Stay-at-home order
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” Carl Jung
“Honey, I am home,” no one said anywhere this past month. It was only a few weeks ago that social distancing and the stay-at-home order arrived in Vermont. Since that day, time feels suspended and the scale of place feels warped.
Ordered to stay at home, I walk from my bedroom to the bathroom to the kitchen to the kitchen table and reverse and repeat, my mind drifting to memories of building forts under the kitchen table or between the sofa cushions. I remember bringing my daughters snacks and lunch to the entrance of their fort that would take over the living room for many days and sometimes weeks. I loved watching them first spending every free minute huddled in there and then over time forgetting about it as they became eager to go outside playing in the yard or wanting to sleep in their own room again. The fort came down and a week or a month later, at another rainy long day, another fort appeared. They choose their own ‘stay-at-home-stay-in-the-fort’ time.
I think of our ancestors who lived in caves, gathered around a fire. Men coming back from hunting with food to be prepared over the fire the women tended to. And then they left again to hunt more and so on.
I think of the comfort of our small tent on our canoe camping trips on lakes in the Adirondacks. The scale always felt calming and it was easy and fun for the four of us to set up and then the next day break camp and move on and repeat. Coming back home always felt like sensory overload for my mind and relaxing for my body as I could stretch out and move around without having to put shoes and jacket on for simple tasks such as going to the bathroom.
I think of me curled up in a sleeping bag at the train station in Venice on a backpacking trip after high school. A gentle tap at the foot of the sleeping bag from the guards reminded all of us who had camped out for the night to get up and clear the entrance for the crowds of the day. Strapping the rolled up sleeping bag to my backpack, I moved on.
I wonder if Le Corbusier ever camped out or built forts under the kitchen table of his childhood home. Would he still have designed under the premise that a six feet tall person would be exactly the right scale for a home and its furnishings? Conceptually, it all makes sense and I think that, taking DaVinci’s vitruvian man which illustrates the, theoretic and static ideal human body proportion, in context of place and developing it into a concept of fractals and scale is super exciting to play with, but building homes based on mathematics and a theory which in turn was based on an ideal and a theory in itself? Sleeping bags, tents, blanket forts, caves … they are all cozy and low and hug you. They are a bit sloppy in both design and scale — just good enough to get the job done, to envelope and protect. They allow me to push against their walls, to feel that resistance that feeds my touch receptors that allow my brain to feel where I am in space, that anchors me in my surroundings and my body.
With the call to stay at home and social distancing I miss hugging my friends, getting hugs, feeling the pressure of the seatbelt and the car seat, squeezing into elevators just to then enjoy stretching into the wide space of a large hallway or airport terminal, sitting in a tight chairlift shoulder to shoulder with two other skiers I don’t know just to then get off to enjoy the feeling of an exhilarated sense of speed while freely skiing down the mountain. I miss the rhythm of the space around me contracting and widening; the rhythm of coming and going, of stillness and movement; the rhythm and scale that orients me in my body and in my day.
As long as we are ordered to stay at home, I lean into my walls, count how many times I can move my body along one wall just like Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau did when dressed in a one piece suit disguised as curtain in Pink Panther (2006).
I stretch out my arms in a doorway and feel my hands push into the door jamb. I press really hard and then step into the room and feel my arms float up — just like wings spreading.
I crawl under the table with a cleaning rag and a bucket with soapy water under the pretense of a thorough spring cleaning while secretly enjoying the time under the table so close to the floor and even closer to childhood memories.
I attempt a headstand against the wall, surprised that my feet touch the light switch that I thought was placed much lower than my heels.
I take the wool blanket I bought in Iceland many years ago and shake it out over the small deck, watching the wave it makes and how the dust particles float away. The blanket at the end of my outstretched arms, feels much heavier and bigger than when draped on the couch.
I take two steps at once as I go downstairs to take out the trash. Hopefully, in four weeks, when the stay-at-home order will be lifted, I will be strong enough for three steps at once. Until then, I continue to be thankful that I live in a house that is a home and that gives me limits to push up against.
Inspector Clouseau: Do you have a rheum? Munich Hotel Clerk: I do not know what a “rheum” is. Inspector Clouseau: [Checks his translation book] Zimmer. Munich Hotel Clerk: Ah, a room! Inspector Clouseau: That is what I have been saying, you idiot. A rheum.
