Reframe | Quarantine Chronicles Episode 1
Anna, Parker, and Jacob discuss the new normal.
Transcript
PARKER: So, this is a kind of a temporary project that is a kind of what we're calling the Quarantine Chronicles. The COVID Edition of Reframe, where we're spending a little bit of time with each team member, and talking a little bit about what it's been like to be in this. So we're not going to talk about how to work remotely, or how to lead a brainstorm session, or any of those things. Although, I'm sure they're really important. We want to talk a little bit more about personal experiences of folks on our team. Today, we have my amazing partner Anna Love is here. She's joining Jacob and I.
Let's do a one word check-in from everybody. How you're doing today. How you're coming into this, like. What's it like?
ANNA: In only one word? I only get one word?
PARKER: Well I'll give you a sentence if you really want a sentence.
ANNA: I need a sentence.
PARKER: Take it, take it.
ANNA: Today I am coming into this with an unusual amount of-- refreshing. Okay, I can do it in one word. I'm feeling a bit refreshed, which is unlike the last couple of weeks, so you're catching me on a good day.
JACOB: I'm jealous.
PARKER: That's your one word check-in? Jealous?
JACOB: It is now. I continue to think like, "What day is it?" Like, my whole attitude is kind of like the cycle of activity has really narrowed itself down to a, you know, 14 hour awake period that seems to repeat with, you know, I haven't left my neighborhood in a month. I haven't left my house in weeks. So it's kind of, it's good, and I'm not complaining. It's good and bad. I kind of like it actually. But that's-- that definitely is how that's my check-in is. Time is a flat circle.
PARKER: Well I'm just gonna be honest with you, I had intended to commute by bike to work this morning and it was is like it's nice and cool out sunny and beautiful, and I was just so tired, my body was so tired, that I couldn't bring myself to do it and so like, I kind of like, crawled in the shower and just like went ahead and like cleaned up and then drove kind of guiltily to work today, and so I was just operating from like this place of like, man you wuss. Like it was an amazing day to commute to work and you just totally--
JACOB: I don't know like, that I feel like that's an interesting thing to dig into is like, I've had this conversation with quite a few people like, oh you got to allow yourself the little forgivenesses, right? I mean.
PARKER: Yeah.
JACOB: This-- some article that I didn't read but read the headline, like most articles I look at now, you know, "quarantine is not the time for self-improvement" or something like that or like-- "don't make yourself a project during all of this." I think it was a little tongue-in-cheek but I actually think there's some merit to it of-- I'm definitely-- we're exercising and trying to keep up my healthy routines but also just allowing myself the slips and being like well, just trying to keep my mental sanity in whatever way that shows up.
PARKER: I agree, I mean Anna and I were talking about this the other day like, you know, if you go to like Fantasyland, aka Instagram, you know you will see people that are like, custom hand drawing the syllabus for their children's school all day long, and they're making homemade granola, and they're learning Mandarin all at the same time, and it's like, fucking come on. You know like just because we're all at home doesn't mean that we're not like, living in a time of fear, and uncertainty, and ambiguity, and you know like everybody's got financial stress, and we're also trying to avoid getting sick and dying, like, those are-- these are all important things. And they're enough on their own without having to learn Mandarin and make your own granola.
ANNA: You know I think that over the last 10 years or so as social media has become so-- such a part of our lives, we've taught ourselves to, that in some ways, the way we project ourselves is the way that we feel, even though we know that that's a farce. And so by projecting us as the perfect homeschool mom, that's busy also being the chef, maybe that is our reality, and it isn't. And so I think it does-- it's a disservice to ourselves to even pretend that we're nailing it, when none of us are nailing it because we don't even know what nailing it looks like.
PARKER: Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you Jake. I mean, I think that that notion of like, have a lot of compassion towards yourself, have a lot of compassion towards others is completely fair.
JACOB: On the kiddo front of my house, so we're homeschooling for the last, you know, three, four weeks, and my wife has done a wonderful job. And at first she was very regimented, and you know, she had the lesson plans, she-- it was very much like kindergarten. My oldest son is in kindergarten, my youngest is still in pre-K. And then as a weeks kind of went on you know, the days morphed, and she like allowed herself to do some projects around the house, or have some lazy days, and she started feeling that tension of like, am I not doing a good enough job? And we finally just, at least right now, we're at a point where we're just letting the kids kind of lead the energy.
