Isolation Journals Day 9: Bounty
I’m diving into Suleika Jaouad’s Isolation Journals and writing my heart out. Today’s prompt: Choose a line from a book—you can grab the nearest one and flip it open to a random page, or pick an old favorite you’ve memorized by heart. Whatever grabs your attention; whatever intrigues. Use it as the opening sentence for today’s journal entry, and let the words flow from there.
Here we don’t die, we shop.
But it wasn’t always that way. Moving from one 500-square-foot apartment to another for most of my adult life meant that I was usually trying to get rid of stuff, or at least keep it at bay. In the years we lived in San Francisco, Jon and I rarely had more than a week’s worth of food (or toilet paper) in our apartment. We lived in a community that valorized minimalism—out of necessity, yes, but also with a certain sense of moral superiority. It wasn’t things, but experiences that mattered! Sure, I dabbled in that Kool-Aid.
But becoming a mother unearthed an instinct I didn’t know I had: the urge to hoard.
A maternal switch flipped, and quickly the world became ugly and scary and full of threats. I transformed from someone who laughed about eating dirt as a kid into a bona fide germophobe, a connoisseur of cleaning supplies. My perception shifted: our countertops became a breeding ground for bacteria, mold, and yet-to-be-discovered diseases. Those who coughed in public were a menace. Parks, grocery stores, BART trains? Cesspools, all of them.
“Experiences” were largely frightening. Instead, I shopped.
I bought bleach, a bottle sanitizing machine, and backup breast pump equipment (just in case the originals happened to mildew). When I went back to work and sent Avery to daycare for eight hours a day, I controlled what I could: her food. Only organic fruits and veggies in individually-packaged jars and tubes—better that than risk foodborne illness from improperly stored leftovers (what was the FDA-recommended chilling temperature? 40 degrees?). Grocery shopping became my Sunday service, a ritual exchange that reinforced my status as caregiver and co-breadwinner: I make money so that I can buy things so that the child does not die. Once home, the process of unpacking, inventorying, and carefully shelving each purchase triggered a soothing, subconscious mantra: we have enough, we’re going to be ok.
Does all of this sound a little nuts? Perhaps it was. I grew up in a less-than-stable financial environment. I (clearly) suffered from postpartum anxiety. Not every mother goes through this, and it certainly wasn’t what I expected. In fact this was far from the cloth diapering, homemade baby food-ing, blissed out mother I’d imagined I would be. I was the highest-strung version of myself, and I hated it.
But at the time it felt completely necessary.
So in the midst of this crushing global crisis, I’m trying to refrain from judgement. Did you buy a little too much toilet paper? A few too many Easter hams? Two months ago, that was odd. Today, it’s human. This triggering event reveals that we’re all weird, scared, primordial little hoarders, trying to stockpile for the winter, save our spawn from death and disease, and maintain some sense of order. Some sense of having enough.
…
I got over my postpartum neurosis—after witnessing Avery eat a gummy worm off the bottom of another child’s shoe and not die, among other reassuring vignettes. And we will get past this too. Do what you can for others; but also, let yourself be. Be weird, be scared, squirrel your nuts away. And eventually, we can celebrate another bounty (you know, the stuff that’s better than stuff): each other’s company.
“Here we don’t die, we shop.”