Sunday Still in Quarantine

We're in quarantine, but fortunately (unlike many, I'm so sorry to tell, who have lost their incomes) work goes on business as usual for both D. and I. So yes, Sunday is still a more treasured day off. 

I wake up an hour or two later than usual since there are no morning classes. D. and V. are already playing dolls, while practicing numbers and letters. The grocery delivery arrives and I pick it up at the street corner. We had pizza for lunch, the first time we ordered restaurant/fast food since we've been locked up. I take over playing with the dolls while D. gets another hour or two of sleep. V. and I try to practice a little bit of writing. I. help out I. with his PE homework, recording a video of himself stretching and exercising along with his preferred music. They both snack on tomatoes and piknik. D. and I sneak in an episode of Terrace House. 

D. prepares an early dinner. Tiger prawns bought online from direct sellers. Her cooking is absolutely better than restaurant food. We sit at the table, treasuring this togetherness. 

We play some more together, building Legos, laughing at memes, laughing with each other, along with inevitable embraces. 

I. does his math homework online, we practice our Katakana. They're asleep before 9pm. 

I go for a run 6km at the treadmill, virtually running around the Marina Bay Sands area in Singapore along with YouTube runner. It's pathetic, but it does the job and gets you in the zone. I was running in Waikiki Beach last night. I'll be running in Boracay tomorrow. 

D. wakes up to start her night shift, it's 8am in California. I shower, then take my time making coffee. Grinding Starbucks winter collection beans because our friends bought it on our behalf on a glorious bargain, using the French press again, pouring for me and D. 

The city imposed a liquor ban, so coffee will have to do in these quarantined evenings. It will try, it will work your imagination, because one of the things you'll miss most when you're in isolation, is sitting in a coffee shop (still in isolation). There are better things though. Nights like these. Sipping coffee while reading a book, listening to NPR tiny desk concerts at an ikea kindergarten table and chair at the edge of the bed, watching the children sleep with so much peace, allowing myself, recklessly, to forget that the world is dying. 

Quarantine Days in a Lonely City

The Lonely City

Adeventures in the art of being alone

Olivia Laing

The current, unfortunate situation suits this book as half the world is locked out in isolation. The latest figures - 1,224,894 infected with COVID-19 with 66,497 deaths. There will be more, my heart crumbles. Our days in isolation will drag on. So this book was deeply relatable, as it renders the sadness as extremely real. Even more emphasized, perhaps, because I was reading and listening in screens. I read it in an ebook and listened to it thorough the Audible app. "Tethered to our devices, leery of real contact, how we are heading for a crisis of intimacy, as our ability to socialize withers and atrophies."

These days we have "virtual hangouts" in video conference apps, zoom 飲み会, e-numan. Loneliness here is a longing not just for acceptance, but also for integration. 

It's as if the book was written not only about a city that epitomized solitude, but as a preamble for all the cities and entire countries that's been locked out or quarantined. The back-firing isolation that the internet brought, previous pandemics and diseases such as AIDS, SARS, were all soft-openings and warms ups to this virus and future iterations that will emerge.

It's fascinating how with all the grimness and  loneliness, there were bright souls who channeled it to a comforting creativity. The books re-acquaints me with Andy Warhol. It introduces me to Edward Hopper, who's popularity, incidentally, resurfaced in this these days of isolation. There is a redemptive quality in reading about loneliness that turns into art.

One of the biggest gems I discovered in this book, Henry Darger. A Chicago janitor who posthumously achieved fame as one of the world's most celebrated 'outsider' artists. How many more isolated and Vivian Maiers and Henry Dargers are in the world, their works hidden treasures in attics.

What good fortune it is, what privilege, to be merely distracting (if not amusing) myself with reading in an ebook (listening to a smartphone audio book) at the same time, in a world that is locked out, its people dying dying. What replaces loneliness, but an overwhelming sense of guilt and powerlessness, until loneliness returns, reinforced, as it will even when the cities re-open, as if it has never left at all.

