Writing Through It All
Our worlds have tilted. The situation we’re now in stinks. And it stinks for everyone, from the president in the White House to the prisoners behind bars.
But there are opportunities, as there always are, no matter what the situation. One of them is the opportunity to write. If you’ve always wanted to write a book, well, maybe, this is your chance.
One of my friends is a journalist who retired a couple of years back. She’s been toying with the idea of a book since she left her job. Now she’s in quarantine and she’s writing it, for that’s how she copes. She’ll chronicle what she sees, hears, and experiences while the corona virus rampages.
You too, might want to do the same. Or to do something entirely different. Perhaps to escape.
When you can.
Some days, under these circumstances, getting up is an accomplishment.
Others, you might want lose yourself in the world of words—either those you’ve written or those written by others.
For inspiration, you might look to what others did when they were quarantined:
Ernest Hemingway lived in exile with his wife, his young son and her nanny, and his mistress, in a two-bedroom house in Cap d’Antibes in 1926. His wife, Hadley, arrived first with their son, Bumby, who had whooping cough. Thus the quarantine. Hemingway, the nanny, and the mistress—an heiress, a Vogue editor, and a glamorous woman—joined later. They had drinks nightly with Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, who lived down the road, at a safe distance. Hemingway, who was working on The Sun Also Rises, reportedly described it as “a splendid place to write.”
John Keats, one of England’s greatest poets, was sent by his doctor to Italy in the hope it would the sun would help cure his tuberculosis. But when Keats and his artist friend reached Naples in 1820, they were forced to remain on their boat in the bay for close to 10 days because typhus raged on land. Just 25, Keats passed the time by writing letters and a memoir of his childhood. Thus, scholars know more about Keats’ life than they might have, otherwise.
And then there’s Samuel Pepys, who is best known for his diaries, which he he wrote between 1660 and 1669. They include detailed accounts of his life during the great plague of London in 1665. Pepys, like other men and women of his rank, left London for the country, where he rusticated in style. But he did visit London, where he saw houses with large red Xs on them, showing that the inhabitants had been infected.
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