How to Waste an Afternoon During the Coronavirus Pandemic
by Tammy Smith Creative Nonfiction 1. Curl up in the middle of an old lumpy sofa sagging beneath the weight of your unmet needs and read Carrie Fisher’s memoir, Shockaholic. Prepare to be shocked! Forget everything you know, at least temporarily, and chalk this up to a side effect of some short-term treatment you needed curing from. If that doesn’t work, power up your Amazon Kindle and download Fisher’s other treasure, Wishful Drinking. As you guzzle down a corona chuckle at the irony of feeling desperately empty. This is the stuff psychological dreams are made of. We fantasize about changing our lives as if we can knead the clay of damp potential into something more substantial.
2. Compare yourself to others. Dig deep enough to get lost in the details. This is especially easy during a crisis where vulnerabilities rage wild, and character depths sink to abysmally low levels. Waste plenty of time surfing Facebook and Instagram to snoop on friends, co-workers, and that bratty girl turned woman you went to grade school with. You hated her back then, the shadowy pretentiousness of her arched back and her willowy frame bending over backward like a weeping willow to suck up all the light and sun and energy from the classroom. Seeing her on the screen now still makes you droop.
3. Berate yourself for forgetting the name of that friend of a friend whose co-worker makes your skin crawl. During this pandemic, you need to know his name! If you forge a connection, maybe you won't be shortsighted about being short-circuited, which is inexcusable during an unprecedented global crisis. Take it one step further and ask yourself how long it will take to forget everything you used to know. This is not a time to relish in foolish antics others call games. You are too wise to be caught up in all those fake smiles you deposited in my memory bank for safekeeping. How dare you laugh at me while curling up with a book? Your long bony nose curves to one side like a witch brewing her stew, and you have the nerve to cackle at my dreams?
4. Scream to murder the silence. Howl like a deranged wolf. Wait for the sun to set and the moon to rise. Can’t find the moon? It hardly matters. Just huddle in the corner and watch the dense fog outside the window thicken. Watch the storm or wait for it to pass. It’s just a phase; after all, we become full, and then we shrink into halves and quarters, splitting off parts of ourselves until darkness morphs the sharp edges and obscures them from view. After the elements shift, there’s a slant like an opening, and the real landscape rolls into view.
5. Pay homage to the silence. And if you can’t stop screaming, forgive yourself. You’re in the middle of something you’ve never seen before; why not milk that sentiment for all it’s worth because when this too passes you will miss the chaos and the liberty of acting carelessly. Perhaps all this quiet emerged as a helpful transition. Not all change has to feel like an eruption. A virus festering or fog thickening grows denser than any blurred sense of self. Shadows can’t shield you from the hot blazing sun.
6. Write some wickedly smart prose while your ten-year-old kid watches America’s Got Talent or some other reality TV show spin-off where they parade talent like it’s a new can of whipped cream to spray over cakes and coffee and cookie crap like scraps. Study Ventriloquism like an actual dummy! There’s an art to perfecting lip-reading. Watch out for scams and clumsy trapeze artists. Where’s the thrill in being well versed in the practicalities of life? Gambling is usually dangerous. The jar of potential I ache to fill is as cracked as my parched lips.
7. Start reminiscing about the past. Lament how kids today won't ever know what it feels like to watch Saturday morning cartoons yet feel grateful your own kid has more than one option. It's a blessing, after all, that your child doesn't have to grow up afraid of his father. Just because it’s statistically more likely, history doesn’t have to repeat itself. And if you start feeling sorry for yourself during this pandemic, think of Anne Frank hiding out in that infamous attic, writing to survive.
The Author
Tammy Smith, a social worker from New Jersey, draws inspiration from her work in mental health. Her writing has been published in The Esthetic Apostle, Ailment: Chronicles of Illness Narratives, Ariel Chart, the Dewdrop, and io Literary Journal.
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