The Usual

The powerful Princess V., savior, superhero and ruler of the Shopkins in planet TV, with the power of rainbows, wands her magic pencil and writes letters of the alphabet to defeat a monster who wants to devour her people.

I. fulfills his dream of being home-schooled. He does chores to earn more screen time (even if he already has an incredible amount of screen time). On his school's musical weekly journal, he writes, "I learned the first part of Etude no. 6 by Lizst/Paganini on the piano."

D. and I both work from home. 100% of the meals are home-cooked, we spend 100% of our time together. We stay home, conscientious with our optimism, quietly critical about the collective ignorance in politics and social media.

We are locked out from the world, and the world has suddenly changed radically, abruptly. Cities in the world has locked itself out. Within our invisible walls, there's the hungry, the greedy, and many dying by tens of thousands. Global economies are fighting out its collapse.

It's as if we are in the final scene of Melancholia. The warm feeling of being together at a grim end. Except that we will come out of this alive. She's already saved us, our powerful Princess V.

Etude no. 6 by Liszt will be playing as the curtains fall.

Zombies are Other People

We are each other's zombies these days. Haven't we always been? Carriers of tiny, invisible viruses, self-restrained and self- quarantined and holed-up in our homes like ひきこもり (hikikumori). In a war going on in some parts of the world, people are fighting over toilet paper and hoarding face masks. Going viral in 3-camera, 4 camera, 6GB. 12GB  RAM  smartphones. There's the real virus.

But I shouldn't catastrophize. We can't let humanity be wiped out without watching a few more Netfix series, reading a few more books, and loving each other some more. We have got to have a laugh when all this is over. I'm sorry to have thought that. People are dying. 

The gods must be watching.

We must hide. We ourselves must stay sane, make them aware but bear as much burden as we can for our children. Reminding ourselves of what's normal, of brief golden moments:

1. Patiently teaching V. how to write the letters. R for rainbow. T for tutles. V. being incredibly cute, incredibly eloquent at still 3 years old and bossing everyone around.
2. Putting my face against D.'s when we sleep. Hearing her feel fulfilled not only in life, but in a budding new career.
3. Discussing Diogenes and cynicism with the 10-year-old I. Hearing him play the piano and hearing him rap along to lofi hiphop.
4. The look of a student's face when you know they are really learning.
5. Running in good form, tasting freedom in your lungs, strength in your legs until you are tired and it goes away. Then returns for a second wind when you don't give up.
6. Being stuck in phrase while you're reading. Reading something then saying, fuck, I wish I could talk like that.

7. Late night drinks (the beer is local and made with roasted malt ) alone writing about how zombies are other people. A nice bath and a few hours of sleep. 

The New Malady

Streaming, social media, online shopping. Boredom is no longer the malady of the 21st century. Perhaps it was just my procrastination. Perhaps it was the amassing depression last January as Taal erupted, and towards February the Corona virus broke out.  Local and world events that claim victims. And there's always the verbal diarrhea that shits out of our President's mouth, digested by his followers as if it was their communion. There's always the stress of living in a dense city officially with the second heaviest traffic in the world.

When you feel so mad, and want to roar, take a deep breath and count to four. 

Catching-up On What Would Have Been Forgotten

With indecision, the minutes turns to hours and days. We lose so many things. I didn't write because of being overly conscious, of saying that's not creative or insightful enough. Nothing would have been worth writing. It would have been worth the time to look back on things (in this case, mostly what made this life worth living) or that once in a while I was even insightful or that I was capable of critical thought.

So here's a pair of real, ordinary things that are worth writing.

I could never claim to understand women, but mostly they are right. I can't tell if Barbies are good for you, V., but we did talk about women empowerment and diversity. You flagged me for cultural appropriation when I called her "Asian Barbie." That's not her name, you said. "That's racist, Dad." Kuya followed up. I can't help but wonder what you'd call me out for when you're no longer just 3 and 9, respectively. 

It takes so little to feel like a king. A dip in a saltwater poor with your family, a working staycation, a drink in between, a chess game in gold versus silver with salted caramel ice cream and coffee.