Reading through the article in The New Yorker about what one can learn from submarine crews and astronauts about isolation the reframing how one thinks about confinement with others- the acronym CONNECT was given. It really resonated with me as I reflected on isolation, its experience, connecting and re-connecting back to the world ( as and when it happens) and the rituals that this isolation has given the dark period in NYC: 7:00pm catharsis to support those on the front lines- including my husband. Kids, Samrat and I filled in empty spaces with words and inspiration from the article.
Books … a great head space to escape to when in isolation.
Graeme Sullivan
Jolanda Dranchak
To me, this COVID-19 isolation feels like a solitude—a quiet time to focus, work, think, reflect. Perhaps this emotion is a result of year-long grief spent alone at home. In a way, this isolation feels like a never-ending work-filled weekend, and I am at peace with this. Yet, on the other hand, this isolation is degrading to a human spirit. My neighbor’s elderly mother is alone in her nursing home room—no more social activities, no more meals in the common room, no more visitors. My brothers, truck drivers in Scandinavia spending Easter weekend in the same truck rest stop parked parallel to each other, each spending the day in his own cab. My child sent away from a vibrant college life studying from our basement. In a way, it feels like a single person or a family unit is “displayed” in their dwelling like a scientific specimen in a holding container to never be let free… But we are still connected to one another even in this desperate time. We are like the fuzzy buds on a pussy-willow branch—we rarely touch each other, but we are nurtured by the same branch and bloom to the same sun. We are in isolation together.
Amita Rodman
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