After a month of days weaving seamlessly into the next, I start to lose any sense of time. So I was a bit taken aback when I realized it was already time for another recap of my life between the dots. Nevertheless, here I am, sharing my seemingly unimportant stories of April 2020. Something that seems even more relevant in these times. I hope you will make yourself a cup of tea and enjoy.
One of the biggest surprises of the past month has been that I actually quite enjoy having Matthijs around me every single day. This might sound a bit peculiar since he is my husband, so let me explain a little. I'm the type of person that thoroughly enjoys time spent by herself, and by that I mean complete solitude. For some reason the house feels different when I'm the only one there, and I got used to having the house to myself at least four days a week. And then, all of a sudden, I lost this positive experience of solitude. To be honest, I would say this was my biggest experience of loss in the last months. And I didn't cope with it too well. But after giving space to my feelings of loss, I started to appreciate what I did have. And now, eight weeks on, I found calm in this new normal.
Something else I appreciated more than usual is the opportunity to document stories. This past few weeks I had two photo sessions, both with couples expecting their first child, and I enjoyed it so much. Last month I shared about my project, and I adjusted these sessions so they would fit into the theme of the everyday. And it makes so much more sense to me to document lives in this way. So I'm glad that I decided to align the style of my work with the themes I'm most interested in.
Then the less cheerful parts of the last couple of weeks, with as clear winner everything that was cancelled. I won't even bother writing everything down for I might burst into tears. By nature I'm not the social type but even I have started to miss my friends and family. Skype, Zoom and WhatsApp are just not the same. It's for a good reason, I know. And I feel blessed that nobody I know fell ill. But I do pray that the day that all of this is over comes rather sooner than later.
The day to day of the past month hasn't been that spectacular, but that's also a part of life, so I will give a short summary. My days consisted of studying, working, cooking, photographing, cleaning, going outside for a while, writing for this blog, or ignoring all of the above and doing nothing at all. And that's alright too. I do enjoy all of the above (most days), so I'm not complaining. Between all of this, I had a bit of a struggle with my health again due to new medication, but that's sorted out now and I'm as good as new, well, for my standards that is.
We haven't watched a lot of TV, so this is going to be a short one: Money Heist, OITNB, and Atypical. We were also in a bit of a weird mood (good weird) and watched a couple of episodes of trash TV for the first time ever: Too hot to handle. What a sad but at the same time fascinating program. In addition to that I watched another episode of The Crown, finished season 7 of Suits, watched Ugly Delicious season 2, and the movies Girl, Interrupted (1999) and of course Jesus Christ Superstar (1973).
I'm still listening to Harry Potter, because Stephen Fry has the best voice to fall asleep to. I mean that in a good way. At one point I will start reading other books again, but I'm content with being read the same books over and over again just for now.
And the food. Due to my health struggle we fell out of love again for a while. So I've been cooking comfort food mainly and a few of my old recipes I shared here before - if I was the one to cook, because I have delegated it to Matthijs quite often. What I did pick up again is baking and taking care of a sourdough starter. I'm far from an expert, but it is still alive. So I might start experimenting with that in the coming month.
That’s it from me for now. I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to, so don’t be shy and share your stories as well. Until our next catch up.
