Quarantine Dispatch #3: The stress of doing too little

How are you feeling? What are you thinking? What’s happening? Bored, stressed, inspired, uninspired, calm, restless, frustrated, anxious? There’s no “right” way to cope with a pandemic. Reading through these submissions, despite the practical differences of each situation, we felt a reassuring sense of familiarity and gratitude. Maybe you can too. 

Camerin Stoldt, MFA fashion design student, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York.

I’ve started making a lot. No commute, no studio hours, nowhere to go. I started working so much I was finding it more and more difficult to fall asleep. It’s not that I’ve convinced myself that I need to have something to show for this quarantine in order to feel productive or valid. “I like this pace,” I said to my roommate.

I’ve always had difficulty turning off. I love to create and I’m fortunate to have so many tools in my apartment. But I grind my teeth when I’m stressed. I put a full stop to school work for two weeks to make masks and now I need to ask for extensions. Feels futile…

My space has totally exploded from the first day I moved everything in here, even though I clean after each day. I’ve been able to order supplies but am saving all my scrap fabric and old muslins under the table. I stack whatever objects I can find on a stool to take fitting pics. Somewhere in there are stuffed jeans I use as a makeshift dress form. My roommate and I both use the space so everything can be moved, but I haven’t found the most comfortable set up yet for the long term.

I’ve kept a close eye on my brother and sister students through Instagram. We may be in different programs, different cities but we all have the same desires. We have to look out for each other. I’ve asked people to send over images, videos and stories to put toward my thesis. I’m rethinking what that collaborative space looks like in design, realizing our reach and our impacts are beyond school walls – which feels like they’re failing us at the moment. When I received an email this morning prepping for a contingency plan in the fall, I thought to myself – “do I need an online master’s degree?”

It doesn’t feel like the semester will end, more that it will fade out and I’ll be left with all this momentum. I’ve started wondering what life would be like if this was all I did.