Author: Thao

In Switzerland the Swiss Federal Council announced today that gradual easing of measures will begin May 11. Concise information was provided for the reopening of many aspects of life from primary and secondary education to most businesses. Businesses and institutions are required to present and put in place a set of precautionary measures to observe hygiene and social distancing.

Meanwhile in California San Francisco and Bay Area counties are extending the standstill through May 31. San Francisco County updated the PDF of the previously issued order from March with today’s date, April 29, 2020 and significant changes amounting to allowing for attendance at a funeral with no more than 10 individuals present and moving residences.

In the past days and weeks I have voiced my unease regarding the balance between individual civil liberties and constitutional rights and the restriction thereof in the service of public health. I mentioned this in my post on Monday. As difficult as it is to write about, it’s more difficult to discuss.

I gather people are fatigued, as I am too, and concepts involving freedom, rights, and moral values make for highly charged subject matter. As with politics, the slope of sanctimony is short and steep when it comes to dialogue on matters of personal philosophy, religion or science. Certainly I can admit to unleashing monologues when roused.

During this state of imposed containment, I have found study more constructive than conversation. I have started with the CDC, since we are currently undergoing an expertocracy as German philosopher Markus Gabriel aptly refers to in this NZZ interview.

Instead of the still life, I seek good food for thought, which I have found in articles such as these:

Self-Isolation Orders Pit Civil Liberties Against Public Good In Coronavirus Pandemic
David Welna, March 17, 2020

Wissen sie wirklich, was sie tun?
Roger Köppel, 18.03.2020

From The Battle for the Constitution: A special project on the constitutional debates in American life, in partnership with the National Constitution Center
Red and Blue America Agree That Now Is the Time to Violate the Constitution
March 25, 2020

Corona-Krise: die Stunde der Fake-Leadership
Milosz Matuschek, 28.04.2020

We woke up early and walked up Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve or thereabouts.

It was beautiful and serene, and I was happy.

At the top we sat on a bench and savored coffee and sunshine.

I tried to capture flowers as above.

What I want to say though is really Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver.

Early to bed and early to rise in reverse is called for now.

Good night here, good morning there, and a good day wherever you are.

How long has it been since we have been in containment, confinement, isolation, lockdown, quarantine, staying at home, wfh, Zooming, etc.? This past Saturday, April 25, was forty days since the shelter in place order went into effect on March 17 for 7 counties here in the Bay Area.

How are you holding up?

For my part what I find most curious and particularly disconcerting during this time is the lack of critical assessment of government’s role (does anyone even know?) in issuing these orders.

As a California resident of a Bay Area county, and especially now that the orders will be extended through May here, I want to know who is making the calls to impose these orders, with authority based on what laws exactly and what cost-benefit trade-off of civil liberties i.A.

What I find more unsettling than the government encroaching on boundaries in issuing these draconian measures, is the general lack of constructive questioning thereof.

In separate conversations today I asked two friends, one in Manhattan and the other in Brooklyn, how they are doing. What I was really interested in though is what it is like for them talking to other friends and family during this time.

From various personal exchanges I had over the weekend, I was getting this sense that there seems to be two camps of general moods, at least within my circle. Some friends sound more on the subdued side, whether it’s from exhaustion, resignation or both, while other exchanges were markedly charged.

While writing a friend last week, it occurred to me that I neither have words or know how to express whatever it is we are collectively experiencing but each individually going through while in this imposed containment. At the same time I had started listening to a podcast conversation between Helga Davis and Sarah Jones in which the term “Grielief” was discussed.

Somehow the term “Grielief” as with the whole conversation, although recorded in 2017, is remarkably resonant at this very moment. Despite all the heavy topics discussed, it is uplifting. And from what it sounds like we can all use something uplifting in the midst of this.

It’s already another week’s end. Even with the world at a standstill, I’m always awestruck at how time passes so quickly.

I’m thinking about my sister and Paris. She was supposed to have arrived in Paris today. I wrote to let her know I understand the disappointment of not being able to go. We both love Paris.

Just the thought of being in Paris makes me happy. I don’t know of many greater delights than weekend getaways to Paris. It wasn’t at all a fanciful idea when we lived in Zurich. In fact, we have enjoyed many visits to Paris by getting on the TGV and arriving four hours later at Gare de Lyon.

But as we won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, much less Paris, at least there are wonderful films to take us there, like Le Weekend.

The film is about a English couple in Paris to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary when their relationship ruptures. It’s funny, charming and bittersweet. Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan are great, but Paris is also just as good in a leading role.

