How’s everyone doing?
Are you staying home? Are you writing a lot? Drawing? Filling notebooks to fill your time? Recording what life is like during this historic pandemic?
These are such strange times. I’ve stopped carrying a bag or any notebooks with me when I do my weekly grocery run so I’ll have less stuff to worry about disinfecting when I get home. (And yes, I know getting germs on my notebooks is a petty concern in the larger scheme of things.) It is scary living in the NY area these days, where so many people are sick and dying. I give thanks every day to all the supermarket workers, healthcare workers, delivery people and other employees who have to expose themselves to the public, as they are really the ones at risk. I feel very lucky to be able to mostly stay home, where I do try to do some journaling and sketching when I’m not too distracted by all the news.
The New York Times published a great article about how people are documenting this time in journals, diaries and sketchbooks: The Quarantine Diaries
As the coronavirus continues to spread and confine people largely to their homes, many are filling pages with their experiences of living through a pandemic. Their diaries are told in words and pictures: pantry inventories, window views, questions about the future, concerns about the present.
Taken together, the pages tell the story of an anxious, claustrophobic world on pause…
When future historians look to write the story of life during coronavirus, these first-person accounts may prove useful.
“Diaries and correspondences are a gold standard,†said Jane Kamensky, a professor of American History at Harvard University and the faculty director of the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute. “They’re among the best evidence we have of people’s inner worlds.â€
I’d love to do a post on how some of this site’s readers are notebooking their way through the COVID-19 crisis. If anyone would like to share their own notebook or sketchbook pages or stories, please email me at nifty [at] notebookstories [dot] com.
Recently I have been making my own TN inserts since the price went up. As a plus, I can make them with fountain pen friendly to paper!
Early Sunday morning i came down with symptoms of covid-19. I made a new notebook to document what is happening inside and out. It hurts, physically. And waiting to see if my grandfather and son have contracted it is painful emotionally. If you would like some pictures I am more than willing to share with redactions. Girl needs to have some secrets.
I’m so sorry you’ve been hit by this. I’m one of 3 generations sheltering together, and it’s a special kind of worry. I hope things go well enough for all of you. If you’d like to share pics and/or your continued story, I’d be honored to be part of it. Thank you, Erica.
I’ve emailed you some notebook pages – let me know if they didn’t come through.
Barb, thank you so much for your words, it turned out to be strep with a lot of … Facial discharge. Pulmonary fluid is different than what I was expelling. But I learned something new. Silver linings, right? So I am quite relived specially because I gave my grandfather a hug the night before I came down with it. Ugh. I can’t imagine what mother’s must have gone through in times when children passes away from viruses like this. Like the book/movie Angela’s Ashes, it’s a reference point for how good we really have had it. I am going to continue the notebooks and maybe offer some online to people, they are small A5 with anywhere between 40-60 pages, depending on paperweight. I will take photos of mine and send them along once I have a better wifi connection.