The Covid Chronicles: Week One of Confinement in Nice, France
Today wraps up the first week of confinement, as it is called here in France. Eight days ago, the French president Emmanuel Macron announced in a fiery speech that the nation was “at war” against Covid-19, a situation necessitating extraordinary measures to limit the spread of the virus. Macron adopted the posture of an angry father, disappointed at the lack of discipline of the French people, who had not taken seriously directives regarding social distancing. The unruly French populace could perhaps be forgiven for being confused by the mixed messages emanating from the Élysée (the French presidential residence): while on Saturday all bars, restaurants, nightclubs, and other places of social gathering were ordered closed, municipal elections were allowed to proceed on Sunday leading to… social gatherings as people headed to the polls! Macron, however, scolded the French for having mixed promiscuously along riverbanks, in parks, and on beaches, on what happened to be an unusually sunny springlike Sunday.
The French people evidently could not be trusted to navigate this pandemic in the absence of clear rules. (The same could surely be said of any nation one could think of, given the magnitude of the crisis.) Thus it came to pass that a set of strict measures of “confinement” (a.k.a lockdown) were decreed which, more than anything, felt like a punishment for bad behaviour rather than a positive policy measure to protect public health. Since Macron’s speech, efforts have been made to put a friendlier spin on confinement, including ads saying “Restez chez vous, sauver des vies” (Stay home to save lives).
Personally, I have been fascinated to observe how many emotional phases I have passed through in one short (but long) week. While I was not surprised in any way when the confinement measures were announced — I was sure that it would be only a matter of time before France followed in the footsteps of neighbours Italy and Spain — I managed nonetheless to spend Monday and Tuesday morning (confinement went into effect at noon on March 17) in a state of breathless anxiety, a permanent knot in my stomach. Whereas people had been describing panic buying phenomena — the universal trope of toilet paper front and centre — for a couple of weeks, at the inner city markets I frequent I hadn’t noticed shortages of anything. On Monday, I and everyone else who could headed to the nearest markets to stock up. I bought water, canned tuna, chickpeas, eggs, carrots, milk — foods that seemed not only like what I couldn’t live without, but also like what a person should buy in the face of a crisis: I even bought toilet paper. People were seen heading home with a dozen baguettes of bread. As it turns out, supermarkets have been open every day as they normally would be, and anything one might want is available, including TP. Bakeries, butcher shops, greengrocers and pharmacies have been open as usual. The only items that remain scarce or unavailable are surgical masks, antibacterial gel and — perhaps for the sake of tradition — sugar.
Perhaps the bitterest pill of confinement in terms of personal freedoms is the restriction on physical activity. Officially, one is allowed to go out for a brief period to exercise within a radius of 500 metres around one’s home. People have gotten very creative about finding ways to exercise, including running around the block dozens of times or running up and down the same set of stairs repeatedly. Jokes have been circulating that people to whom the idea of running would never have occurred before confinement have embraced running with enthusiasm. Sadly, for myself and my group of friends, cycling is strictly prohibited, even on one’s own. With the initial shock and dismay, I experienced a sharp spike in anxiety, punctuated by stratagems for sneaking out on my bike — in the early morning, after dark, on remote roads where I would be unlikely to be seen. But the idea of putting these plans into action, I observed after a day or two, achieved nothing but to feed my anxiety. Cyclists were being shamed on Strava (a popular sports app), where followers righteously withheld kudos from those who continued to go out despite the decree. I therefore resigned myself to letting go of the idea of riding for now; when we are finally given the green light — someday — it will feel all the sweeter, knowing that we have been “responsible” and followed the rules.
Thus the Sturm und Drang of the first few days of coming to terms with confinement gave way to a novel equilibrium, as I adjusted my routines and expectations. My confined cyclist friends set up a WhatsApp group where we exchange jokes, memes, and up-to-the-minute announcements about when we may be able to get back on our bikes again. For now, much is made about abstention from cycling being the individual contribution of each to the well-being of all, lending familiar moral overtones of solidarité to what cannot be considered in any meaningful way a sacrifice. Knowing that all bike races and competitions have been cancelled for the foreseeable future — and also that professional cyclists who make their living on a bike are prohibited from training — has reinforced my sense that this is a unique temporal parenthesis, a pause in the ill-thought-out frenzy with which we equate everyday life. As such, rather than fighting this sudden stillness, I feel I should follow where it leads and be attentive to what new perspectives it might open.
