saturday afternoon stuck at home and bored. This feels a lot like my childhood: being bored with nothing else to do but to go on the computer. And then my parents would make comments about me always being on the computer, like why didn’t I get up and go outside and do something.
During quarantine I started to walk every day, since I’m in Sag Harbor, and I started to religiously hoola hoop. The walking started more or less when I came out here at the end of March; it was a way of getting out of the house and getting exercise, since I’m no longer running to catch the subway anymore. My mom and I take a walk every evening after dinner; she puts off washing the dishes so we can catch the sunlight, which is becoming a problem again now that we are nearing fall.
Most of the time we just walk over to the next street; sometimes I feel too lazy and lately we’ve been just walking around the block. Sometimes we’ll walk two blocks over and go to the waterfront spot where you can see Paine’s Creek and Bay Point. There is a little path between two houses over there that we didn't know existed; you could launch a boat from the grassy bank and it’s a nice view. On the weekends we’ll go to Long Beach to shake things up, or we’ll drive to town and walk around looking at all the old colonial houses which I love doing.
We’ve even walked further from our house down streets I’d never been on in my life. It’s funny, because I passed these streets everyday, and yet I’d never been down them until now. The one is a dirt road with lots of little summer houses on it that face Paine’s Creek. I’d be really surprised if the mailman actually goes down and delivers to those houses, let alone the UPS man.
Hoola hooping has become my other form of exercise during the pandemic. I’ve hoola hooped before; the last time I lived with my parents, in 2011, I got into it. But I never did it everyday until now. I’ll hoop anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour; any more and it gets boring. Ever since I found three ticks on me I will not hoola hoop in the backyard; I stand on the driveway alongside the house, where I can see the street. It’s funny but being in quarantine you kind of want to be in the front yard, where the “action” is. Even though I don’t say hello to the neighbors, I like seeing them walking by or riding their bikes; it makes me feel like I’m not alone.

September 9th

I was just thinking about it, and I don’t think I should watch anything remotely apocalyptic or scary. Like, no horror films and no DoomsDay stuff. Halloween is coming, after all. But ever since the Pandemic began, I haven't felt the urge to watch or even consider thinking about and contemplating anything that has to do with those two genres. Aren’t we already living in some sort of Doomsday film that won’t end? Was Hollywood’s obsession with those types of films a warning or premonition of what was coming?
I’ve watched some interesting things since the Pandemic began. It’s been mostly an interesting mix of Korean TV shows and foreign films. But I also finished Homeland, and “The Great” series about Catherine the Great, Queen of Russia, and the “How to Become a God in Central Florida” show with Kirsten Dunst. I’ve definitely expanded my mind a bit, if anything else.
 

September 14th, Monday

Today is my father’s birthday. Birthdays are what you make of them. In recent years I have tried to make a bigger deal of it, if only to shamelessly celebrate and love myself if just for one day a year. This year was not as exciting as last year, but we did have a good cake and food from Dockside.

September 17, Thursday

Today was totally boring. Nothing of interest really to note. I swear, my life is one continuous long wait. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Maybe it is time for action instead.

September 18, Friday

I told my job that I would be leaving them for a new position. It is surprising how people are still continuing to hire, even during a pandemic. Maybe they are not hiring in select industries that have been hard hit by Covid (fashion and tourism especially) but there was certainly no lack of opportunities on the LinkedIn jobs page, if you had the requisite talent and experience... 
It is unfortunate, though, that I have to move back to the city now. My new job doesn’t require me to be in the office, but I can’t possibly stay here and start a new job. My parents are simply too distracting and my workplace—the dining room table—is basically the center of the house, which means they are constantly walking by it. 
…. Later, while I was hoola hooping, I saw something funny in the sky over the house. “Marry me Nana “the banner read. It was white with red letters, a heart punctuating the thoughtful request. The banner trailed behind a seaplane that traversed the relatively cloudless sky. I wondered who Nana was and where she as standing right now. I wondered if she was crying tears of joy and happily embracing her fiance. Or maybe her fiance was crying and dejected. Could you imagine?

