Quaratine Diaries and Journals

Property of Stormberry.
From my own journal.

Maybe you have heard of these diaries and journals, but the first time I did was throught an article in the New York Times published on March 30th, 2020. The article spoke about how people around the world has been turning to pen and paper in these days of staying at home and isolation to record the flow of their days, their thoughts, their fears and their experiences.

Some people has taken pen and paper for the first time to write about what goes on, making do with the art of journaling or keeping a diary as their days stretch into weeks and months in confinement, with fear of the outher world while at the same time yearning for it. Others have already been journaling ad have now turned to their trusty pages to record their experiences or find solace to the angst and burdens that now bend their backs and hearts.

I do not know of anyone around me keeping such journals, though I do know of people who journal. I am, for one, the kind of diary-keeper that would be considered the most unreliable one for recording events that happen around me or in the real world, to call it some how. I journal about my feelings, about intimate recounts of happenings with a handfull of people from my environment, with usually no information that might help place these events in any sort of social or historical context. For the love of the Gods, I just spent four months recording the events of a single day spent with Fritzl!

Property of Stormberry
From my personal journal

And yet still...

And yet still, I have found that I want to record some things that have been happening, that have affected the general tide of the society in which I live, and thus affecting my relationships with others as well as my state of mind. I'm certain my journal won't be listed in any book of history, nor it is my intention to record anything in it for anyone but myself, if I ever decide to go back and consult it, but I do find it important to try and illuminate in my notes the fact that there is a pandemic swirling around the world and upending life as we know it.

Things change, human contact change. I find myself wondering whether I'll be able to experience a long, sustained hug again, if I'll be able to hug, to feel against my arms the sure warmth of and solidity of someone I love. If I'll be able to kiss again, burry my nose in the crook of the neck of someone and breath in their scent, feel their hair against my face and between my fingers.

I'm still moved to write about my feelings and their evolution, collect and systematize my memories in the minute dissection of someone, holding their actions between the steel tines of my nib, beating softly as ink pours over them and cut them into tiny pieces with my words as I find new and new meanings of every action, every word and every gesture, combined with the yuxtaposition of other collected memories and experiences that help me draw parallels.

I change. We all change, and our old coping mechanisms might have been compromised. Mine have, as I can no longer drive to a coffeeshop, order a specialty coffee and claim a table for myself to write and sometimes also do some people-watching. We must adapt, and quarantine journals or diaries, or just our regular journals and diaries can help us navigate these new waters.