ersatz life

I will not forsake, the colors that you bring

But the nights you filled with fireworks, they

They left you with nothing

I am still enchanted by the light you brought to me

I listen through your ears

And through your eyes I can see (…)

You’ve got to get yourself together

You’ve got stuck in a moment

And now you can’t get out of it

Don’t say that later will be better

Now you’re stuck in a moment

And you can’t get out of it

And if, and if the night runs over

And if the day won’t last

And if your way should falter

Along the stony pass

It’s just a moment, this time will pass

Stuck in a moment. U2

Madame! You are frozen!

Out-of-the-mouths-of-babes. I was indeed frozen – inside and out. My face, once again, permanently locked in a ghostly grimace. Online teaching with 21 students neatly arranged in a perfect grid. Microphones off, everybody listening. Some are still chewing on their breakfast. Others are having a drink. Lots of pyjama tops and uncombed hair. Myself included. 

Bad connection. Conversations dropped. Please join again. By the time I make it back into my virtual classroom, all hell has broken loose. Online chaos. 21 microphones on, students yelling, chatting, wondering “Where did she go?”. I’m still here guys. I’m just frozen. It takes a while to calm everybody down again, have them turn off their sound. Distant classroom management. We continue in our morning routine.

Frozen. Stuck. Caught in a montage of Groundhog Day and The Truman Show. Eat. Teach. Sleep. Repeat. Mind drifting to times gone by. Memories. Moments. Nostalgia. Bringing up positive moments of the past. Trying to focus on the goodness of those past memories instead of feeling down. The danger of refusal to move onto new things. 

There are a lot of games and challenges on social media these days. Feeble attempts to make you feel good. Flood the world with positive pictures instead of negativity. Glorious running moments, beautiful holiday pics, cute childhood memories.

Frozen moments.

“If nostalgia acts as a store of positive moments to call back when you are feeling down, you have to create new ones before the storage runs out.” (T. Klosowski, Lifehacker)

How do you create new positive moments in a time of crisis, of self-isolation and social distancing? How do you continue writing a blog about a year of living your dream when that dream has abruptly ended. How do you carry on after months of breathtaking beaches and once-in-a-lifetime experiences. How do you feed your dromomania, your travel addiction, your wanderlust when you are stuck in a moment. Frozen.

Wanderlust. There are a ton of German expressions that can be found in the English language. Compact and strangely entertaining.

There are the food related ones like schnitzel, pretzel, bratwurst, and sauerkraut. 

The depressing ones: angst, kaput, verboten, or weltschmerz.

The fun words like fahrvergnugen and autobahn, oktoberfest and schadenfreude, kindergarten and wunderkind, doppelganger and ubermensch. Gesundheit! Ja!

And then there are the newly minted, German pandemic related words. Hamsterkauf (hoarding stuff), geisterspiele (ghost matches in soccer), offnungsdiskussionsorgien (orgies related to opening discussions). Ersatz life.

Ersatz. The imitation of something. Not quite as good as the real thing, but it’ll do. For now. Helps us get by. Gets us through these tough times. Online concerts, chats, game nights, virtual runs, books readings, happy hour. 

Not being able to travel myself, I am beginning to live through other people’s experiences. Virtual wandering. Distant dreaming. Ersatz life. The imitation of something that is not. Yet it helps satisfy my uncontrollable urge to walk and wander. Lets me be somewhere else. Allows me to dream up future travel plans. Something to look forward to when it is safe to journey again. 

Until then, let me cherish my frozen moments. Let me live my ersatz life. Let me try to slow it down and appreciate what is around me. Walking, wandering, cloud-gazing, wondering.

It’s just a moment. This time will pass.