Captain's Log, Day 5: Sleepless in Manhattan

Date: April 1, 2020

Time of post (well, when I started writing): 11:40 PM

Quarantine Day: 17

Last Song I Listened To: “You’re Not Sorry” by Taylor Swift

Last Person I Communicated With: my best friend from high school on Snapchat

Last Thing I Ate: spaghetti

Last Thing I Read: Chapter 1: The Album Amicorum from June Schlueter’s The Album Amicorum & the London of Shakespeare’s Time (for my History of the Book class)

Current Mood: so so so so so so so tired

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: a lot of school work…and I watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: a good night’s sleep

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: stayed up all night last night (not totally on purpose) and am really, really regretting it now; my naps did not do good things for my sleep schedule

One Reason I’m Happy Today: an alum from the English Department saw the title of my M.A. project mentioned in the department blog and reached out to me asking to read it!

Dear Apocalypsers,

There has simultaneously been not a lot happening this week and so much happening. Yesterday, I went out to get gas. Literally, I just drove across the street to Dillon’s so I could use my Plus Points before they expired—but the weather was so nice. Right about 65 degrees with a cool breeze, and I felt it: I was going stir crazy. I needed to get out.

Maybe that’s why I couldn’t sleep last night. I was felt so cooped up. The blankets were too hot; the fan was too cold; the pillows were too lumpy; there was too much noise or not enough. Finally, at almost 6AM, I gave up on sleep, threw on a sweatshirt, made so much coffee, and went to watch the sunrise on the Kanza. I can’t tell you the last time I was up for the sunrise. Maybe the last time I went to the beach. But, this morning, I felt like I was the only person in the world. It should have been really, really lonely, but it was freeing. And—okay—a little lonely, but in a reflective way more than a sad way.

And it was so beautiful. Like, I understand why the Romantics and the Transcendentalists were so fascinated by nature to the point that they capitalized it.

I, may, uh, have fancied myself a little bit of a poem this morning, too. I contemplated not  putting it here, because I know that at least a handful of other people will read this (and I’m not a creative writer), and it is on the Internet forever, but then I figured that if this my legacy of the Coronavirus Apocalypse of 2020, then I had to include it.

So, here it is. I haven’t titled it.

Some of the sunrise pictures I took this morning just outside of Manhattan.

“Shorts so short my mother'd be appalled if she knew I went out in public in them.

(It's too cold for them, I know.

I haven't shaved.

But is it public if I'm alone?)

A college hoodie.

(From a school I'll never graduate from.

Full of friends I never said goodbye to.

And a lingering question: "what if?")

A sunrise over a state I've been fighting not to call home.

(Because I always end up moving anyway.

Because people always leave.

Because I still have to use my GPS to get anywhere, and you don't use a GPS in your home.)

I want to plant roots.

I'm a tree.

(At least I want to be.

Need to be.

Should be.)

But tornados like to take trees down

With wind and rain and thunder and lightning and all the dashed hopes for a future I planned.

But in that morning hour--not quite dark and not quite day--

The birds still sing

Like there isn't a storm coming.

The frogs still call

The same calls I was taught to identify as a little girl on my father's knee.

Because that's our love language:

Cricket frogs

and

Chorus frogs

and

Spring peepers

(Acris something and...

Pseudacris...something [I'd remember if I was home, wouldn't I?]

and Pseudacris crucifer [finally--something I know])

And the sky looks like Easter

But my phone can't quite capture it

And that feels poetic somehow

(Because maybe it hasn't been three days yet

Or maybe I'm not a Disciple

Or maybe I'm hanging on the other cross)

I can only live this beginning once

I wonder if the camera works better in low light, in sunset

Could I capture that,

Hold that forever?

Would the ending look prettier on film?

Maybe

But the birds don't sing then

At least the frogs still call

But can you plant a tree in a field in a state that isn't quite not home but isn't quite home because the birds outside my window aren't the same birds outside my parents' window and the frogs that call aren't the same frogs that called while I sat on my father's knee and learned their scientific names for the first time and actually remembered them?

Maybe my mother wouldn't be so appalled by my shorts after all”

Here's a picture from the lake. I get why the
poets like lakes so much.

After I watched the sunrise, I still didn’t want to go home, so I drove out to Tuttle Creek Lake. I barely saw another car on the road. It was peaceful. I haven’t felt peaceful in so long. I listened to Taylor Swift’s Red album as I drove. It’s perfect for this melancholy mood, because it feels like autumn. I sang so loud and didn’t care that I couldn’t hit the key if it was the broad side of a barn. It was really, really nice to let go.

That’s kind of the highlight for today. In other news, I read a whole book in a day on Tuesday. I haven’t done that in ages, but it’s my preferred method of reading. I like nothing more than to shut out the world and experience a book all at once. It’s like I told my mom, you wouldn’t watch just one scene of a movie at a time. The problem, of course, with my preferred method of reading it that it takes 2 hours to watch a movie, but maybe 10 or 12 hours to read a whole book. And I normally don’t have days and days to devote to reading for fun. I read 3 books in March, though—2 of them for no reason other than I wanted to! That’s huge for me.

So I guess that’s one small silver lining to this suffocating quarantine. And, if I can “get out of the house” once every 17 days, I guess that’s good, too. I should probably do that more often, though. Not let it all bottle up.

We’ll see how the mood strikes me, I guess.

May the odds be ever in our favor,

Katie