Quarantine — Story & Survival Guide from Italy
I am Sofija, a filmmaker based in Milan, Italy. I have been in self-isolation for the past three weeks and in official quarantine for the last week due to the Coronavirus. If you ever wondered how you will be feeling after a month of isolation, you’ve come to the right place.
Obviously, it will depend on many factors: Do you live alone or do you have company? Are you an introvert or extrovert? Are you an artist who can just shut out the world and create or are you someone for whom working from home is an incredible pain? Do you have kids?
Firstly, I need to emphasise that if you are at home healthy and all your relatives and friends are so as well, you are very lucky. I have an ambulance pass next to my house every 15 minutes that keeps reminding me of that.
But I, as many of you, have to stay at home. After four weeks with absolutely no clear estimate of when this will be over, whoever you are, you will feel the weight.
The Story
I am a filmmaker. I make short films and am on the course of developing my first feature film. All my jobs fell through for the foreseeable future — and I needed not to feel frustrated but use this time to create.
I tried writing my feature film script but frankly, I did not feel a strong inspiration when anywhere I turned the topic seemed to be the Coronavirus and its consequences. My relatives and friends from all over the world kept writing, calling and asking what is happening, so I decided to put my creative energy into producing an answer. This turned into me making weekly updates — that highlight the gravity of the situation while still bringing some positivity into our lives.
My video from last week ‘Stay at home! A message from locked-down Italy’ was shared 10.000 times on Instagram and I will be speaking live with the activist organisation Dose of Society this Sunday 22nd March at 7pm CET.
For an update of what happened in Italy, you can consult my previous article.
- Use your time to do something meaningful
Whatever your situation weeks of staying at home will get heavy. Starring at your social media every free second you have or binging shows for weeks will get pretty depressing pretty quickly. What I suggest is to aim doing something valuable with your time.
- Talk to your loved ones — this sounds like a cliché but it is incredibly powerful.
- Learn something new — there are dozens of free language, exercise, dance classes online you can join, as well as many universities (Harvard, Yale, Columbia…) are making hundreds of their classes available online for free.
- Give back — if you the time, skill or knowledge to share that can be useful to your community, do so! Two teenagers from South Yorkshire made care packages for vulnerable people in their community following the Coronavirus outbreak, went from house to house and left them at doorsteps.
2. Connect to your community
Whatever you are going through — whether its financial difficulties, homeschooling children, or simply slowly and securely going insane, there is many people going through the exact same thing. Talk about it, write about it and look for / create platforms that help resolve specific problems.
Even if you are just feeling lonely, know that there are groups online and designated hashtags full of posts from people, who are just trying to brighten our day.
3. Get air & sun & exercise
I live in apartment with no terrace, but I decided to use my balcony to sit there every morning and get some air & sun. In most countries people are still allowed to go for walks, and if you do so make sure to keep a safe distance at all times from others. In Italy we can basically only walk to the supermarket, where you don’t particularly want to spend too much time, so I am making use of online platforms for yoga and pilates. Whether you like exercising or not, not being able to walk even half a mile over the day can take a toll, so make sure to find a good substitute.
4. Relax
As tempting as it is to constantly read and listen to the news and check what others are doing, make sure that you give yourself time to switch off. Whether its through meditating, a glass of wine and a good book, or watching a good movie, make sure to take time off to keep a positive attitude and your metal health in check.
Staying at home for so long will be a challenge — but we are in direct control of whether this will be a depressing or valuable time.
Aim to make it the latter.
