Forget Sanity – 37 Days of Covid-19 in China

The spread of Covid-19 may be slowing in Shanghai and across China, but as yet I’m unable to see an end to this bizarre reality we find ourselves living in.

All schools, and many businesses, remain closed due to the Coronavirus epidemic. And the city is still extraordinarily quiet.

Schools were due back in session on 3rd February, but the Coronavirus put a stop to that. Many students, teachers and staff who had gone away for the Chinese New Year holiday ended up scattered all over the world due to travel restrictions, flight cancellations and diversions. e-Learning was the only way school could proceed.

There are rumours school won’t open for months so we have tried to embrace e-learning. It’s a constant battle to keep Liv focused but we are persevering.

As the days roll on and we start to settle into our new routine of e-Learning-Eat-Sleep-Repeat, it has occurred to me, my concept of time has become skewed.

Not something I’ve ever had to consider, but with nowhere to be at any given time, actual time ceases to be relevant. Hours, days and weeks start to morph into one another, and it feels like only days ago Wuhan was locked down. In actuality, it was over a month ago!

Although not strictly confined to our apartment, I get to wondering, at what point of confinement and monotony does one start to lose their mind?

I found myself Googling ‘keeping your sanity’ and discovered a plethora of articles on how to stay sane.

The first article I read offered such sage advice as; embrace an ever-changing notion of self, find a mentor, silence your inner critic, celebrate your wins, get outside! Hmmm, not exactly helpful for our current circumstance. Try a new search.

The next article I found suggested Music, ok. Writing, ok. But the writer lost me at The Ocean.

My search needed to be more specific. So I tried ‘maintaining sanity during confinement’. Not surprisingly, this led me down one of those internet rabbit holes.

I wound up on Quora and found ‘maintaining sanity during confinement’ to be a hot topic. Ex-cons advising soon-to-be-incarcerated-persons on how to stay sane in ‘the hole’ with only a bible, notepad, and a pencil. Interesting reading, but not exactly what I was after.

It finally occurred to me I wouldn’t find any advice or guidebook on how to stay sane during this type of situation, because this ‘type’ of lockdown is unprecedented. And as far as I know, to date, there isn’t even a term for it.

So with surprisingly quick resolve, I decided to forget worrying about my sanity! In our current confinement, with so much uncertainty, so many rumours swirling around, and a multitude of other things to worry about, who would expect us to stay completely sane?

All we can do is take each day as it comes and soldier on as best we can.

And so, it is here that I find myself back at e-Learning-Eat-Sleep-Repeat!

** The featured image is from a home learning experiment of Olivia’s using milk, food colouring and detergent.