Fighting my Corona-Crisis with Sourdough
Two days ago, I wanted to make a sourdough starter.
I went online to research the subject, and soon found a site with an excellent step-by-step guide. I read through it to make sure I had everything I needed and then checked the comment section for some feedback.
It read like this:
“I’ve wanted to try this for years; this is going to be a fun project for the pandemic. “
Apparently, I am not the only one with a corona-project, I thought to myself and promptly informed my husband about this new addition to our ever-growing list of things to do. Our list of projects has taken on a life of its own while we wait out the pandemic securely tucked up at home.
Even though I still work from home, my life, like anyone else’s, is very different from what it was like two months ago. For most of us, the way we spend our time has completely changed. Even if we are fortunate enough to still work from home instead of being laid off, we might still have a lot more time on our hands than we are used to.
Unfortunately, we don’t only have more time. We also have more anxieties. Uncertainty, impending financial pressure, and end-of-the-world sentiments are everywhere. Our usual coping mechanisms are either unavailable or have been taken over by COVID-19 news.
We worry about the future, toilet paper, our elderly parents or our stubborn grandparents who insist on going to the bank in person even though online-banking is a thing. We argue about whether or not to wear a mask when we go out, we debate the latest corona news up, down and sideways on Twitter or anywhere else on the internet, and we spend a lot of time reading (and getting anxious over) the news.
We are in crisis. It is serious. It is difficult.
Optimism is in short supply.
And yet, some ladies on the internet are excited about finally having the time to try their hands at a sourdough starter. I am happy to say that I am now one of them. For every blocked creative citing the direness of our situation as the cause for the block, there is someone else getting out their watercolours for the first time in years.
People take up all kinds of hobbies. Some of them are useful and pandemic-related like sewing (for masks) and gardening (for lettuce supplies). Others have nothing to do with fighting corona and are instead mostly focussed on finding solace and distraction. There is a lot of pleasure in making something yourself. People write poetry, stories and blog posts. They make pretty things, take careful forays into macramé and crochet or practise the ukulele a lot more than they ever thought possible.
There are corona-projects everywhere.
And it’s terrific.
Our situation sucks and not leaving the house is a challenge. In some way, it feels like we have never had so little personal freedom.
But that is only one way to look at it.
Since we can not change what is going on, we may as well try and look for the silver lining on this massive cloud called the COVID-19 pandemic. I am not saying that there is enough of a silver lining there to make the cloud go away, but there is still some good to be gained.
The stay-at-home-orders have taken many of our options away. However, they have also removed a lot of our usual distractions. Our former daily routines are gone, but so are our excuses.
I can’t say “I am too tired from driving to and from work to write “anymore because I am not commuting.
My son can’t say “I can’t focus on school in the morning “anymore because he can do his homework whenever he wants.
If you have ever wished that you had more time, could work from home, didn’t have to go to work, could take a break from your family drama, didn’t have to go to your creepy uncle’s birthday, or could skip your second cousin’s wedding, this is your time.
Use it.
Learn something new. Get back to your yarn stash and make that blanket you’ve been talking about for years. Redo the guest room. Declutter the attic. Read all the books on your “maybe someday”-list. Figure out how to make the best waffles on the planet.
Find your corona-project and go for it.
For some of you, this may seem like the worst time to indulge yourself in a hobby. It seems frivolous to spend all your time learning how to draw pretty flowers or how to make a sourdough starter.
And yet, what better time could there be?
You may not like how the current situation came to be, but you can still use what it is giving you.
Of course, I’d trade quite a few hours of my time away again if it meant that we didn’t have to go through this. Unfortunately, though, that deal is not on the table.
Like it or not, the shelter-in-place orders are going to be with us for a while. There’s nothing much to do about that except comply and stay home. We also can’t do much about whether the companies we work for will get through this or if we’ll have lost our job come May. Only time will tell.
So use this time to do whatever you are curious about. Try new things and see how you like them. Dedicate yourself to something and get really good at it.
If you are already out of a job, this might sound even more ludicrous to you. But hear me out.
If you are stuck at home without a job and don’t know what to do, finding something useful to spend your time on is even more critical. Chances are you’re not just going to be able to get your old job back when we’re through with this. So if there is nothing else you can do anyway, you may as well use this time to build a new skill or two.
If you’ve ever contemplated a career change, now is the time to learn all about your new industry and figure out if your idea is more than just a thing you like to talk about after work. It sounds cruel, but you don’t have to worry about whether you should or shouldn’t quit your job anymore. That ship has sailed. Your only choice is whether or not you’ll get on the next one.
Of course, this is a lot easier said than done. Fear is a powerful thing. It keeps us from thinking clearly and paralyzes us. The quality of our decisions approaches zero when we are afraid. We can’t act rationally anymore.
But we can work our way out of our fear. Slowly, one step at a time. The beautiful side-effect of doing something creative or learning something new is that step by step, we can find a feeling of purpose again. There is a great sense of accomplishment in an organized closet. Completing a long-overdue project can be comforting and give us a sense of agency. When our minds are in chaos, organizing something in our environment (closets, attics) can help us sort through our thoughts and feel more in control.
We all feel helpless and afraid precisely because we can not do anything about what is going on.
And yet, we can always change something. Even if it’s just our messy closet or the abandoned project of “ourselves “. If we can’t do anything else, we can at least make sure that we come out of this smarter than we went in — that, and better at making sourdough bread.