Have a good weekend wherever you are. See you next week!

It was warm enough to wear shorts today, so I put some on for the first time this season. We live in a microclimate that can change a lot throughout the day. As easily as a day begins cloudy and then clears up, it could just as well go the other way around.

It’s been warm and sunny these past few days. We’ve been having lunch out back where we have a picnic table. It’s a great relief to be able to sit outside and bask in the sun, which we enjoy whenever we can. The forecast shows summery weather tomorrow, just in time for the weekend and getting into the summertime mood.

But then again we should probably brace ourselves for a summer of restricted activity. I wonder if the beaches and parks will open up or what will happen.

For now bask vicariously in summertime by going back to summer camp with Wes Anderson’s fun and cute Moonrise Kingdom. Wes Anderson’s films, or Wes Anderson the filmmaker, can sometimes rub me the wrong way. He has a propensity to be a little too precious, and it can be unbearable. But this one is good fun, especially for that summer feeling.

If your days already involve dealing with kids like at summer camp, then move on up to The Graduate. Now that we’re residents of Oakland bordering Berkeley, I’ll have to revisit this film, especially since we can’t go to The Graduate, our neighborhood dive bar.

The film captures a certain malaise that is very much this moment in time. Too bad all the social distancing means no seduction or summertime shenanigans. Alas we’ll have to settle for Mrs. Robinson, portrayed by the amazing Anne Bancroft (hello, she immortalized Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller’s teacher, in The Miracle Worker).

Of course you could just watch Brad Pitt shirtless in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Basically the sexiest scene of last year(s) and will turn you on to summer no matter the weather and nevermind pandemic.

I went shopping at Target today. In normal times a banal errand hardly worth mentioning. But these are not normal times. Besides the handful of times I have been grocery shopping in the past six weeks, this was the first time I went to a large retail store.

While most of the items I picked up were “essentials” (personal care and household products), admittedly the main motivation was to get a helium tank to blow up my own balloons. I had considered various options for obtaining balloons. Upon concluding that making the trip to Target for everything was the most efficient option, I braced myself to go out in public, which means waiting in line, social distancing, and now mandatory face masks.

The issue of public face masks is a contentious one that I have been distressed about. But I won’t go into it now. For the purposes of chronicling shelter in place, I simply note here that today was the first time I was out in public in which everyone including me wore a face mask.

It was hard to breathe with a face mask on, and it fogged my glasses. I was also constantly touching the face mask to adjust and pull it away from my mouth so I could get air. It was unpleasant and lamentable. Such is life in times of a pandemic. None of the above are why face masks are a contentious issue for me. But I will have to expand on that in another post.

With the mask talk, Stanley Kubrick’s last film Eyes Wide Shut with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and in which masks figure largely in the story, might be worth watching again. It’s one of the few Kubrick films I’ve only seen once, although not because of masks.

As for shopping, I prefer to think of happier and more fun scenes like this one in Fried Green Tomatoes with the enduring and fabulous Kathy Bates.

After several conversations about the current situation, I definitely had to get out today. I may have ended up going out of my head cooped up here.

Last spring we had joined a running group that met three times a week for rigorous workouts of full body circuits, sprint cycles, and running the stadium steps, track or both.

The sessions were about an hour each, and the coach worked us hard and good. Once it got dark early (winter time), we went into hibernation and only started running again since this quarantine started over a month ago.

We’ve been running this route of 6.4 miles/10.4 km weekly, but I skipped last week. I’ve been lazy and prone to indulging in being stuck in my head.

Luckily I got my act together and joined Martin on his bike ride today. We biked to the top of Berkeley/Oakland hills with sweeping views of the East and San Francisco Bay on this route of 11 miles/17.8 km:

It was fantastic and felt great to be out in nature and out of my head. Speaking of which, listen instead to these versions of Going Out of My Head: Little Anthony & The Imperials, Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66, Fatboy Slim or just get out and bask in it afterwards as we did here:

The weekend was nice and relaxing until I decided to make fried chicken Sunday night. And this after my attempt at homemade biscuits for breakfast turned out bite-size instead of big and fluffy. As I said to Martin today over leftovers at lunch, “Fried chicken is something you eat when you’re in the South, ok.”

We started the week going about our routine as usual. Martin works at his computer in the “cave.” It’s dark and cold in the dining area between the living room and kitchen where his desk is. I sit at the front window, which is great for light and warmth but requires discipline.

