We’ve been in isolation for three weeks.

We had just come back from a trip to the north when the restrictions went into effect. Rested, having vacationed with good friends, we came back ready to be home and entered isolation with the idea of creating and sticking to a schedule, finishing writing projects, catching up with correspondence, and making healthy meals from the abundance of fruits and vegetables we get from a stand just a few blocks away. We had two weeks to go before flying back to the U.S. We’d use isolation as an opportunity to get things done.

Our tickets were cancelled. Most airlines stopped flying and even the ones that continued, were landing at U.S. airports where the crowds looked like petri dishes bubbling with virus.

We were in for the long haul.

Okay. I was ready. I had my schedule.

            In the certainty of my own strength, I wasn’t prepared for the downside of isolation. As time passed, little termites of frustration, loneliness (yes, you can be lonely even with another or others around) crept in. I had been sleeping well, but the insomnia blew in with the night wind one night and stayed. Some days the schedule falls apart, and I cling to the fact that at least I made my bed. I have to drug myself into oblivion to get some sleep, and then walk in the haze until noon the next day. A memory slams against me so hard I can barely stand; I feel the rapier of longing for my family and friends far away.

Where is my exuberance? My determination? My strength?

Am I a whimp?

I don’t think I am. And I don’t think any of us experiencing this same phenomenon during isolation are either. I think we’re experiencing an era of reactive loneliness, of the tightening of our usual freedoms. We’re understanding the heavy weight of responsibility for the community.

The only way I know to deal with this relentless, dulling sameness created by “You can’t…” is by exercise.

Exercise doesn’t prevent painful memories or regrets; it doesn’t cure the mind-whirl of insomnia, and it doesn’t change longing for family. But it does allow me to raise my endorphins and to play just a little:  

Of the 100 meters from the house I am allowed to move, how many configurations can I make? Of the thousands of aerobic exercises on YouTube, which combinations will I do today? When my sons were little I used to hold them and dance through the living room and kitchen. Today, which dance will carry me spinning toward the porch? I scrub, climb up and down the stairs of the apartment building; sprinkle the day with intervals of punching the air and flapping my arms and legs in some semblance of jumping jacks.

I may be slightly crazed by this isolation, by this bait-and-switch of emotions — but maybe my body can figure it out.