Jenny, at home (with Mehrunnisa in Zurich)
A study of listening habits. I am sick of the sound of lockdown. Specifically, I feel allergic to the noises off in the space where I spend most of my time. I know I’m lucky to have that space, but I’ve become allergic to the soundscape: idiosyncratic central heating (I’m grateful for the heat!), doors that shut only with a sickening click (wooden) or clank (glass), whining washing machine, underpowered shower, overburdened sink, always-on-the-edge-of-being-unhinged garage door, incessant mowing / strimming / drilling / unidentified lockdown project construction and, of course, my own heavy tread on the stair. That is not even to mention Henry, my vacuum cleaning nemesis, whether on lo- or hi-power, whether trundling across the landing or coming apart on contact, like a clown car. I used to find the odd ambient sounds of buildings comforting to the extent that I began to depend on them. I wonder whether I could love them again. Contingent on a different time and place, I decide that I could.
Quite often, I think about the soundtrack to a hospital ward and I remember just to be glad that I’m not in one. But I still feel the urge for fight or flight, especially when the TV’s so loud it makes me panic. Flight works, when I manage to get myself beyond the door. In the park the horrible geese honk and hiss — when they direct it at me, I get to see right down their throats — but they don’t drown out all the other birdsong, and other sounds are signs of other life. Beyond the park is the town, empty at the times I’m around, and then the sea. I like the sound of the wind rattling the boom of a boat and beyond that the waves unfurling on to the shore. When the tide goes out, I want my thoughts to go with it.
Fight works too, in the form of music and the spoken word. Mostly I keep it down and listen quietly like a good girl, even if I can still hear the mower over it. But sometimes only top volume will do. A serendipitous play of a particular song on the radio demands full attention, as does an open-in-case-of-emergency playlist (it’s like the old saw about champagne: in victory, you deserve it; in defeat, you need it). I’ve still got the CD player I bought with the wages from my first month in my first full-time job and that still gets a run out every so often, usually in the middle of the night when, even if I can easily listen to the same album on my phone, only the thing itself will do.
More often than music, though, I listen to people talking to give me time out of my space or peace inside it. There’s tension for me between live radio and podcasts in that I don’t want to miss out on hearing programmes by chance, and I fear that the effort of choosing will make me lazy, but I love the choice of listening and the option to listen again. The virus has taken its toll on sound quality – raised on tape, I never thought I was fussed about that; maybe it’s only because I’m listening more intently that I think Melvyn Bragg sounds different these days – and hearing the pandemic exhaustion in people’s voices can bring on, at the speed of sound, the most desolate sense of helplessness. But I give thanks for every podcast episode and audio essay, and every Book at Bedtime and Archers Omnibus (well, maybe except for one or two of the lockdown soliloquies).
Sometimes I think: the rest is silence? I should be so lucky. But pandemic cabin fever aside (if only!), what really bothers me about the intrusion of household sounds is that noticing them at all signifies my failure to be absorbed by the act of generating better ones for myself: pen gaining purchase on paper and fingertips flying over clacking keys. Without them, or while I’m just lurching from Ctrl-X to Ctrl-Z to hammering backspace backspace backspace, it’s the sound of different voices that I need to raise me up. Or talk me down.
Things to remember: virus numbers that make any pathway to recovery possible; looking up and finding ‘thingamajig’ in the OED; Oprah’s theme tune, apparently
Things to forget: not having the stamina for Fridays, and other drained batteries; ugly reckonings; (speaking of which) my feud with Henry
mehrunnisa, in quarantine at home in zurich
it was in late march last year that jesse wrote an email that started out like this - “we can thank the venetians for the word quarantine. the word quarantine comes from quarantena, meaning "forty days", used in 14th-15th-century venetian language and designating the period that all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the black death plague epidemic. venice at the time was also very interested in money. putting ships in quarantine, though, was the only way to secure the health of the city, isolated as it is. the good of the people came before the goods themselves. a consideration.” his digital dispatch was from the north of italy that was in the midst of one of the strictest lockdowns having been the earliest and worst affected in the early part of that first wave.
