Trying to Find Myself on Day 31 of Quarantine

How I’m struggling to spark my inner passion after a month of isolation.

Today is April 11, 2020. It has been a full month since I went into quarantine. On March 10th, I was at my sister’s house, taking care of her five older kids while she and her husband were out of town at the children’s hospital with Baby Alex for another round of tests.

When they got home, I held Alex for a long time while he strummed at my fingers, still woozy from the anesthesia he’d been given. Then I went home, exhausted, feeling sick from allergies, and ready to get back to my usual routine.

The next day, they announced that someone in our county had tested positive for COVID-19. Suspecting the grocery store would get wiped out, I quickly ran there to buy enough fresh veggies to get me through the next week. But I soon discovered that what was coming was nothing I could’ve anticipated. And soon after that, I realized that life would not go back to normal anytime soon.

In the beginning, I was hoping I could rely on my creativity to get me through this time. I imagined working on my book about sexuality. Trying to learn the guitar again. Planting flower beds in my yard. Painting.

So…guess how that worked out? Yeah, not so great.

The past week has been enormously difficult. It seems to take all of my strength just to get out of bed in the mornings and go on my daily walk. After that, I’m done in. I somehow manage to complete the bare minimum of work, but there’s nothing left for my book on sexuality. Nothing left for my paintings. Nothing left for the guitar except for a little strumming here and there.

And trying to come up with articles about sex right now makes me laugh. Me? You want me to talk about sex? With one small exception, I haven’t even touched anyone in the past 31 days.

I feel so completely disconnected from my body, it’s a miracle to me that it even wants sex anymore, or more incredibly, that I have the energy to give it to myself.

But putting it on the page? How? It seems impossible to me that just a short while ago, I wrote a piece like Sex Is Every Little Desire and now… I wouldn’t even know how to begin to write a piece like that.

In fact, my next Howl article will be entitled: Sex Is…I Don’t Actually Care, I Can’t Even Get Out of Bed in the Morning.

Okay, I know. No one is going to want to read that one. Fair enough.

But I realized that’s where I’m heading if I can’t get myself back.

Last night, I flipped through journals and old projects trying to find my spark. I know it’s not gone completely. I know it’s somewhere within me. I just need a way to access it, and right now, writing doesn’t seem to be doing it.

I’ve been watching one of my favorite photographers, Catherine Just, work on her quarantine project, in which she creates daily cyanotypes of the same two negatives to capture the paradoxically unique monotony of each day.

I remembered some of my favorite pieces of hers — a still life featuring a chair. Another featuring a slip with a broken strap.

And my all-time favorites are from her Breath Series, in which she takes portraits of people using a long exposure. They are some of the most beautiful shots I’ve ever seen.

There it was. I felt my spark again!

I haven’t touched my camera in weeks — maybe longer than that. My photography typically focuses on nature. She is my favorite model. But I don’t have my woods to explore right now or my owls to follow.

But I could try, I realized, to let Ms. Just’s work inspire me in new ways.

I immediately thought of her chair photograph and her slip with the broken strap. I already have a series of self-portraits of me in a slip.

Where am I now? I asked myself. Where is my sexuality in all of this madness?

This is my answer:

That slip on the chair, empty, unworn. That’s how I feel right now. Like my sexuality and creativity are just a shell that’s been left somewhere. Forgotten, maybe? Discarded? Lost? I don’t know.

But once I started, I realized I couldn’t stop.

I tried a few in which I’m not wearing the slip, but holding it over my naked body. I wanted to show how removed I am from it — this disconnection. This discarded shell that it is.

I did all the photos (including the slip on the chair) with a long exposure, inspired by Catherine Just. I wanted them to capture the ghostlike quality of my feelings right now. This haunting sense of knowing that something is missing, but not knowing how to find it, not being able to put my fingers on it. Of existing in this strange space of the question: Who am I?

The discomfort that came with this process was rough. I started to fret over my damaged skin as I do so often. I fear that I look twenty years older than I actually am from the neck up.

My hair was wet from my shower and looked tangled and stringy.

My eyes were puffy and red from allergies.

And how much weight have I gained in the past month? Not that that matters — for god’s sake, it does not and I’m so sick of feeling like I have to look a certain way all the time. But it was surprising. I haven’t noticed. Or maybe I have noticed but didn’t process it?

Then again, I just had my period, so I’m at the roundest I will be all month right now.

Okay. Okay.

Breathe.

There is no escaping any of this. Not the quarantine. And not my body.

So I pressed on.

I had to put the slip on. Of course I did. How could I not?

I wore it, trying out a few poses with the long exposure to see what it would feel like.

That slip is how I reconnected with my sexuality last year. It helped me remember who I am as a whole, complete woman.

I hoped it would help me again.

And yes, it did, somehow.

I put it on, felt its softness, and remembered my own.

I put it on and saw how my post-period belly pooched out and I felt a peace in that.

I put it on and closed my eyes and remembered the slow-moving, velvet-thighed, heavy-breasted animal that I am at this moment.

I even got out my guitar and took some portraits with it.

This process was very different than the session I did last summer with that slip on. Then, I was remembering that I could be sexy. I could inspire sexual desire in another. I could want sex and embody sex and maybe even summon it.

But what is sexuality to me right now, in this moment?

Right now, my sexuality is only about getting back into my body. It’s about finding my way back to myself. It’s about reconnecting to my desire and my creativity.

As I sat there, strumming the guitar in my slip, I thought about the simplicity that might be what sexuality really is.

What if sexuality is just our connection to our bodies and emotions and how we feel and exist within the space around us?

What if it is just a plucked string that makes a pretty sound?

What if it is just a slip that feels soft against your skin?

I can’t say that everything is okay now. I can’t say that spending the morning doing this photo shoot healed my weary soul or made me feel pretty or sexy.

But I feel more in my body than I did yesterday. I feel a little bit satisfied. I feel a little bit inspired.

And I feel that little spark deep inside me.

Oh, how I miss it when the wind blows on her and she turns into a raging bonfire.

But the simple, humble spark is just as important. I am so grateful for that tiny flame and to feel even the gentlest hint of warmth that she emits.

I will keep my camera — and my guitar — close by to help keep my flame alive. I’ll keep my hands cupped around her dancing light until she is strong enough to throw sparks and grow into the conflagration that is so familiar to me.

Photos & text © Yael Wolfe 2020

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