It’s easy to get caught up in scenery outside: lots of passers-by; dog-walkers, people pushing baby strollers, joggers, cyclists, men at work on the house across the street, blue jays chirping away, squirrels scurrying about, flowers in the yard blooming beautifully… Where was I…

I participated in a Zoom group writing session. Afterwards Sarah and I discussed each other’s writing excerpts. Reading hers somehow conjured an image of Albrecht Dürer’s engraving of a knight, which I had thought I drew as an exercise (below) from the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain years ago. But I had just confused the exercise, based on a drawing by an unknown German artist, with Dürer’s engraving because of the knight.

If I’m not on my own page wrestling with words or looking out the window, then I might be on the laptop skimming headlines on nytimes.com or nzz.ch. I don’t spend too much time on it though. It’s usually more of the same or updates thereof, and the whole right side of NYT is opinion.

However, today I did go further down the page and read Peter Beard’s obituary by Margaret Fox. Damn. What a life. What an obit. I had not known Peter Beard had photographed Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen, author of Out of Africa and Babette’s Feast, both damn good movies. Who can forget this scene in Out of Africa or any of Babette’s Feast, truly a feast for the eyes and senses.

Every day around 5:00 pm our circadian rhythm knows it’s either time to get exercise or have a beer. Since going for a run didn’t even come up (it’s been cold and overcast out), we had a beer. Upon clinking our bottles Martin realized it’s Friday, so “TGIF.”

Another week of life in quarantine. What is it, week five? Is anyone counting?

My host-mom in Germany has been sending updates from there and asking how things are here. I finally wrote her an “ausführlich” (detailed) report that turned into a “sehr ausführlich” polemical essay on my take of the state of the world. I concluded that I do just fine when not thinking or talking about the state of the world right now, and left it at that.

Actually, this was yesterday. Today I’m still exhausted by that opus: pandemic, politics, polemics, and in German. I could hardly think about it before, and now methinks all discombobulated.

Nevertheless I did manage to get some writing done today, and then it was already lunchtime. Since Martin is WFH, we have lunch together. I made us gourmet instant cup noodle. I add an egg on top before pouring in the boiling water to cook. The egg is a sophisticated ingredient to the otherwise plain instant noodle block, therefore making it gourmet. Also, I add my mom’s homemade pickled cabbage, which further elevates it.

After lunch I read a food critic’s article about life in quarantine and a six-hour long sheep video, so I watch some of that. It’s bucolic (not bubonic, please). I space out and remember our own wonderful sheep encounters.

On one of our many fantastic Swiss hikes, this one at our favorite getaway in the remote mountains of Berner Oberland in July 2017, we made some unexpected friends along the way.

A sheep (ewe) and her lamb (aww) befriend and follow us on our hike:

Later on and higher up the mountains, we come across the herd. The man sheep (ram) was definitely on guard with the menfolk on this narrow trail:

But the best part was Martin’s encounter with little lost lamb, which he captured and made a short film:

If you can’t get enough sheep or have trouble trying to sleep, then listen to Bach’s cantata Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd with the familiar and very relaxing Schafe können sicher weiden (Sheep May Safely Graze).

Enjoy and have a restful weekend. I’ll catch up with you on Monday.

Instead of reading my ramblings of our boring life sheltering in place, read Pedro Almodóvar’s essay on his experience of confinement. How meta, I know. But it’s more fun and interesting. I’m laughing deliciously at anecdotes like this:

“Like Jeanne Moreau, Chavela Vargas, Pina Bausch and Lauren Bacall, Lucia was part of the Olympus/Podium of the modern woman, free, independent, all of them more manly than the men surrounding them.”

And he is precise about an ailment of a condition I also currently suffer: “It’s the downside of being stranded at home, one is easy prey for nostalgia.” You too?

Like his films I am captivated by his writing. I feel like I am right there in Madrid with him. It’s possible I think this because his latest and most autobiographical film, Pain and Glory, for which Antonio Banderas much deservedly received both the Palme d’Or and Academy Award for Best Actor, is all about an aging filmmaker reflecting while mostly self-confined in his Madrid apartment.

We spent a few days eating and drinking our way through Madrid after visiting Andalusia in 2016. My memories of the city are fuzzy at best. I know we went to the Museo del Prado and made a beeline for Velázquez`s Las Meninas:

We had been drinking since lunch, so I was lit and everything was a blur. Alas, it just means we’ll have to go back to Madrid one of these days when this pandemic is over and some form of public life and travel, imagine that, resumes again.

I’ll revisit Madrid through Pedro Almodóvar’s films. All About My Mother, one of my favorite and his best films, would be good to watch again.