Lockdown and Stockholm Syndrome

When I heard some news source speculate about the lockdown ending in a few weeks I felt panic. No! Don't make me go back out there again with PEOPLE! It's as though I have developed a mix of phobias: claustrophobia and agoraphobia, resulting in a weird sort of Stockholm Syndrome. I am not  alone, it seems. What I don't know is whether our anxiety counts as 'phobia': an unfounded terror. 

This one might make sense.  

Since those reports we have gotten word that schools in Toronto will stay closed at least until the end of May and my first reaction was one of relief. I can’t imagine being happy to let my kids sit in classrooms or lecture halls or ride public transit. How will I feel, myself, about walking into a  seminar room or cinema or a theatre or an airplane? To wander a supermarket’s aisles, to be less than that hockey stick's distance?  Shudder. I have adapted to staying home.

I still enjoy strolls around the block and physically-distanced chats with neighbors. These are now pretty exciting events. Elder son played frisbee in a park in Vancouver. That sounds safe with gloves, or with hand sanitizer nearby. I take some nice solo bikes ride to the lakeshore, avoiding the busy bike paths and taking advantage of the nearly-empty streets and car parks, or over the Don River viaduct, a route I would not attempt in the full flow of usual traffic.

The dog and I explored campus a few days ago: hardly any people around, but some very contented Canada geese sunning themselves in front of New College.  Not quite as exotic as the penguins currently waddling through Capetown but we'll take what wildlife we can get.


Our household has developed a sort of captivity ecology, with each of us occupying not only different parts of the house but occupying them at different times. Younger son is nearly nocturnal, with a side of crepuscularity. I have watched him eat breakfast at five o'clock p.m. Daughter attends her high-school classes from under her duvet, sometimes requiring a wake up call not just before school but during: math at ten o'clock ("I'm up!") and then a further nudge to wake her for physics at noon because she has drifted off, cozy in bed.

We are cleaning house for ourselves again, a hardship that befalls us every few years, not only during pandemics. We divide the chores and tackle the wreckage twice a month. This past weekend younger son practiced the fine art of dusting (emphasis on the practice); daughter mastered hoovering. (I re-mastered it myself 2 weeks previous.)

But the end will come. It must, I suppose. It seems to me unlikely that we will emerge, blinking, into a rainbow-filled post-CoViD world, but rather will step tentatively into a new, CoViDious environment, one shared with the hideous virus, to which, somehow, we will adapt. Masks will figure. We'll have wardrobes of them dangling from specially-made hangers purchased on Etsy or Amazon. We'll be posturing before mirrors and asking in muffled tones, "Does this one go with my outfit?" 

What must be, will be. Such a shame, though. I only recently found my perfect shade of lipstick.  

Zeder: Passover 2020

The Carlin Clan's Transcontinental Zeder

We had a transcontinental (but not transatlantic) family seder via Zoom: a zeder. It was short and sweet. A best-of version. About half the time ended up dedicated to getting my parents' connection sorted out. First they could hear the rest of us but not see us, then we could hear but not see them, and so forth. We chiseled away at it, occasionally tempted to accept a partial solution, but no-- we wanted it all and finally we got it. The wisdom of the generations prevailed. Daughters and grandchildren offered advice. Sons-in-law wisely sat back and sipped wine. (They know the drill.) My mother, who has a close but tempestuous relationship with her phone and refuses to touch a computer, pressed the final button that made the whole thing work. 

I had found an online Haggadah that we could all share; my middle sister abridged it; and Simon led the ceremonies. In sum, it captured the spirit of Passover very well, and the spirit of these pandemic times surprisingly well too. We had the four questions and the four kinds of children and we dipped and dipped again; we tasted bitter and salt. The intoning of the ten plagues resonated more than it usually does. Would anyone believe me if I said I had smeared a bit of lamb's blood on mine doorpost? (Beware, angel of death.) We washed hands (of course). When we reached the 'Shulchan Aroch', the 'long table',  we signed off and scattered to our own time zones and small tables and enjoyed our festive but quiet meals.

Afterward, those of us in Toronto proceeded with a hunt for the 'afikomen'- a half-piece of ceremonial matzo essential for completing the ritual--and succeeded in finding it before the dog did. In exchange for its safe return by its captors--aka our children--we promised them an Easter egg hunt on the following Sunday. 

As Father Ted would say, it's an ecumenical matter.



I  

I 


can’t imagine being happy to let the kids outside to play with friends. I can’t imagine choosing to be in a crowd of people, to sit in a cinema or a theatre or an airplane or to wander a supermarket’s aisles. Okay maybe the kids can go to a park and play frisbee standing far far apart. Eli did that the other day in Vancouver.I can’t imagine being happy to let the kids outside to play with friends. I can’t imagine choosing to be in a crowd of people, to sit in a cinema or a theatre or an airplane or to wander a supermarket’s aisles. Okay maybe the kids can go to a park and play frisbee standing far far apart. Eli did that the other day in Vancouver.