Day 38: The Everyday Limbo
Day 38: May 3, 2020
Global cases: 3,563,689; Deaths: 248,146
Egypt cases: 6,465; Deaths: 428
Mariam Mohamed Salem
Political Science & Psychology Senior
It’s 3:40am. I’m sitting in my balcony after a failed attempt at working out, staring silently at the flickering lights of the gigantic commercial screen across our street.
Answers haven’t been coming easily, lately. Whether they’re to questions like “How are you?” or “Which day of the week is it?”
It’s difficult to produce much words when the act of thinking requires a kind of energy you don’t possess and in fact haven’t possessed for weeks. Writing this very entry is demanding, as I’m sure reading it might be. That’s what routine in isolation does to you, I guess. Day by day, you forget that a world exists beyond the four concrete walls surrounding you, and along with that world you forget the meanings of some things.
It’s tricky and dangerous, because you don’t want to fall into an endless cycle of sadly-staring-at-your-ceiling. Every day, I try to add small pleasures that motivate me. Tonight, it’s watching the gigantic furniture sales ad playing on the screen across from me.
6:10am. I hear a sound coming from outside and go out to find my three-year-old dog, Bella, basking under the early morning sunlight. She looked so peaceful I had to take 20 pictures of her. The sun wasn’t fully out, and there was a cold crispiness in the air surrounding us. The weather was perfect.
Watching Bella lie in her golden bliss made it feel like just another lazy summer morning. Except, I realize, I haven’t gone to sleep yet, this is the first time I felt the sun in weeks, and we’re quarantined because of a global pandemic.
My attempt at finding small pleasures fails as realization dawns upon me, so I pull my curtains shut and go to sleep.Maybe tomorrow.
For The Caravan‘s previous diary entries in Arabic and English go to our COVID-19 Special Coverage page.
6:35pm. I contentedly woke up around an hour ago, certain that I did not miss out on anything. It’s time for iftar, so I sit with my mom at a round dining table that is too wide for the two of us. The space left around us reminded me of a time when it was crowded by my two sisters and my grandma. I could almost hear Bakar playing in the background after the Maghrib prayer and taste the sweet qatayif my grandma used to bake.
Quarantine made me and my friends constantly try to relive (or live in) the past. It’s almost as though sharing our old group photos and Sahel outings might change our current reality.
7:20pm. Mom and I take Bella for a walk. There are two stray puppies living in the garden in front of our building, their dad is a German Shepherd and their mom a Balady dog. We feed them regularly, and my mom likes to call the female puppy Corona and the male Covid. We couldn’t change her mind and now the names grew on us too, so Covid and Corona join us on our walk.
I couldn’t help but sense the post-apocalyptic feeling in the air. A face mask was lying on the floor, covered in dirt and muddy footsteps. I turned my head toward Bella, Covid, and Corona. They’re trotting along the street, grins drawn wide on their faces. I smile looking at them too.
1:00am. I lie in bed and realize that I couldn’t find a lot of happy things to write about because I can’t find many happy things to think about. But I think that’s okay, because masking the ugliness of the loneliness, hurt, and fear we’re feeling will only make us feel more alone.
I also realized that I have come a long way in getting to know myself. Being alone for days on end was something that I feared like the plague. And now that I’m experiencing both simultaneously, things aren’t as bad as they seemed.
