“Coping yes, coping is the right word for this. I’m isolating and (yay) I’m down to two panic attacks per day, so I feel like I’m doing really well.”
I hit the send button and stepped away from my laptop. I then paused and took the time to consider just what I had replied to a friend who was checking in on me. “Two panic attacks per day!” Oh boy!
Our language over the past 8 weeks has drastically shifted and a new global vernacular has insipidly infiltrated all our communication. I noticed that this shift in language, the harsh sounds of words like “lockdown, quarantine, pandemic, crazy” have managed to sneak their way into my day-to-day language. How dare they?
In a bid to calm my mind and organise some of the chaos I took a page out of Austin Kleon’s process of creating collages to make sense of things and generate new meaning. So using an old copy of the Tay Ho Times I started chopping, rearranging and gluing letters to form the words I have found myself using on a daily basis.
When I stepped back and looked at my global vernacular collage, the word that came to mind was: “chaos.” Yikes, no wonder I’m celebrating just two panic attacks per day!
So, as a means of starting my Spring Break lounge room staycation with a shift of language, I created a new collage with just four words to guide my response to these uncertain times.
Thoughts From Hanoi 