3B
Wednesday, April 1, 2020 // The Statement 3B
Solomon and Matt are roommates. As
roommates, they typically only see each other
in the morning, maybe in between classes and
before bed. However, COVID-19 said “LOL”
and they have been shut together in their
apartment for three weeks. These pieces, one
by each roommate, were written in whatever
fraction of isolation they could find on
opposite sides of their shared living room.
S
olomon:
My biggest pet peeve is people
using the idiom “It’s a small world.”
It is often used to describe how privileged
worlds overlap with one another (in my
experience, the intersection of coastal Jews
and the University of Michigan), rather
than the actual size of the world. I have
delivered PowerPoint presentations on the
subject many times. But since we began
social distancing, I have begun using the
phrase unironically.
Matt and I were randomly assigned as
roommates in South Quad Residence Hall.
Though our beds were four feet apart then,
we have never lived as close together as we
do now. Our world has literally become the
size of our apartment, our rooms separated
only by the staple room [EDIT: Clarify?
What does “separated only by the staple
room” mean?] of college houses — where
one lives, dines and exists — and the kitchen
whose full sink greets us every morning.
As a result, we have perhaps learned more
about one another in the past three weeks
than we ever had, and are figuring out how
to exist in a non-stop friendship.
Three weeks ago, on the first day of social
distancing, I brought a 2x4 whiteboard
(formerly for our other roommate’s physics
homework and personal account balance)
out to the living room and nailed it to the
wall. I was excited about it because I like
making elaborate plans, and wanted to
have agency over our future routines. Matt
seemed skeptical, sitting on the couch as I
divided up the board into the sections that
would define our life. However, since then,
it has become a mainstay of our life.
I titled the boxes on the upper-right
corner “What are you?”, initially as a joke,
but I quickly realized it was actually fitting.
Our boxes show how we want to spend
quarantine, our idealized vision for this
unexpected time in our lives. Matt has
continuously redone his box to reflect his
biggest projects, including GarageBand
exploration, Minecraft time limits for the
day and to “finish the fucking play.” I have
not erased anything from my section, which
has progressively gotten fuller, explicitly
laying out my aspirational basic daily plan
(meditation,
working
out,
journaling,
etc.) and the long-term projects I have not
started (clearing space off of my iPhone 5,
research ideas and cooking adventures).
It’s not just “What are you?” that
uncovers our internal desires. We have
connected more with every new communal
section. Matt has taken ownership over the
“Intellectual Flexing” section, where we
write down the titles of the books we have
read since we began isolating. Two weeks
in, and he is already at five. (Buoyed by his
rapid reading rate, he has since launched
a bookstagram to literally no one’s surprise.)
My favorite section is “Principles,”
where we lay out a mini-constitution to
guide how we are supposed to share the
space. To little surprise, the principles
have not been followed, either because
they were impossible to accomplish (“Give
space”) or because they risk unsettling
the equilibrium we have established (“Air
grievances”). Our other, notably not Jewish,
roommate has taken to chronicling the time
we spend here by creating a new calendar
system oriented around Shabbat dinner.
Even in communal spaces, we have charted
our own territories.
I thought quarantine would strain our
friendship by revealing all the ways in which
our personalities are incompatible and
how our interests do not overlap. To some
extent, that has been true: I am not going
to play Minecraft or Mario Kart, our band
practice sessions have not really gotten off
the ground and our sleep schedules remain
out of sync.
Yet, instead of just emphasizing how
we are different, we are learning to
coexist only as the most honest versions of
ourselves. Quarantine has shown a more
confident version of Matt than I have ever
experienced before. He has been able to
take our lifestyle change in stride, still
waking up early to read, abiding by his
whiteboard goals and remaining deliberate.
I have not had the same smooth
transition. Without my usual stimuli of
meetings and events, I anxiously await new
full-length soccer games getting posted
on YouTube and continue to cook without
any big-picture vision — just assembling
vegetables, carbs and some flavor in any
combination.
It has made me think about the difference
between quarantine friendships and those
we are used to. In most friendships, I have
an escape route, but not here. I cannot take
a break from Matt or my other roommate
for a day. It has forced me to reveal the
parts of my personality I usually reserve for
myself, like my addiction to soccer media
and inability to stay focused or fix broken
items around the apartment. These details
that may fall under the radar during the
hectic pace of our everyday now are seen
and felt.
