On finding space during a pandemic

Happy New Year and such!

It's been a while.  I'm the kind of person who needs independent space and time to write, and what Covid has not blessed me with are either of those things.  Our kids - due to choices best for our whanau - have not been at school in almost 6 months.  And Murray mostly works from home for reasons that go beyond the pandemic.  In short, we have all been cooped up in our lovely little home and that is not a conducive situation for me to write in.

Anyhoo.  Murray has gone to work today.  I've taken a few days leave from work for headspace after all the weirdness (and the working-retail-around-Christmas), and Mum is wrangling our children.  Six months with no school and mostly each other for company is not conducive to them not maiming each other.  I'm glad there have been no hospital worthy acts of violence perpetrated, merely small injustices, slights and owies (although I'm sure they would disagree).

A few years ago I tried to Read Virginia Woolf's A Room Of One's Own.  I quit just a chapter in and honestly, I did not bother trying again* even though I felt like a shit feminist in doing so.  I am fussy about my fiction and some books are just not for me even if I appreciate the themes behind them.  My inability to engage with this classic does not render this quote from it any less true:

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

It could not be said better.

For folk like me with busy brains and wide interests** this doesn't just include fiction.

I cannot write anything coherent if I'm:
- Tired
- In pain
- Stressed
- Around other humans
- Under time pressure

With the conditions of the pandemic (combined with other health issues), it's been very rare that these things align for me.

Prior to the pandemic, other than sleeping and watching TV, writing was one of my main outlets for managing my mental health.

Due to the restrictions of lockdowns, and new ways of living created by managing this pandemic, these days my chart looks more like this:

Not only are there more little colourful segments in this pie, but more of them are things I can do when I don't have time to myself.

And that's the key to surviving these crazy times: adapting, diversifying.

This was not a conscious choice I made.  This was just how things naturally evolved for me during this time.  It has only been recently - seeing self-care pie charts on social media - that I realised what I'd actually done***.

The importance of being able to do things that are good for my mental health while with other people is massive.  Not just because of the current situation, but because I'm less resentful of having to be constantly with our kids.  And it's not that I don't love and appreciate our kids.  But it's hard to be a present parent/partner/daughter/insert-role-here when you're struggling to manage your mental health.   Now I have found things I can do with my family that are still good for my mental health, I am able to be more present with them****.  This makes everyone happier.

The kids helping pick up rubbish at the stream AKA: playing.

And it means you discover things that you like that your kids might also like.  Yes, initially forcing the kids to go on walks was tough.  Some days it still is.  But once we got into it we found a bunch of things that Etta really liked (looking for bugs and plants with me) and some that Abby liked (moss).  I had no idea that the kids would actually enjoy doing a rubbish clean up with me until I tried it.  And while Abby is more keen on throwing rocks in the water than picking up rubbish, it's still quality together time while I nature bathe.  And Etta can sing!  Being stuck at home meant I wanted to crack out the old Singstar (we've since upgraded to something that works better on PS5) because singing makes me happy and hot damn!  That girl has some pipes!  It's something we regularly do together now.  We take turns.  She likes her independence as much as her Mama.

But I digress...

While I don't have a room of my own, nor do I have time or resources to use one, I have found other ways to create space for myself.  Not space that helps me write.  But space that helps me manage my self care.  And it's not just a metaphorical space.  I bought a desk.  This desk is not situated in a room that could be considered mine.  It's in our open plan living area next to the dinner table, looking into the kitchen, and out to the front lawn.  But the desk, and everything inside the desk is mine.  I use this desk to paint, to talk to the kids, to consider the mess in the kitchen, to sew buttons back on favourite jerseys, to look out the window.  I do Paint By Numbers because I don't have a room of my own and I like that I don't have to mix my own colours.

My desk.  Huddle's space is next door.

An artist needs money and a room of their own to make art.
A parent needs self-care so they can be present with their kids.

One day I will find space for both.

* Frankly I struggle reading a lot of stuff from this era and earlier unless it's bleakly funny (like Nabokov).  And no, I don't like Jane Austen.  I just don't care enough about rich white ladies and their problems.  Everything is over descriptive and irrelevant.  It's not just the lady writers - I could not get through Lord Of The Rings either with its lengthy descriptions of foliage and made up languages.  Even though some parts are funny, they weren't funny enough to sustain me through all 1137 pages of it.  I'm sorry if that makes me a shit nerd but I truly don't care.

** I discovered there's a word for this: polymath.  It refers specifically to wide knowledge or learning, and while my education revolves around one main area (art), I also have small qualifications in food, retail and judging crafts for CWI.  But in terms of interests and reading I have read extensively about feminism and gender theory, neurology and mental health and woman's health and will a growing passion in mycology, water ecology and growing chilies I expect I'll be able to add them to the list soon too.

*** I highly recommend doing this exercise yourself in whatever visual way works for you.  I found it quite useful actually seeing my things represented like this.  Most people's would include a LOT more social stuff than mine does - as an extroverted introvert though this is quite enough.  My cup is so full from social interaction in the necessities of my daily existence that it's generally unhelpful in terms of my self care.

**** I mean, not all the time, but it's definitely getting better.  Being present is hard for folk with dissociative disorder - but it is totally a skill that can be learned and you can become better at it.