Solitude is a funny thing. We crave it when we don’t have it. And wish it away when we do. Some associate it with a state of enlightenment. Others angst. The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu famously said ‘ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it.’ Sigmund Freud, meanwhile, linked it with an ‘infantile anxiety from which the majority of human beings have never become quite free.’
As much as I can appreciate physical solitude, I’ve always been allergic to isolation after spending chunks of my life in one homogenous space or another, whether as the one American on a British staff of 50 or the sole black editor on an elaborate press trip of 500. I dislike the feeling so much, I’ve dedicated much of my working life to getting more diversity in the room. I’m happiest when I’m surrounded by a tribe.
So as an expat more than ten years away from home, living in a global pandemic, I should be feeling unmoored. Flights are cancelled, borders shut. But thanks to a near constant connectivity to my phone (which should in theory be the most destabilising thing of all), I feel comfortingly tethered to my parents, sister and closest girlfriends.
Much has been written about the fact that social media can make a person feel lonely. But I’ve always argued it can do the opposite, particularly for those Onlys in search of community, shared experience, kinfolk — which many are right now.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this pandemic is watching the way the world is adapting and settling in to government enforced solitude. Specifically, we’ve been watching each other, a lot. We’ve been watching each other on social media, making banana bread, Zooming, campaigning, WFH dressing, rehearsing all manner of challenges, debating and soliloquising. That reality originally started out as a source of much irritation for me. I’m a journalist and a culture omnivore who has spent years in a resentful tug of war with the endless scroll, always fighting against it so that I can be in the present with my husband, kids, a book or my own company. But life in the time of COVID-19 is increasingly a life lived on screen. And while plenty of us have taken it to nauseating levels, it appears that more than ever, many of us are finally harnessing its redeeming qualities.
I’ve sat on both ends of the spectrum when it comes to seclusion.
When I started my book, I was on maternity leave with my second son. The freedom of being home all day, every day, and the disorientation of an on-demand breastfeeding schedule oddly suited my writing. It meant that I was awake and journalling during those quiet moments in the night when everyone else was sleeping. I liked the solitude that came with being housebound for long hours of the day with a newborn. After years spent hopped up on adrenaline, it felt good to have an opportunity to reassess my life and recalibrate.
When I completed the book, more than a year later, I was housebound for a different reason, months into the global COVID-19 pandemic, and weeks into a nationwide lockdown. The experience of working from home all day, while in a government enforced quarantine, feels much less like a freedom, though it is most certainly a privilege.
Small acts we once took for granted like shaking a stranger’s hand, hugging a friend, visiting loved ones or having dinner in a crowded restaurant, are not possible for the foreseeable. Now, we walk down the street wearing face masks, paranoid about who might have coughed just paces before. And we scrub and disinfect our groceries (purchased in a whirlwind of panic after waiting in socially distanced queues that stretch for blocks outside Sainsbury’s) with a rigor that just months ago would have been declared a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder.
The basics — our health, the food on our tables, a walk outdoors, and time with anyone beyond the small nucleus of partners, children or flat mates we’re spending quarantine with — now feel like life’s biggest luxuries. But luxury’s meaning changes with context and the pandemic has made the divisions that separate race and class painfully clear.
As the virus spreads, a popular line began circulating that COVID-19 was the great equaliser that didn’t see identity, race or class. Many of us knew better. And the opposite turned out to be true as news hit that it was disproportionately impacting Black, Muslim, Latin and Asian lives and that women (who make up the vast majority of ‘essential workers’) are shouldering the brunt of the load. The virus wasn’t wiping the slate clean, it was deepening pre-existing inequalities. And many of the victims have been dying alone, in isolation from all they know and love.
I’ve watched friends and neighbours lose their loved ones, jobs and mental health to COVID-19. I’ve also watched friends, forced to reimagine their lives in the face of disruption, begin exciting new jobs, launch innovative new projects, and enter new romantic relationships. Throughout it all, my parents, sister, closest girlfriends and I have seen each other more than we have in years, checking in on each other daily on Zoom, WhatsApp, FaceTime and House Party to make sure we are holding up okay in isolation as sickness, death and a crippling economy inch closer. I’ve participated in ‘virtual’ baby showers (New York) and birthday parties (LA) I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, all because we’re now in the same boat.
And just when it seemed like the news cycle and our collective angst about it couldn’t get worse, we found joy, laughter and solidarity in the most unexpected places. At a party that felt like a big family reunion put on by the American DJ DNice on Instagram Live, I bumped into people I hadn’t seen in years (old media colleagues, fashion and music industry mates and nightclubbing buddies) and the imaginary ones I had only ever followed from a distance (Michelle Obama, Janet Jackson, Rihanna and Tracee Ellis Ross to name a few.)
Each one of our circumstances were uniquely different and yet we were all there, 100,000 of us united in isolation and our need for some sort of connection. Weeks later, nearly a million of us tuned in to a live battle between Teddy Riley and Babyface, two producers responsible for soundtracking multiple generations’ worth of black lives. And then we all bonded for the next 48 hours over the roast that took place when the whole event hilariously fell apart producing a seemingly endless stream of memes that amounted to one of the greatest nights on Black Twitter all year. We were all alone, together.
Even more importantly, the show of numbers throughout these moments reminded us of our own agency, inspiring grassroots fundraising efforts to meet a whole range of needs whether it was helping small minority and women owned businesses make their rent or donating face masks and gowns to the many NHS workers on the front lines.
So while the world looks radically different from how it did when I first began writing my book reflecting on a decade’s worth of personal and cultural touchstones, the issues at its heart — belonging, connection, resilience and identity— remain. And as we slow down, re-evaluate and move forward towards a future that will be different from the one we imagined, the unconventional connections we’ve managed to make with each other reminds us that even in the midst of angst, solitude and chaos, we’re here, kinfolk bolstering each other, and finding the meaning as we go.
GIRL hits bookstores this November. Pre-order on Amazon here.
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