Impatiently Patient: Living in the Moment in the Age of COVID-19
Photo by Maria Pianelli
By: Maria Pianelli
New York's pace can be relentless, and I'm someone entranced by the hustle. I've grown to love the weeks masquerading as months. Where you blink and the day has blazed by, and in its wake are dozens of victories, a testament to your productivity. I'm one of those people who lives to rattle off the checkmarks on my to-do list, who carves out "action items" for her personal life, and packs her evenings with so many workshops, happy hours, and concerts, that I'm asleep before I even hit the couch. Being a New Yorker is dizzying and dazzling. You wear your busyness like a badge of honor, your true key to the city. If you don't make the most of your time, of your rent, do you truly belong?
I've lived this way for most of my 27 years. And then COVID hit and quarantine happened. Offices were shuttered. Bars, museums, and state parks were closed. The long list of friends you fight to fit into your calendar were all off table. The hustle screeched to a halt and suddenly, perhaps for the first time, it was just me and my thoughts.
At first, the silence was deafening. I obsessed over the indefinite, wondering the next time I’d hop on a business trip or take a vacation. As quarantine ticked on, my thoughts broadened: When would I take the subway? Grab coffee with a coworker? Sit in a conference room? I had always been someone who planned for the future, but suddenly the future was too vast and uncertain to comprehend.
“Being a New Yorker is dizzying and dazzling. You wear your busyness like a badge of honor, your true key to the city. If you don’t make the most of your time, of your rent, do you truly belong?”
I did what any schedule-obsessed millennial would do. I buried myself in a cacophony of hobbies. Brewing! Embroidery! Gardening! Writing! Baking!
I expected to be back on my bullshit, over-scheduling myself with hobbies as a form of validation. But as the weeks passed, what once felt like a race to the bottom – if I sew this fast, I can finish this patch by Tuesday; if I brew this saison now, we have four weeks until it ferments – transformed into an exercise in patience.
With no other distractions around me, I felt every stitch (and needle prick) of an embroidery project. I started picking up on subtle things, like the sound of thread, looping through fabric. Or the smell of the hops – Calypso, Mosaic, Cascade – as I tossed them into boiling brews. I noticed the small nuances of my “plant babies” as they sprouted into saplings: sweet peppers vs spicy peppers, skyrocketing cilantro vs painstaking lavender.
“Little things, like choosing the perfect opener on a pitch or landing the right flow on a call, felt like works of art. Conversations were no longer about waiting to jump in, but learning to listen. I was present.”
I’ve attempted yoga in four distinct periods of my life, but for the first time, I felt fully and truly zen. It was a feat that graced all facets of my life, including my work. Little things, like choosing the perfect opener on a pitch or landing the right flow on a call, felt like works of art. Conversations were no longer about waiting to jump in, but learning to listen. I was present. With this awareness also came a deeper self evaluation. Was I doing things to do them, or truly pausing, thinking, and putting my best work forward? Was I completing a task the way it was “always done” or looking for new ways to streamline or uplevel our process? Was I holding back, or truly marching out of my comfort zone and giving myself the proper challenges to grow?
Slowly, life is starting to pick back up. Hair salons have reopened and outdoor dining is allowed. I’ve had safe, socially distant gatherings with friends and even taken a (masked) road trip or two. But even when COVID itself becomes an unpleasant memory, I believe that the art of slowing will remain ever present in my life.
My anxiety, self-expression, and mindfulness have all improved for the better and, to make sense of 2020 and my own purpose, I’ve learned to make the most of every day. It doesn’t need to be crammed planners and jet-setting weekends. You don’t always need a happy hour. Sometimes a great day is simply spent taking it stitch-by-stitch. And even that is worth the occasional pinprick.