Life in Lockdown is Irrelevant - That's not a bad thing.
Lockdown has turned me into a grandma. I sit on my couch, listen to the emptiness of my room and wait for something to happen. Sometimes I see other people. They are also grandmas. One of us will bring cake or snacks, and we will giggle over putting too much whiskey in our Irish Coffee. The soya whip cream from the spray bottle is the highlight of my month. Days after, I tell people how nice it was to put sprinkles on it. Those sprinkles are the most exciting thing to happen to me that week.
My grandma friends talk about baking bread. We have long and serious conversations about types of flour and sourdough starter. The bread takes a front-row seat in our mind, now that everything else has vacated the venue. It is said that bread is a catalyst for societal shifts and revolutions, so it makes sense that it plays a part in this pandemic. Maybe we will soon divide into camps of bread ideology, as it always happens when public discourse specializes. Lockdown grandmas have lifted bread out of indifference, into relevance.
Next to talking about bread, I look at the birds in my garden. I wish my window had sheer white curtains or potted geraniums, from behind which I can lurk and watch pigeons, like a real grandma. Three of them live in my garden but recently, they’ve had a rough time: A territorial magpie couple is nesting in the big chestnut tree. From behind my imaginary curtains, I witness the birds’ turf war. In times of truce, the pigeons pick at the ground, or they just sit on the fence. I patiently watch them sit and wonder about their lives. Sometimes there are songbirds in the birdbath. I put the bath there specifically to improve the programming of the outside, to get better reception of bird species. This is a big part of my life.
After a year of this grandma existence, one remaining thread connects me to my pre-lockdown self: the understanding, that all of this is very boring and irrelevant. The remaining thread is the memory of a time when more exciting things happened, a time when bread wasn’t a matter of public discourse. Luckily, we all share this memory. When I recount my observations of the pigeon-magpie war, the backyard spectacle, to my friends, they don’t care. The way I know, that I haven’t lost my pre-quarantine self, is that I know that they’re right. Yes, my grandma life is objectively boring. I’m not taking it personally.
The lockdown has made something obvious even more apparent: Everyone lives in their own world and has experiences, that are only significant to themselves. The pigeons are a big part of my life, but they will never matter this much to other people, and that’s OK. Not everything I experience is by default relevant, exciting or worthwhile to others. This realization is not groundbreaking, but in a world where sharing experiences is a business model, I find it quite soothing. My life is objectively boring, but as the person who lives it, I am subjectively entertained. I am a grandma and I’m proud. Say it with me now.
There is an argument to be made, for how much pressure the lockdown takes away, if one accepts the boredom. Maybe, when we embrace watching the pigeons as our own private spectacle, mindfulness apps become obsolete, and we can properly focus on sourdough starter.