The best representation of my inability to be productive during the COVID-19 pandemic is best illustrated by the stack of large picture frames leaning against my bureau.
They began accumulating there a couple weeks after my boyfriend and I received our instructions to begin working from home. With all our evenings and weekends suddenly free, we thought it would be a great time to finish decorating our apartment. We made a plan on what would go where: His (what I believe to be quite scary) framed Goosebumps puzzles would hang in the hallways while the blank wall in our bedroom would be reserved for nature-themed illustrations and prints.
It was successful at first. We navigated the mild frustrations of measuring walls and making sure frames were evenly spaced. It wasn’t perfect, but it was work we could be proud of. It was a physical accomplishment we could point to and say, “look what we did this weekend.”
Then the weeks went on and the malaise of staying at home began to set in. The remaining pictures were moved against the bureau instead of hung on the wall, and every time I needed to open a lower drawer in my bureau, I’d move them. “Tomorrow, after we’re done working from home for the day” became “this weekend, when our minds aren’t on work.” And then we stopped commenting on the frames altogether and moving them just became another part of a new stay-at-home routine.
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