Today, after a long time I feel like writing my thoughts. I have always found comfort in writing but during COVID lockdowns, there was a time that I didn’t want to look at my laptop, not even to write. There were times, I would sit down with a blank writing pad in front of me with pen in hand, but thoughts won’t flow. It was as if my mind was stuck and my thoughts were jammed right inside. No matter how hard I tried to come out of it, I just couldn’t sit down and write.
If there were thoughts, I would shoot them down as not worth writing about. That’s when I knew that I am feeling stuck in a thought pattern, that I need to get out of it. Fortunately, for me there was an art store nearby. It was the first shop to open after the lockdown was removed. So, I went and bought a sketchbook, a set of paints and few brushes. Thus, began a journey of finding myself through art.
Art has been a saviour for me in this lockdown. In the past few months since I started my art journey, I have been making an artwork almost everyday. I wake up in the morning and start thinking about what to make that day. It definitely helps me disconnect with my immediate reality, which doesn’t seem very exciting any more. The lockdown situation due to COVID has made us confront our life realities in a very different manner. First of all, it has forced us to stay in the same place day in and day out and follow a routine.
While I love routines, I find it rather boring to confine my life to routines. But this mundane aspect of my life has been quite comforting in post-COVID world. Because there are some aspects of our lives that perhaps even COVID has not been able to disturb. For example, waking up and having a morning coffee. To be honest, I have never really been a morning coffee person. I have always been someone who would wake up early in the morning and go for a walk or exercise. But in the last few months, I started waking up super early around 4 am. I would really enjoy waking up early and listening to the silence of the early mornings.
I would make a cup of coffee, sit down on my desk and start making a mandala. This simple routine brought so much joy, comfort and stability to my life that I never thought was possible. Although I would go for a walk or exercise after my morning mandala sessions, there were times, when I would just sit down all day on my desk and create mandalas.
While I would love to write more, I think I will end it here. I want to start small and be consistent with my blog this time. I have been trying to revive my blogging practice and connect with more like-minded souls out there. Hopefully, this will help me do that.
I would love to know what habit/s helped you during COVID lockdown?
Reflections 