I live on my own, and now confine on my own. This makes matters simple for me, as I am in physical proximity to no one and can thus be fairly certain of not being exposed to the virus. Having hauled home several caddies of supplies the day before confinement, I haven’t needed much since. Rather than shopping every day, I have come to regard going to buy bread or milk as an outing I save for the late afternoon, after I have been alone all day and before being alone all night — a confinement punctuation mark, if you will. At the bakeries and markets, “traffic patterns” in the form of barriers of chairs and duct tape arrows on the ground have been fashioned to manage the flow of customers, at once keeping them moving and keeping them apart. I have ceased to imagine that Covid-19 lurks on every surface — my keys, my phone, my wallet — if only I had the infrared vision to see it; as soon as I come home from whatever limited potential I have had to touch anything contaminated, I wash my hands and quit thinking about it.
I watched a video a few days ago offering tips on getting through confinement sane, if not making it fun. The first tip was to get dressed every day; the second was to establish a routine. I am under normal circumstances a creature of routine, so this comes naturally. Indeed, I have been seeing to it that I get up at a reasonable hour in the morning, that I do change from my pyjama comfy clothes to my “daywear” comfy clothes, even if no one will see me or, if they did, could tell the difference. This, I feel, signals my good intentions for having an orderly, constructive, not-crazy day — if only to myself. (The third tip was to do projects you have put off or normally do not have time for. I am aware that cleaning the chandelier falls into that category for me, though I find it is possible to procrastinate even under confinement.)
So far, the cornerstone of my daily routine — which I hope will not be snatched away by Macron in a fit of pique — is to go for a walk. (I can’t run anymore, due to a host of injuries, so walking is as good as it gets.) The first couple of days, I went out seeking to maintain a modicum of physical fitness, so I headed to the hilly corniche not far from my apartment: a warren of narrow windy streets, alleys, and staircases, which is largely residential and where there is little traffic. The weather was beautiful, and spring flowers were bursting out everywhere. The first two days, I was filled with the ache to be on my bike; that tension gave way to moving through space more slowly and deliberately, stopping to look at my surroundings more closely or to smell some ephemeral blossoms. The fig trees are just now putting out their leaves, which open like a hand unfurling, palm to the sky. Day by day, I have relaxed and attuned to these walks as a form of ambulatory meditation.
Passing many of the same places and buildings every day, I start to see them as unique individuals, distinct from the mass — with personalities, as it were. Yesterday I imagined I was looking at the world through a camera, seeing all the fine-grained particularity I ignore when my intention is to get from A to B, maybe establishing a PR as I go. This slowing down and honouring of a place and all the spatio-temporal layers it embodies, made me realise how much escapes me much of the time. As humans we learn a lot from contrasts: perhaps confinement helps us to distinguish what we short change ourselves of when there is no limit to what we can have and do. I feel like I am collecting vignettes: music coming though an open door while the breeze rattles the dry palm fronds outside; a couple gardening while their elderly dog woofs at me as I pass; two children on a terrace talking through an imaginary scenario, the boy wearing a Darth Vader mask; a young man wearing a grey hoodie hunched over a small table on a second floor balcony, drinking coffee and writing; a storefront business, closed until further notice: an absence where normally I wouldn’t even notice a presence.
Today on my walk I saw a mural on a (closed) school showing a scene in naïf style of a woman reading to two young boys from a book in the shade of spreading pines, a girl sitting at her feet and writing. Another boy lies on his stomach in the sand, reading, and in the distance older boys play a game with a ball against a backdrop of boats sailing in a blue bay. There is a village in the middle distance, and in the far distance are rugged ochre hills. Red poppies grow out of the sand, while fishermen work at the water’s edge; a ship with a plume of white steam can be seen beyond the sailboats. The mural is signed at the bottom right with a name I can’t make out and dated 1927.
I thought of how the image captured what was “normal” (if idealised) in that time and place. The people depicted had purposes and aspirations and plans and hopes — individual and collective; they loved and competed and did what was necessary to exist together. I have a habit of thinking that that — “simpler”— world has been submerged by time, progress, and sheer numbers of people. But those people then and we people now are not so different; we live with different technologies; belief systems that seemed immutable in the past have evolved, sometimes to be replaced by new ones. But fundamentally, the characteristics of humans as a race remain constant: broadly, we seek security, acceptance, and connection.
Today, after a week of confinement, I was moved to feel compassion for humankind as a whole, with all its foibles, its blind alleys, its misguided enthusiasm for dubious ideas, its weakness for shiny baubles; its seeming inability to learn anything from its mistakes, since time immemorial. In this particular moment, today, March 23, 2020, I ceded to the notion that humans generally are doing the best they can with precious little knowledge about the universe they so briefly inhabit.
Thus, the mind can travel long distances within confined spaces.
Rumour has it that Macron will take to his soapbox again tomorrow, this time to inform the cowed populace that they haven’t been up to snuff, and that the confinement will be prolonged and more restrictive. This development will inevitably give a fillip to my anxiety, and I will have to rebuild my confined house of cards again, for another week, or two, or three, or…. But each time I will build it up differently, one day, one hour, one movement of the sun at a time.
