Welcome to the new reality

A few rambling thoughts on this new reality thing that you can call covid social distancing, or stay-at-home. But don't call it lockdown. That word sounds too scary, says the prime minister, and might cause people to start hoarding food again. We are merely in stage-three-social-distancing, containment phase.

Rambling thought number one: It doesn't really seem fair that I am still waking up with migraines every two weeks. The world has changed, migraines. Don't you understand? You are supposed to stay home. But the caffeine pills will hold out. I can still chase the migraines away at the cost of my sleep.

Number two, I am so very extremely lucky that my work ports almost seamlessly to online. At least, I think this is lucky? I was not assigned to teach this semester, and my research doesn't require much equipment. Finishing up papers requires only a computer, some scratch paper and pens, the internet, and a working brain. Of those four required items, the working brain part is the only bit that isn't consistently available from home, although the internet occasionally flickers under the weight of Remote Everything. But the brain is tricky. Not only did the migraines apparently not get the memo about staying home, but the brain is worried. It isn't used to this.

On the other hand, I found in the first week of panic and distress that the only thing that could soothe the brain was immersing it gently in a cold bath of mathematics. Other former interests couldn't hold it down. I couldn't put it into a novel -- too stressful. I couldn't watch movies -- too stressful. Endless scrolling through Twitter could keep the brain occupied, but not soothe. But if I ripped that brain away from Twitter, I found I could make the hours go by in quiet peace while creating convoluted mathematical figures and ironing out arguments in proofs.

Unfortunately, because my work ports almost completely seamlessly online, I haven't been able to immerse myself in mathematics for more than a few hours at a time. All the meetings I had Before have been ported nearly seamlessly online. I have six research students this semester who I meet with one-on-one for an hour or so each, plus a group meeting, plus a seminar. And now my administrative meetings are picking up again. Promotion Committee, moved online. Referee report due. You can write reports in a crisis, no? Application for a workshop in 18 months, composed with Optimism that sometimes seems misplaced: Optimism that in 18 months, there will be no travel bans, and there will once again be Funding. Mentoring meeting, online. Response required from me on behalf of the women in maths group, emailed. And so it goes.

I miss my office. I have huge physical whiteboards in my office with eight colours of markers, and my students and I usually fill them all each meeting. Now we're trying to do the same thing with a screen. Luckily the university has been generous with support. Even the brand new graduate student, who moved here from Brazil just two weeks before this mess started, has been given a tablet computer on loan, so we can decorate whiteboards made of glass and light and internet with peace and calm and mathematics.


Honestly? I dread the student meetings. I see them approaching on the calendar and I dread them. These students, they are mine. I need them to be okay. Who else will help them immerse their brains in the cool and soothing bath of mathematics, if not me? I am afraid for them, in this crisis. They are single. Some live with roommates, some with family. But some are completely alone, even in a new country. And others have health challenges that didn't get the memo, like my migraines, to stay away, stay home. I see them one-on-one only once each week, and I worry that I won't have the right things to say. I dread that. But then we meet up, and I ask them about their project, and we draw lines on the screen in coloured lighted pixels, miracles and mathematics, and the hour goes quickly. They are resilient, these grown up people who call me supervisor. I don't know if I can ever take on students again, though. The worry is heavy and real. And my brain is only just managing.

What of my own family, cocooned here with me? Tim has been working remotely for decades now. He has a posh setup in the third bedroom: sit-stand desk, ergonomic chair, window looking out across the park. He is a superhero: Remote Worker Man, with the power to conduct work via light and glass and internet from any time zone around the world. I've taken the bedroom, spare monitor, card table. And Jonathan? He has taken the kitchen and living room, and another spare monitor for connecting the tablet we bought him for high school. (Yes, there were two spare monitors in this house before anyone had heard of corona virus, due in no small part to Tim's superpower.) Jonathan has made his own schedule, his own routine, which, funny enough, includes downloading and working through old mathematics exams. He has found his own peace in mathematics in a crisis. But he commented the other day that he probably sees us less now that we're all at home, because we sequester ourselves in our rooms with Work, ported seamlessly online, and miss the morning and afternoon commutes, the relaxed evenings. I think we need to be more careful about eating meals together, taking walks together. Exercising together. We are a Unit. We need each other.

There are more random thoughts to be had, floating through this caffeinated brain of mine, but this post is long already. And the prime minister warns that there are at least six months of cocooning ahead of us. That means there will be plenty of time for more random thoughts.

I leave you with a picture from yesterday's morning run: Yellow tree, harbinger of autumn.