very often, the present references the past. i think this is because it is an easy way to understand, sitting as it does in the realm of the known, the certain. so many of the rules and regulations for these times come from pandemics past, quarantine being one of them. the period is shorter than forty days but is complicated by variations across countries. some necessitate staying in government mandated buildings. others allow isolation at home. in most of europe, the latter kind of quarantine relies on individuals understanding public health rules, the honour system and the fear of penalty on the off-chance of a spot check. some countries allow early test and release. in switzerland, the quarantine period is ten days with the potential to shorten it slightly after a negative covid test that can be taken on day seven onwards.
i am on my third quarantine since march of last year. it is this one that has made me look back on how different each was. the first was last summer when i returned to london after the first lockdown in zurich. this was a solo quarantine with the luxury of space. the days were warm and i spent the mornings on the balcony, iced coffee in hand. i discovered that walking the length of the flat in loops when i took calls meant that i could clock up at least five to six thousand steps. i exercised once daily. isolation is not natural but this was by far the easiest of the three. there were many edible care packages from friends. i ate plenty of gelato and when i needed to eat my feelings, deliveroo obliged with no-contact deliveries.
the second quarantine was in december with family. we drove to london from zurich, arriving hours before the united kingdom was put into a global quarantine over the fear of the spread of variants. it was a strange experience to discover that one could be locked in despite borders being open. my brother and his wife had arrived from the netherlands earlier than us so we returned to a flat that had been warmed and stocked with plenty of food and drink. it was wonderful for me to be able to see my family. i had been excited by the promise of adventures together since they moved from pakistan in the summer of 2019. but here we were, seeing each other a year later with the same length of absence as when they were in pakistan. i think that we did well with navigating boundaries of sharing space in a time of restriction. i only speak for myself because of course, each has their own experience. the season of winter, layered with wintering (a season of fallowness and sadness in human life) adds a different dimension to quarantine. i wonder whether the cross country move and commuter relationship status in a covid year had set my frequency to a different kind of acceptance of isolation?
i am almost at the end of my third quarantine. this one is the first in zurich and it comes close to marking a year of living with the pandemic and its never ending series of lockdowns. in fact, my quarantine ends on the monday which marks the yearlong anniversary of the time that i was last physically in the office. there is no doubt that i have found this quarantine to be the hardest of the three. i think it is the difference of circumstance. a year of this way of living has meant being less practised in patience. the current swiss lockdown is much harder on omair who had relished the considerable normalcy of being able to go into the office every alternate week in the march lockdown last year. the space that we share here is less flexible. our front room is the office, kitchen, exercise and relaxation space. it takes mental effort to switch gears at the end of the day, especially since i have been confined to the flat. i had not quite appreciated how much difference a daily walk had made. it turns out walking built the muscle of patience and empathy. or a the very least provided space to let of steam.
when i left london, i had done so knowing that this would be a difficult chapter. i had decided that accepting that it would be hard would somehow make it easier. but what i had not realised was that the lessons of a solo and communal quarantine do not hold for one with another. each quarantine is its own matrix and is a snapshot of a particular time. omair is tired, frustrated and depleted in his own way. there is nothing unusual about this. in fact, these feelings are so obviously of this time that it seems illogical to speak of them. and yet, they were the very reasons why we found ourselves being short with each other. no amount of well-intentioned advice will make any of this easier. but if you are faced with the prospect of a quarantine with a loved one, just let them know that your quarantine-governed mood is in no way an indication of how you feel about being together again. and if you end up arguing, chances are that a lot of it has to do with being cooped up.
i should say that the discomfort of now is marked by the gratitude of a home quarantine rather than one at a state-sanctioned address. i worry that that may well be in my future when i return to london. but for now, i cannot tell you how excited i am by the prospect of a long walk and hopefully a takeaway coffee tomorrow.
things to remember: that this too shall pass, the bitter-sweetness of claudia roden’s orange and almond cake which i finally made in quarantine, that accepting difficulty does not necessarily make it any easier
things to forget: the pain and hassle of travel logistics, how the pandemic affects sleep so that it wavers between what feels like unconsciousness or one stolen by nightmares, this time itself
Thanks very much for the shoutout!