Today I wanted to share a snapshot of New York City, my life, and this blog, during the early days of the coronavirus crisis. I want to keep sharing stories from past travels, and create some new kinds of content on the blog, but I felt I couldn’t go any further without addressing the pandemic in the room.

New York, During the Coronavirus

I can hear birds. Lots of them. Not the incessant cooing of the pigeons who stoop on the other side of my bedroom wall, not the loud cawing of crows, but the sweet, gentle chirping of tiny sparrows which are out of sight, in the few trees dotted down my street. I’ve lived here, in downtown Manhattan, for nearly one year and I’ve never heard these birds from my window before. They’re not new, it’s just never been quiet enough to hear them.

I miss New York, but I haven’t left. I just haven’t left my apartment, except to go to the nearby grocery store. I was watching a Netflix movie set in New York yesterday, and the sweeping establishing shots of the city made me realise that I missed the city I’m currently living in.

New York is a strange place to be in a crisis. It’s big, it’s impenetrable, it never stops. Until it does stop, and the world feels like it’s upside down. Not long ago, the restaurants were open and on my walk home from work, every person I passed on my block was talking about coronavirus. Now everyone is at home. This is an unusual crisis, in that we are scared for both our health and our jobs at the same time. We’re scared of other people and we’re scared of what days alone at home can mean. We’re watching the number of cases climb and global markets freefall.

My life, during the Coronavirus

At first, I felt overwhelmed by sadness for the people who are suffering, and who have been critically impacted. I often think about the hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers risking their lives every day to save others, and the horrors they’re facing. I think about the anxiety that delivery drivers and grocery store cashiers must feel when they go to work each day.

When I started writing this post, I’d only just stopped feeling deeply anxious every day about where we’d be living in a few months time. About what would happen if we lost our jobs (and therefore, our visas) and how we’d pack up an apartment and move across the world (again), but this time, in the midst of a global pandemic. Whether we’d get sick from coming into contact with someone during the moving process. What lockdown in an Australian motel room would be like. Whether we’d both be unemployed. What we’d do if someone I love gets sick, on the other side of the world.

The latter still scares me to the core, but the anxiety about the “what ifs” of where we’d live or how we’d manage a move, do not. They are so far down my priority list right now, and I’ve finally started to be able to practice non-attachment to at least some of the things I used to worry about.

It does still feel quite surreal. Last year felt like a rollercoaster of the highest highs and lowest lows. Eventually, I found my dream job, and I felt lucky every day. A few weeks ago, as David and I walked through SoHo to get a coffee, making a point of how lucky we were to be there in that moment, and how very very good life was. The life we built seems so fragile now, when a few weeks ago everything felt so secure. I don’t think I took it for granted, and often felt acutely aware of how grateful I was for how good things were, but my gratitude for ordinary life will be off the charts after all of this. I’ll especially appreciate every future spring – I was counting down the days until cherry blossom season this year, and although I’m sad to miss the most joyful season of the year, it will make it that much more special in the future.

It’s been really important for me to remind myself that we are some of the lucky ones. Our life has been inconvenienced, but so far the worst thing we’ve faced is fear and uncertainty. As soon as I wake up each morning and before I go to sleep, I am grateful. Grateful that no one I love is sick. That I have a job still, and that most of my friends do too. That my friend who has lost her job has work lined up, in a few weeks time. That governments are suspending rental evictions and mortgage repayments for the thousands that will need these leeways.

The world has seen more tragedy than usual in the last few months and no silver lining justifies the human cost of the coronavirus. But that doesn’t mean that we there is no lemonade to be made, from the giant lemon that the earth feels like right now. As my mum always says, never waste a good crisis. Where there is crisis, there is opportunity.

I wonder how many writers are at home writing and inventors are at home tinkering. Painters painting, cooks cooking and professionally busy people becoming un-busy. How many are finding the time to read, to sit in silence, to think about the things they’ve been avoiding thinking. How many people are finding the time for things they’ve never found the time for before.

I’m taking my mum’s advice and focusing on the opportunities I can create. I’ve rejoined the book club I left in Melbourne, since they’ll be running it virtually for a while. I finally got around to starting another book club with my friends in New York. We’ve been talking about it for ages, and there’s never been a better time. David and I are working our way through the last ten years of Oscar-winning movies, and I’m digging into classics from Hollywood’s Golden Age. I’m reading a lot. Those lucky enough not to be in immediate peril, have the comfort of the brilliant art that is at our fingertips.

I started learning Greek earlier this year, but got “too busy” and it fell by the wayside. On the weekend, I finished learning the Greek alphabet. My sister has generously sent me a late Christmas present, of a set of make up brushes, and her friend who is a make up whiz is going to teach me how to use them, virtually. I’m doing the most thorough spring clean of my life.

Cooking three meals a day at home sometimes feels overwhelming in a tiny kitchen without a dishwasher, but it’s pushing me to be more resourceful with what I have and better at cooking tasty, relatively healthy meals even when I’m not in the mood to cook. I might start a pop culture podcast with my brilliant little sister. There is so much that I’m grateful for and so much that I’m looking forward to. It helps me count my blessings when I’m feeling anxious and scared.

As the dust settles on this new, temporary normal, I’m less shocked every morning by the realization that all usual programming has been interrupted. I have stopped reading the news, except for the occasional peek at the leading headline in the New York Times to check for anything I need to know. I’ve focused on the bubble that is my apartment, while spending more time on the phone speaking to family and friends in Australia.

The Blog, During Coronavirus

Here on the blog, I want to keep posting the posts I’ve already been working on. I don’t want to taint every post with a disclaimer about the coronavirus. We all know. I’m going to keep publishing some posts I’ve been working on for a while, mostly based on travel from last year, and revel in the experiences I’ve already had and photos of the beautiful places I’ve been.

My travel plans until the end of July are cancelled or postponed. We were meant to be in DC last weekend, to see the cherry blossoms. One of my best friends was going to visit in April, we were going to meet for a long weekend in Asheville, NC, and then she was going to stay with me in New York. I was hoping to take a week off work to visit a friend in London and go somewhere sunny and beachy with David in July. We had pencilled in ideas for trips we could take in a weekend from New York; to Boston, Montreal, Philadelphia, Hudson and Savannah. It is disappointing, but I don’t feel the same disappointment I would have under normal circumstances. In a few short weeks, the health & financial security of everyone I love has become the only thing that I can get too upset about.

If anything, these travel-related disappointments just make me more grateful for the trips I have been able to take. It must be devastating for those who have cancelled their great trip of a lifetime that they’ve been dreaming of for years – while also worrying about their own financial security and the health of people they love.

Writing these blog posts makes me so grateful for the travel experiences I’ve had already. Last year alone was a rollercoaster of a year, but I feel like I didn’t waste a moment of it. It’s a reminder to make hay while the suns shines.

It’s also the perfect time to start working on some travel-inspired, but not-based-on-travels content. I’ve been working on some opinion pieces, short histories and round ups of my favourite books and movies that offer an escape, so I’ll start sharing these too.

How have you handled the coronavirus crisis? Have you found any hobbies, practices or activities that help you deal with it all? Let me know in the comments!

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