Member-only story
The Sensory Deprivation of Lockdown
Our senses are starved. They lie dormant, waiting for the reopening.
It is nearly a year now, though time no longer passes with any structure. Each day is the same, weekends bleed into weeks, days into months, the seasons blur into each other.
There are three categories of people in lockdown: couples without children, couples with children, and single people. The couples without children have learned languages, watched box sets, and made sourdough bread. They’ve gone for long walks, played board games, argued, and made love. The couples with children have been running exclusive boarding schools: being parents, teachers, playmates, nannies, and cooks. The single people have been trapped in a massive sociology experiment to see what happens if you lock someone in their home for months on end. They are on Zoom drinks, chat apps, fantasy swiping on Tinder, pacing, walking, learning about themselves.
A life normally rich in texture and color is smoothed out into monotone sackcloth.
There are, of course, the subcategories; those who have been able to work from home, and those who have to go out to work. Some have found it frustrating and boring, others have been forced to take daily risks, or had to contend with…
