The confinement diaries

Next Friday will be France’s one-month confinement anniversary. Here’s how my life has changed since March 17th.

• Sorry Jesus, but (since confinement) I really don’t love my neighbour.

Last Sunday morning, the sun was shining gloriously. I opened all the windows, made some delicious brunch and sang James Blunt at the top of my lungs. Then I worked out for an hour or two, aka jumped around to a Zumba class and bounced off the couch repeatedly while playing Wii tennis. I have extremely thin squeaky floorboards. I doubt that my neighbours love me. My upstairs neighbour doesn’t work, but I do. He plays obnoxiously loud instrumental music at random times of the day, he watches Netflix at 2 am, and his alarm goes off for an hour at noon. My other neighbour takes a cigarette break every 20 minutes right underneath my window. I dislike them both very much.

When you live in an old Parisian apartment, with paper-thin walls, you’re not only confined with your partner or your children. You’re also unfortunately confined with people you never chose to share your life with aka your neighbours. Social media’s suggestions of “taking this unique time to rekindle your relationship” or “finding fun DIY projects to do together” don’t quite apply to this type of cohabitation… Therefore, here are mine: you can either go for a series of noise battles and a collection of passive aggressive notes, or you can invest in earplugs and a good meditation app. Your strategy of choice will depend on the likeliness of you stumbling upon them in the elevator post-confinement (in year 2021, most probably).

• I’ve become a bit of an outlaw.

My fan base is made up of a lot of government officials and cops, so I won’t go into too much detail. I therefore will neither confirm nor deny that I still regularly stop by my apartment, even though I’m currently “confining” at my boyfriend’s place. I go there to water my plants, pick up wrongly addressed packages (because damn Chronopost refused to reroute a package 10 minutes before its delivery even though it contained essential things such as board games) and to pick up some comfort items (aka my smoothie maker and needlepoint kit).  I also won’t tell you how many kilometres I need to “fake jog” for to get to my apartment. Do I have two copies of my “attestation” in my Decathlon pants, the left pocket containing the attestation with the boyfriend’s address, the right pocket the attestation with my address? I plead the fifth on that one! (though I’ve just realised that this FBI-level type of trickery won’t work with the phone “attestations” ….Macron 1, Olivia 0).

• And I am constantly being judged for it.

I will say this. Judging others has always been France’s favourite pastime. It therefore comes as no surprise that they will more than gladly lecture you on the dos and don’ts of confinement etiquette.  I have been told off by friends for not shopping alone, for stopping by my apartment, which is slightly over 1 km away from where my “confinement location” is, for going on daily walks outside, for getting food delivered as a special treat….Hear me out though! The government is protecting the physical health of the entire country by putting all these restrictions in place. I absolutely respect that and try to follow these rules as much as possible for the sake of at-risk populations (which I belong to) and the medical staff. But it’s our responsibility to look after our own mental health. We’re not all in this together! Some of us have been feeling anxious or depressed, some of us don’t have gardens to tend to or a pet to hold, or even a person to physically talk to.  Some of us are living in houses with great coping mechanisms, while others are living between four walls unable to see the light at the end of this endless tunnel. My point being that, if you see people having a party, then please do call the cops. On the other hand, if your friend tells you they go on a 1.2 km walk from time to time to get a glimpse of the Seine, then please let them be.

• I have confinement FOMO

We may be in confinement, but my FOMO is still very much well and alive. We are no longer competing for who is eating at the most fashionable, Time Out-approved, restaurant or taking selfies at the most Instagramable exhibit. Instead, we’re competing on who’s the “confinest” of us all! I will scroll on Instagram and start wondering why I’m not making olive bread from scratch, learning Swahili, recreating famous paintings with common household objects (it’s a thing and I want to be part of it!) or simply taking a bath with a Korean face mask on, while actively searching for my Ikigai. It feels like we’ve been given this limited time out from the outside world and its distractions, and we somehow need to treasure every second of it, to make something of ourselves, and lead saner, healthier lives. It’s a lot of pressure for anxiety-driven neurotics like me! So I have to remind myself, and remind you all, that just feeling okay during this tough situation is an achievement in itself, that lots of naps and Netflix binges can also sometimes be the healthiest options during these exceptional times and that maybe confinement is not only a “time out” from the outside world, but also from the constant pressure of productivity.

• I have never felt healthier:

What I’ve learned this past month is that my pre-confinement life was anything but healthy. I often slept 6 hours a night. I ate McDonalds at least once a week, because I had a late photography class or an early movie date. I preferred going out to eat than going to the gym. I almost never cooked (and if I did, I usually ate around 11pm). Since the beginning of this confinement period, life has altogether slowed down. I cook all my meals from scratch now (it can easily take two hours), I try to follow a daily routine of afterwork yoga through Instagram live classes, I do some cross-stitch rather than stare at my phone during work breaks, and my eyes and lashes have been makeup free since day 1. I’m not saying life in confinement is better than pre-confinement life. I am slowly but surely going insane between these four walls! I miss my parents, my friends, my cat, restaurants, bars, parks, the forest, parties, tennis, swimming, the sun…. I don’t miss the subway though! I just hope that once this is all over, I have somehow learned that my life within these four walls should be

I will end this blog on a hopeful note. I have witnessed, or heard of, many acts of kindness. There the local supermarket employee who, when he saw a woman, a baby in her arms, struggling with her groceries, scanned all her items and packed them in bags for her. There is the guitarist who performs live concerts on his balcony every evening, playing any song that his neighbours request. There are the neighbours that smile, wave or chat with one another from their windows or balconies. There are the poems and kind messages people write on their window for any passers-by to read, or the emails and texts that friends send every day to check in on each other. And finally, there are the 8pm claps, screams, whistles and pot and pan that remind you that people, as annoying as they can be, are also inherently good.