Standing Still Through Time
This series captures the mundanity and monotony of my COVID-induced isolation experience. I lounge, I watch ducks, I twiddle my thumbs, I cook my way through recipe books and time goes by the way it always has. But I feel as if I'm not moving with it. Two whole seasons begin to melt into summer as I work from home and re-wear yesterday's outfit. Friends move out and lose jobs and go through changes, but I am not there to glide along with them.
I have learned to both love and hate this stillness. Both feelings fuel my soul and creative spirit in different ways. On one hand, I am suddenly met with an abundance of time to pursue projects that I used to dream of having time to pursue. On the other hand, I miss the spontaneous experiences, conversations and energy I would run into on my way to and from work, a party, a friend's house, a restaurant, an event. The hands fight from time to time, but mostly, I am at peace with the slow nature of life right now, and I craft and seek spontaneity in the tiny ways that are available to me: by ringing up a friend I haven't spoken to in months, by walking down that street I haven't walked down before, by exchanging remarks about the starved state of the baking supply aisle with a stranger at the grocery store.
I watch myself, 50 days into social isolation, assume the same poses, positions and mental states that have now become so predictable, they seem rehearsed. For some reason, I am comforted. I am comforted by the lack of stress from the exterior world and my detachment from it soothes me. I know I speak from a very lucky and privileged position, but this is the only position I am able to speak from. Tomorrow I know I will assume the same repetitive positions as yesterday, as the day before, and as the day before that, and all the while, the trees will have bloomed, and the winds will have gotten warmer. And although for now, I am okay with the slow, stillness of it all, I long for fast-paced, fiery motion of life in full throttle, that I once (long, long ago), viewed as mundane and monotonous.
Submitted by Olivera Neskovic.