| Dear << Test First Name >>,
Quarantining is a new way of life when traveling from one state to the next – as I found out last month when I traveled from my home in Florida to the state of New York. Along with my husband, I quarantined in a privately-owned apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for two weeks.
Yikes! Going from a four-bedroom house to a tiny pied a terre had me a tad freaked. But the amenities were a delight – a roof top garden and a terrace with all the basil I wanted to cut for my mozzarella and arugula salads. Just one perk.
I took full advantage of the ethnic influence existing in so many of the neighborhood eateries. I ordered in knishes, corned beef on rye sandwiches and bagels brimming with an abundance of cream cheese, onions and lox. The delivery boys became my friends and the doormen at the building kept me well stocked in daily WSJs that a careless prior tenant had forgotten to cancel.
I quickly surmised that I had to take command of my personal interior space too. “How?” I pondered. The answer: surrounding myself with things that make my environment personal and inviting.
Here’s what I did:
Bought three plants
Ordered a bunch of Candles
Brought my yarn and knitting needles from home and created a wild menagerie of purses and pouches over the fourteen-day period of “my incarceration.”
Broke out of my reading rabbit hole and ordered a genre I hadn’t read since a kid devouring Nancy Drew chapter books: Mystery books
At same time I was getting out of my comfort zone with book categories, I also made sure I had the conveniences of home: a one-cup Keurig to brew my daily three cups of dark coffee and a nutribullet to mix up my daily smoothies. Thank you Amazon.
The trick to successfully quarantining in a strange and unfamiliar space? Prize the uniqueness. My space had a great city view.
I gazed out often during my two-week quarantine – in the early morning as the sky lightened, in the evening as the sun dappled the apartment buildings in sight and at night as the lights from nearby skyscrapers twinkled and glowed.
I looked upon quarantining as an adventure – while at the same time surrounding myself with things that provided comfort and calm. And the two weeks flew by.
What’s been your experience quarantining? What did you find to be most challenging and how did you deal with the challenge? What coping mechanisms worked for you best while quarantining and what advice would you give to others?
Let’s chat.
Let’s be there for each other.
Keep Preserving your Bloom,
Iris Ruth Pastor
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