Day 64 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – “When I’m 64”

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Earlier today or yesterday at some point I was thinking of the song When I’m 64, and that I should share it. I’m not 64. Quarantine hasn’t aged me so drastically. I felt the need to make that joke.

Recycling

For the first time in two months I went to the recycling centre today. For at least two months I cleaned everything that could be recycled and sorted it into the correct bag. I was waiting for an auspicious time to take all this stuff to the recycle centre and today was that day.

I still spent more time waiting in the car, to get into the recycling centre, than actually in the centre. I’m organised with recycling so that it takes me seconds rather than minutes. I need to improve my paper recycling habits so that I can take seconds, as I do with everything else. Years ago I used to be disorganised about how I sorted things. I became systematic because I wanted to make the process almost instantaneous and it works.

Post Pandemic Spring Clean

Some writers or journalists were encouraging people to spring clean at the height of the pandemic but this made no sense to me. Why would you want to generate more rubbish and more things to recycle when going to recycle would take hours rather than minutes?

It feels nice to have finally got plastic, aluminium, PET, Glass and other things back under control. The next stage is to “turn the home into a museum” stage. It’s my way of saying “cleaning a place so that you can no longer tell that someone lives there.”

In a few weeks the idea of having guests may no longer be an alien concept so we might as well be ready.

Those Who are Alone and Want To Do Something Social, and Those Who Are Not, but Behave cruelly.

On social Media and Activities websites you see that there are two types of people. Those who are desperate to do something social, after two months of solitude, and those who are cruel and make it clear that they want to exclude people. It’s cruel because self-isolation and solitude are hard. I’m impatient for the chance to go hiking with people, of cycling with people, of shaking hands, or even simply having a conversation at a normal distance.

The Number of New infections in Switzerland faceplanting.

Although faceplanting is not an academic term it does reflect how impatient I am for the pandemic to be over so that I can get back to having a life in the physical world. By physical I mean handshakes and riding in the same car as someone else. It’s been at least 64 days since I did either.

Web Mastering

At the moment my biggest investment of time is working on my website. I’m making sure that I understand the bits of CSS that I am learning and applying them to page after page. It may be time consuming and repetitive but the goal is to learn, and master new skills. Repetition is my friend.

It’s also a way of working on a new portfolio while considering another career pivot. If the pessimists are right and we still have months of solitude and self-isolation then web mastering is a good direction to take.

And Finally

It’s easy to feel down for several hours a day during a pandemic and we need to find methods by which to stay sane and to stay stable. I believe that to a large extent I have but this is fragile.

We don’t know whether we will be able to socialise this summer. If we can’t then we have to survive another winter of solitude.

Take a look at the legacy part of my website. My Weathering page will make you dream of hiking.

If you have pictures of mountains outside of Europe I’d be interested. Leave a comment below