September 20, Sunday

White pants are immediately associated with the Hamptons. Where else in the world did people wear white pants with such aplomb? It was very Gatsby-ish. Maybe in Nantucket they wear them a lot too. But white pants, including white jeans, were indelibly associated with the Hamptons fashion.  Some people probably only think older, classic ladies wear white pants. But the truth was, everyone in the Hamptons wore white pants. Loose linen, Lilly Pulitzer, tight jeans, 90s jeans: everyone wears white. Not much has really changed.

September 22, Tuesday

You see a picture like the one from today; of the 20,000 little American flags planted in the ground in DC near the Washington Monument. It was only a fraction of flags to represent the 200,000 (plus) Americans who have died of the coronavirus. It’s not a picture you want to like. But compelling and heartbreaking it is—mute-tifying, it that were a word. The photo makes you go silent. It’s sad, because it didn’t have to be this way. A virus like this would have been catastrophic anyways, but it still wouldn’t have been like this.

September 24, Thursday

Today I realized that my time spent here in Sag Harbor every day has come to pass. Six months have flown by. It doesn’t seem possible. It’s weird that tomorrow is my last full day out here. That I have one more night left after this.
Of course, these past six months have been incredibly slow and hard, too. Well, perhaps not July and August. When my sister and best frind came out, it felt a bit more normal, even though we didn’t trudge back onto the train every Sunday evening to head back to the city. But it’s been—it feels like it’s been years. Or lifetimes. I don’t feel like I’m the same person I was before I came out to the Hampton’s. Hell, I don’t feel like the girl who was hysterical waiting for her mom to bring her to the Hampton’s was the same as the girl who, less than three weeks prior, was smiling happily on a subway platform thinking her wildest dreams were about to be met.
It’s not freezing today. Even sitting in bed now, I can still hear the crickets. Sad to leave behind the rituals I established out here. After-dinner neighborhood walks with my mother. Hoola-hooping as soon as I closed my work laptop for the day. Taking an outdoor shower in my bathing suit and not being able to see if there were any insects hiding in the shower. Feeling stuck to the chair as I sat in the porch at nighttime, working on my short stories and poems.

September 25, Friday

Today is my last full day in Sag Harbor for now. I watched my last sunset of the summer. It was my last time hooping outside in the driveway, watching nature go by. A little chipmunk ran past me once, and decided to do it again but he went in a different direction.

I am going to miss this. But I need to focus, and I definitely needed a break from my family. But today was warm—the warmest I’ve felt since Labor Day?—and it makes me sad. As I hoop, there’s only the slightest hint of a breeze and it’s gorgeous. Why can’t I happily live here, in my own space? Why can’t home be my home? Why must I go elsewhere?

September 26, Saturday

I’m back in the city. I don’t know what to think. I feel confused and liberated and excited and nervous. I’m anxious and I don’t know how I’m honestly going to get through the next week. 
But yea—weirdly liberated. Free in the anonymity of the city. The city doesn’t feel dead. Well, Brooklyn doesn’t feel dead. And I was in downtown Brooklyn for a bit, which let’s face it isn’t actually that great normally.  Anyways. The papers are wrong. Social media is wrong. New York lives on, and the residents will come out tough as they always do. I hope this is going to be an interesting adventure.

September 27, Sunday

Tomorrow is a big day. I’m so nervous! Never would have imagined I’d be starting a new job from home, during a pandemic. Life works in very strange things, but I guess that really isn’t surprising.

This journal draws to a close tomorrow. I think about how my life was when I started it and I feel like I traversed several months in one month. One month! Imagine what the past six months have wrought on all of us. I think every single soul on earth has been deeply, profoundly and intrinsically impacted and moved. Something deep within all of us has shifted. The world shared a common bond simultaneously, and it’s a social ripple of huge magnitude. I don’t know, I’m letting my mind wander.

September 28, Monday

Today is the last day of my journaling for this project. This is a summary of one month of my life during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. Even if it was not too memorable, I wilI still look back on this month. Because it is a record of time spent, and it is a personal record of me, one woman’s thoughts during a global pandemic and an important time in history.