My Lockdown Time Warp

It seems that this global pandemic has not only affected our health and economic well-being, but has also thrown our concept of time and space into a tailspin. And as concepts of time and space changed, so did behavior.

It used to be that we had very clear demarcations of time and space allocated for work, for family, for worship, for play, for rest. Work was Monday to Friday, or for some people Monday to Saturday. Saturdays were for errands: supermarket, doctor’s visits, shopping, car and home repairs, and more. Sundays were sacred family time, beginning with hearing Sunday mass, gathering the family for meals and conversations, and resting. Some weekends were for escaping the grind of urban life to breathe in the fresh air of the countryside and enjoy nature in all its glory. Long weekends were reserved for travel and adventures, whether domestic or overseas.

Each morning, we would wake up to an alarm, whether from a vintage alarm clock or from our smartphones, to begin our day. My daughter Cara set my bedside Alexa to remind me twice each morning “Mom, this is a reminder not to stress” just as I would normally go off to work in Alabang.

Pre-COVID, we left our homes to drive to work, moving from family space to work space, then back again to our homes at the end of the work day. That drive, short as it was, clearly marked the change of hats: from Mommy Monette to Career Monette. It allowed a short time to de-stress and collect myself to face the next phase. The lockdown blew that transition to smithereens.

Suddenly, there was no more time to change hats. From attending company meetings, running an association meeting, speaking at a virtual conference or moderating a panel discussion, all it took was standing up from my work desk (actually, our formal dining table) and walking five steps to the kitchen to prepare the next meal, or five running steps to the garden to collect our laundry before the rains began in earnest, or ten steps to answer the door for yet another delivery.

The lockdown was harsh on seniors and auto-immune folks. For the first few months, we could not leave the house, a sure cause for cabin fever. I worried about my 85-year old mother who lived in San Sebastian, and my second daughter who was in La Union. As soon as we were allowed to, we rushed to San Sebastian and brought my mother home to Southbay. It was more difficult for Cara as local travel was banned.

Thankfully, the Internet provided a great window to the world. Through social media like Facebook and Instagram, we kept tabs on family and friends, while Twitter and LinkedIn kept us in touch with the outside world and gave us access to much needed information as to what was happening. Tiktok provided entertainment, though I have not yet learned to use it. Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft MS teams and other platforms allowed us to continue with business, working-from-home.

For almost all of my working life, I have been accused of being a workaholic. Whether it was keeping my nose to the books at school, or working at a publishing company to starting my own company, supporting various advocacies, leading organizations, or serving at church. There was very little time to do things other than work.

The lockdown which happened mid-March changed all that. Suddenly, time seemed to have come to a standstill. All of a sudden, there was time to spare in the first few weeks as we were all forced to stay at home. Time to watch my very first Netflix Korean series, Crash Landing on You; to read books I had started over the years and not finished; to clean out all the drawers of the house; to go through my pantry, throw away expired items, and arrange it neatly; to weed out the garden and water the plants; to play Scrabble and pit wits in a game of chess with my children, and so much more. Activities I had long wanted to do, but never got around to doing, suddenly were possible.

There was no more excuse to skip exercise as keeping fit in the comfort of my bedroom was possible with Internet exercise programs. Shopping was a breeze with the proliferation of ecommerce platforms from Zalora, Lazada to Shopee, and the ease of cashless payments like GCash and PayMaya. Buying fresh meats, seafood and vegetables was possible through the village marketplace on Viber and Facebook that we had set up a year before the lockdown, and soon even baked bread, cookies, ice cream and cakes could be bought. As people figured out how to help farmers get their produce to the city, it was now possible to buy fresh Tagaytay vegetables, Zambales mangoes and Baguio strawberries.

With the lockdown also came the realization that there was no more outside help to come and help clean the house and surroundings, water the plants, take care of the dog, clean the koi pond, cook, or wash and iron our clothes. It was just us: Bea, Niccolo and me. So I took on the tasks of cooking and cleaning the house, while Bea assumed laundry duties. Niccolo was assigned watering the plants and taking care of the cars, and would at times assume chef duties.

It didn’t help that my Apple watch broke irreparably soon into the lockdown and my Omega watch stopped working. For the first time in decades, I did not wear a watch, and had no need for one. Only the downstairs cuckoo clock and Alexa’s 7am daily reminder kept time. The chirping of the birds and the sunlight breaking the dawn told me it was time to get up. When shadows shortened and our tummies started growling, lunch time was near. The gradual darkness of the room that turned my Zoom visage a grainy grey signaled it was time to start cooking dinner.

Cooking soon became one of my favorite de-stressers. I learned to plan meals at night, defrost the ingredients upon waking up, and cook meals in between the precious few windows between meetings. Sometimes, it was Michelin-inspired meals, and at others, just something to keep us satisfied until the next kitchen breakthrough.

As we could no longer travel, meals became an avenue to remind us of the wonderful world outside. Sharing memories of fun times traveling, we savored the world during meal times, from local favorites like pork adobo, binagoongan and salmon sinigang; to Singaporean Hainanese chicken rice; Malaysian laksa; Thai red curry chicken; Chinese dumplings; Korean kimchi rice; Japanese tempura, Indian palak paneer (with homemade naan bread to soak up the curry); American burgers and Mexican tacos; Moroccan beef tagine; Greek moussaka; French moules-frites; Italian pizzas and pastas; and Spanish tapas, meatballs, fabada and paella. Indeed, the world was in our meals!

All the kitchen gadgets I had in store came out of hiding. I finally learned to use the Air Fryer to make delicious French fries and crunchy fried chicken. For days I was fully booked for meetings, the slow cooker was my best friend for anything from adobo to chili con carne. All I had to do was prep all the ingredients, throw them into the slow cooker and leave it for eight hours. The Turbo was a great help for roasting veggies, meats and fish, adding that special crunch for cheesy toppings. For softening meats, there was always the pressure cooker, and for defrosting in a pinch, the microwave. For special days, my pizza oven or paellera came in handy, and the toaster made our pandesal piping hot for breakfast.

But alas! It seems that time has a way of speeding up rapidly. In the past few months, as people and organizations have grown more accustomed to WFH and adept at virtual meetings, work has begun to pile up again, and time to zoom by. What used to take a long time to prepare for is now done in a matter of weeks and even days, participated in by people from different parts of the world who no longer need to travel. Organizing international conferences would sometimes be years in the making, and now that we have pivoted to the online space, we’ve been able to get conferences off the ground (or should I say online) in a matter of weeks, and some in days.

Lately, there have been days that start at dawn and end at dawn, especially when having to deal with different time zones. Precious free time to enjoy life is beginning to slip away again, replaced by virtual meetings by the hour. I catch myself yearning for the early days of the lockdown, when life seemed simpler. Oh, that I could make time slow down once more!

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