Text & Image

How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

Around March 15, Brooklyn and New York City went into PAUSE - meaning we were told to stay home and quarantine - (those of us who could afford to.) My partner has prostate cancer and a compromised immune system, so I'm a caregiver and have to be very careful of any interactions I have outside our home, for fear of bringing the virus home to him, and for fear that I might carry it in an asymptomatic way. In order to keep myself calm, and to prevent myself shutting down emotionally, I began to do a sketch in my sketchbook as frequently as possible to record and remember what these days are like. It helped me slow down my own racing thoughts -- and to focus on at least one thing that day that I noticed. I found lots of beauty in the simple things. And gratitude for things I wouldn't have noticed during "normal times." At first, time seemed to stretch out slowly as we were quarantining. When I was kid, I used to to draw to calm myself down from stormy family situations. Now I'm 63, and sketching still brings enjoyment and meaning, and helps me to relax and slow down. These are like sketch meditations. The first sketch is of D. sitting outside in the back garden. We tried to get out back whenever the days were warmer, because we were protected from outsiders there. This is dated March 15, 2020. This is one of my fast pencil sketches. The second sketch is dated March 24, 2020. My son and his girlfriend live upstairs. She is 31 and undergoing post breast cancer treatments so they quarantine deeply. They don't go to the laundromat, so I do their laundry. My dryer was broken at the time, so I had to drape their wet laundry all over the dining room.Every article of clothing seemed a bit stressed and restless, so I tried to capture that -- in this sketch.