Our situation’s inescapability has also
forced a level of honesty that is often hard
to reach in masc friendships (friendships
between masculine-identifying people).
We are working on being more consistently
honest with one another, airing out our
grievances
and
asking
for
feedback.
Without the ability to get the kind of
emotional support we get from other parts
of our lives in our normal lives, we have had
to do more for one another than we used to.
I don’t want to think about how COVID-
19 will impact my future, be it from worse
job prospects or loved ones lost, so instead
I am looking for quarantine’s silver linings.
I know how lucky I am to be able to stay
in Ann Arbor with Matt and my other
roommates, and together we are learning
how to share ourselves with minimal
presentation or performance. Even after
living together for almost two years, we are
just now learning to coexist.
M
att:
Dressed
in
presentable
tops
and
less-presentable
bottoms for virtual class, Solomon and I
stare up at the whiteboard hanging in our
living room. Our daily to-do lists, goals for
the week, list of movies to watch and an
elaborate time-keeping system revolving
around communal meals and our aloe plant
photoshoot schedule adorn its scuffed
canvas. Meant to give our quarantined lives
order, the whiteboard has since become
another roommate, a projection of our
cramped, hectic thoughts in this apartment.
“So what’s the order this week?” Solomon
asks with an Expo marker bouncing
between his fingers.
The recycled air that has been hanging
in our living room since March 11 is filled
with a mix of serious contemplation and
nihilism.
“I think I did well. Read some books,
started an essay,” I offer in the silence.
Solomon acquiesces and writes my
name at the top of the “Who’s Winning
Quarantine” list. Part of me is ashamed
of trying too hard. Another is proud
of my powering through the anxiety
surrounding the state of the world and
actually maintaining a semblance of my
past schedule.
I don’t quite remember when the list
appeared. It should be easy to recall a
moment like this from the past two weeks.
However, two weeks can feel like years
when you spend every waking moment —
and sometimes sleeping ones, if our nap
times align — with the same person.
Before the United States began taking
COVID-19 as seriously as it should have
been months ago, we would share the highs
and lows of our days if our paths happened
to cross. Now, our daily highs, lows and the
many shades in between are on full display
without the need for a nightly debrief. Even
in our rooms, I know if Solomon is on one
of his many daily BlueJeans calls or if he’s
doing laundry just from the small noises
that leak throughout our apartment.
Our to-do lists are under a microscope
in quarantine. Our new, two-dimensional
roommate, looming over our living room,
was supposed to maintain a sense of
balance in our day-to-day. Instead, the
whiteboard has become hell-bent on pitting
our schedules against one another to see
who is making the most of what everyone
considers to be a shitty situation.
Luckily, Solomon and I have been able
to resist the temptation to compare our
whiteboard schedules. During quarantine,
I’ve embodied the full spectrum — from
barely getting out of bed to planning my
schedule minute-by-minute. Each day
begins with a roll of the dice: Would
crossing tasks off the whiteboard or making
cup after cup of coffee and curling up with a
book make me fulfilled today?
I’m so thankful to have a roommate that
greets me with a “I’m so proud of you”
no matter what decision I make. I try to
do the same. I do this to be a supportive
partner in this quarantine dream but also
to show our whiteboard roommate it’s our
quarantine and we get to choose the coping
mechanisms.
Solomon once wrote an opinion piece
for this fine journalistic establishment
about “The Grind” and our tendency to
valorize being busy. Since our world is our
living room for the foreseeable future, I’m
learning to live über-communally without
comparing myself to Solomon’s levels of
productivity.
Everyone and their cousins are writing
think-pieces on what they think the world
is going to look like when we reach the
end of the COVID-19 tunnel. I will not
add to this cacophony. However, I do hope
that when social distancing is a by-gone
practice, I take my personal wants instead
of outward expectations into account when
planning my day. I have a long way to go,
but if there’s one thing we both share the
most, it’s time.
Solomon Medintz is a senior studying
Philosophy, Politics and Economics and is a
former Opinion Columnist on the Daily. He
can be reached at smedintz@umich.edu.
Matt Harmon is a senior studying
International Studies and Playwriting and is
a former Statement Deputy Editor. He can be
reached at mcharm@umich.edu.
Journaling in a crisis
BY SOLOMON MEDINTZ AND MATT HARMON,
STATEMENT CONTRIBUTORS
Lessons from a whiteboard
ILLUSTRATION BY LAUREN KUZEE