DAY 100: ECQ

Today I celebrate my 100th day of relative self-isolation.

As I have said before, there have been so many changes happening in me --- that I realize how much of a different person I have become since I agreed to stay within the periphery of my house since 14 March of this year.

Even before the Grand ECQ was announced, I was still trying to do more of the same --- extending that old normal by not taking the pandemic all too seriously to be paranoid.  As late as mid-March we were told that you do not need to wear a face mask unless you are feeling sick.  OK, fine.  I had a face mask tucked in my pocket but it was inconvenient.  It takes getting used to because you are breathing in the same air you are breathing out.

But then you were told that you were wearing that mask not only to protect yourself but to protect others from you.  The fact that you can be going around without knowing you are shedding the virus to everyone who you care to willingly or unwittingly share droplets from your nose and mouth --- is what is most threatening about COVID19.  

I precisely remember that I even had the audacity to go out to the gym and take a selfie to post in Instagram and Facebook after which I received a stampede of text messages from friends and family asking, "What is the matter with you?  Why are you in the gym?" Didn't I know that the fitness club is a petri dish for the virus to go multiply?  What will all the huffing and sweating and bodily liquids splashing around people in treadmills or undergoing ecstacy in a Zumba or spinning class!

Even if I told them then that there were a grand total of four clients in the gym and we were not only one meter --- but one planet apart --- that would not have appeased the concerned mob.  In short, I was unequivocally told to go home and hibernate like the rest of the world.

Nobody thought this would last this long.

I had a friend tell me that it would take about one or two months then it is over.  Kuya, we have entered our third month and we still have not peaked.  I am not going to go into the Blame Game to try to explain why after nearly three months and a half that we are still f--ed up.  But that is the truth:  after three months of no work and keeping away from each other, we are still so screwed.  

One of my friends asked, "Eh, bakit pa tayo nagkulong ng tatlong buwan kung ganito lang naman?"  I wish I could give a convincing answer to that.  But then the more spiritually inclined --- the last of the remaining positivists or those perhaps touched by the Holy Spirit would say, " Nagkulong tayo kaya ngayon buhay pa tayo." Well, yeah. 

The past one hundred days taught us that after two weeks of climbing up the walls of your house out of an urgent need to Get Out , a sobering feeling slowly creeps in making you numbed by hibernation.  Admittedly, I felt restless after the first week of going into a Groundhog Day Mode, knowing that each day will begin and end in exactly the same manner as the day before and even the day before that.  After getting used to a schedule thriving on the adrenaline of frenzy, you are suddenly a sleepwalker.  You feel like a domesticated zombie going on autopilot from moment of waking up until you hear the National Anthem in your mind suggesting the end of the day.

And we have all sorts of mechanisms for coping.  You cannot simply vegetate inside your home waiting for some major event like an alien abduction to give meaning to your quarantined life.

Others took to cooking and/or baking.  Considering all the cooking shows you see on YouTube, you cannot help but rush to the kitchen and bake cookies or banoffee pies.
Just tonight I watched a grand total of six videos on how to make papaya atsara ... and to think that the only time I go to the kitchen is to open the fridge to see what I can eat at one in the morning.  

Others turned not only into couch potatoes but Netflix addicts.  There shall be a term eventually concocted to describe the syndrome of those who wake up in the morning and grab the TV remote control to watch the first of a series of Koreanovelas they will binge on for the rest of the day and repeated throughout everyday of the week.  Some would even confess that they do not go out of their bedrooms because from sunrise to sundown, their eyes are glued on all the Koreanovelas they can consume while their brains are still functional.

And I do not blame them.  Koreanovelas ... or any show you let into your life not only to fill your quarantined days but to give you a sense of purpose is good enough reason for you no longer explaining yourself to everybody.  I mean, really ... it is none of their business what you do in the privacy of your bedroom --- even if it means fantasizing about Park So Joon or Lee Min Ho as the future father of their children.

Then there are those who my nephew calls plantitos and plantitas.

After being trapped inside my house for more than three months, I finally realized (or remembered) that I have a garden.  Yeah, yeah ... it's there. You always take for granted parts of your house if you do not frequent the areas --- or you can do without them.  There was a time I gave the garden much attention ... but then that eventually dwindled. 

Until the lockdown.

As a result of one hundred days of spending a good 95% of the time at home, I have become obsessed with plants.

When finally I could go out, the first major adventure I pursued is to go to Quezon Memorial Circle and buy plants and clay pots.  I also decided to attack Facebook Market ... where I used to hunt for additions to my collection of kaijus ... but now I am hunting for the most colorful indoor and outdoor plants I can find to fill up my house.  Yes, it is therapeutic and all that ... but I never realized it would reach this point when I console myself for my isolation by having a fit of excitement looking at a beautiful succulent.

After one hundred days I finally succumbed to online banking, buying fresh meat and fruits online ... and replaced malls with Lazada, Shopee and Zalora.  I realized that I barely wore anything aside from my pambahay and had no compulsion to dress up and go somewhere for the sake of dressing up and going anywhere.  You can always claim that you are scrimping because for three months there are no jobs ... but then that is only half the picture.

The truth is that after 100 days, you really have lost a substantial gusto for going out.  That much I realized.  After 100 days, I have learned to do without what I used to think was the epicenter of my daily existence.  

We are all still waiting for work to resume ... because of all the complications that arose in a desire to protect everyone on the film's set.  There is no sure Opening Date for us to go back and shoot films or have face-to-face classes with my students.  In the meantime, we ask ourselves ... where did those one hundred days go?

I have a better question: from here, where will we go?  Will we be like here and now for another hundred days?