Contrary to what I thought and hoped in the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve accomplished very little by staying home this year (perhaps unsurprisingly). All the motivational talks that made me initially think that I would do something special have done little to lift my spirit up to take actions or make positive changes in the end. Instead, I kept myself busy by working from home for the same multinational corporation (to what end, I don’t even know).

In “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter”, Carson McCullers beautifully describes this feeling of powerlessness that I again had this year.

Later in the novel, the main character Mick goes to New York Cafe (set in Georgia of course) to have a combination of a sundae and a beer (why haven’t I thought of this combination before?) and picks herself up a little. I thought ‘Yeah, at least when all this is over, I can treat myself to the sundae and the beer and pick myself up a little.’