I ordered new chairs for the dining room at the end of June. The old ones are no longer presentable. The seats are almost smashed, the leather backrests, already worn, have been scratched by the claws of my young cat. I was assured that the new chairs would be in stores within five weeks. They arrived four months later.
Posted yesterday at 9:00 a.m.
I went to get the chairs last weekend. They are still in boxes, in pieces, in my dining room. Right next to the tires that I had changed at the garage. I plan to make them elements of a contemporary art installation that I will call “Pandemic Deliquescence”, so little inspires me the desire to assemble the chairs and find a storage space for the tires.
My cat sleeps in one of the tires. It will be a living exhibition. If it were up to me and my laziness, it could become a permanent setting. Not certain that I would have the green light from the family committee. To say that I am languid, in this mid-November, would be an understatement. I’m used to seasonal depression. The light therapy lamp is close at hand. That’s not quite what it’s about these days.
Since the start of the pandemic, the number of times we have invited friends over can be counted on the fingers of one hand. At first it was self-evident due to covid restrictions. Then, to finish convincing myself that it was inappropriate to invite anyone to dinner, I decided that the chairs in the dining room no longer offered the possibility. Which is not wrong.
“Even my friends commented on the condition of the chairs! confirmed Fiston, who took advantage of our absence last weekend to invite buddies to sleep at home. When your teenager is embarrassed by the state of your furniture…
I was thinking of my chairs in a state of near decomposition while reading my colleague Émilie Côté’s file on the effects of the pandemic, not on dining room furniture, but on each of us. Has the pandemic changed me like it has changed a lot of people, according to the studies carried out on this subject? Have I become less organized?
I don’t know if it’s about organization, but I’ve never put off so much until tomorrow what I could have done today. I regressed to student status in midterm. This is true for the work as for the dishes. As long as there’s a fork left in the drawer, what’s the point of filling the dishwasher? A house that is too tidy is proof that you have failed your life, as the saying goes.
This weekend, will I finally tidy up my yard? I have already decided, after reading a news report about it, to let the dead leaves rot on my lawn. They will be used as fertilizer in the spring. On the other hand, bicycles, garden furniture, the garden hose will never become compost…
“We all have a loved one who says they have less desire to go out since the pandemic,” writes Émilie. I have one and it couldn’t be closer… Not only has the pandemic not decided me, like so many others, to leave the city for the countryside, but I’ve never had so little desire to go out from my house.
I sympathize with this young writer who told me last week that he preferred to live in an isolated house in the countryside without electricity than in Villeray, but I wouldn’t change places with him for anything in the world. My ability to appreciate cabin life is usually limited to 24 hours.
I haven’t had COVID yet (knock on wood, anything but wood), but I’m wallowing in this languor that has characterized the pandemic. I have become a hermit, adept at cocooning. I rarely see my friends anymore. I go out much less to restaurants, to the theatre, to the cinema.
The space I occupy, most of my time, on the sofa, is identifiable by the darker shade of the brown leather. I watched ten episodes there in two evenings of the series The Crown this week, telling myself that it was the equivalent of a history lesson for Son (who was with me). At his suggestion, we set out to watch all of Studio Ghibli’s animated films in order, and not just those of the master Miyazaki.
“You are watching a movie per day ? “Asked me this week my boss, to whom I confided in my pandemic cinephile diet on digital platforms. I have become a caricature of myself, scheduling Antonioni and Fassbinder retrospectives (with subtitles, of course). The approaching Soccer World Cup makes me fear that my body will melt into the living room sofa for good.
I’m not complaining, far from it! To compensate and give myself a clear conscience, I run and I walk. Ten thousand steps per day on average. By taking my time, much more than before. There are not only disadvantages to having changed. I leave you. The yard is full, the dishwasher is empty, the dining room is cluttered, and there’s a game on TV.