ANNA: There's no award for best quarantine homeschool parent.
PARKER: No.
ANNA: Especially as, you know, a lot of us are busy doing so many things, all at the same time, and if we expect to be able to do schooling the way that our kids used to have schooling, we're gonna fail miserably. So instead of trying to create our academic normal at home, that was similar to the way it was at school, we have to completely turn "normal" on its head and reimagine it from the start, and allow ourselves to do it in a radically different way. That might mean not doing the lesson plan that the teachers have laid out.
JACOB: You said kind of radically reimagining what normal is. Turn normal on its head, so I'm curious how that is showing up. What's the new normal look like in a positive way for you that maybe was unexpected?
ANNA: One of the most, I think, interesting things that has emerged over the last few weeks is I started keeping a list of the things that I really appreciate about this very strange period of time. And as simple as like, I call my parents every day, just to check in, and I haven't historically done that. Going for more walks. That's one. I'm spending more time checking in with my kids, at kind of a very emotional level like, "Okay hi, how are you doing today?" And because we're all in this very strange environment, it makes sense like, yeah well it was hard today because I just found out one of my teacher is being laid off, which was the story from yesterday. And so we're checking in, and we're talking about it, and I didn't do that in the same way two months ago, you know, we would check in with rosebud thorn, "Hey, what was the highlight and the low-light?" but it tended to be a bit superficial, and so I think there's a realness about the conversations that I'm really appreciating. So I'm keeping this list. Keeping a list of the things that I don't want to lose sight of when we all-- when it shifts again. Because as we create a new way of going about life, there are going to be a bunch of shifts that happen over the next year.
JACOB: You really oughta thank yourself for keeping a written list that you can refer back to.
ANNA: Yeah, you remember being a kid and like, having that list of things that adults don't understand, and when you're an adult, you're not gonna do this?
JACOB: I remember being a teenager thinking like, ways I will not be like my parents or their of like-- their generation is asleep. They're sheep. And actually stuck to that quite a bit, honestly, so well.
ANNA: I forgot my list, like I had this whole list of ways that I wasn't gonna be like my parents, and then I forgot it. So now I'm keeping a list of ways that I'm not gonna be like myself.
JACOB: Isn't funny that like, as a parent, no matter what you do, how cool you are, like your kid's gonna make that list. At some point.
ANNA: They are. I kind of appreciate that now I get to make that list about myself and because everything is in such a compressed period of time, I can actually see the difference between the way my life functioned a month ago, and the way it functions now. And because of that intensity, it's easier to notice the differences.
PARKER: What is one thing that you used to do before COVID that you're not doing right now, that you don't want to go back to? Like, I've had this conversation with a couple of friends, and Anna and I were kind of like you know circling the drain on it this morning, but like, what's the thing for each of us that is kind of a habit that we had, conscious or unconscious, that we used to do, that we don't want to pick back up once things do kind of start to head back to quote-unquote normal or whatever the new reality is?
JACOB: That's good. I think this might address a little bit of what you're saying at least. So I emailed a friend of mine like last week, photographer friend, Andrea who you all know, has been on the show. And I was like, had some random idea and she said she responded with, "I cannot imagine doing work anymore that I don't care about after this."
PARKER: Good one.
JACOB: So like I feel the same in the sense of like there's a bit of like, a recalibration of like all the things I find worthwhile. And like-- it makes you recenter, right, and rethink about why you do what you do, what your like, body of work to be, and like, all these kind of moments do that, right? Sometimes a an amazing adventure or travel will help you with that, we've talked about that before, but like this is so specific and-- but it's mixed right with the tension of like, well we-- I need to keep a roof over the head and like, so it's a weird dichotomy like, the way my brain is thinking. So I don't have like, a black and white answer or like, one thing, but part of me is like, don't forget your list, right? Like, don't forget the things you feel right now. And then part of me is like, you know, don't get your house repossessed. So those two things are living in the same world and they're gonna have to navigate and be bedfellows here this summer and fall, and so that'll be really interesting but I hope to keep the lens of, you know, don't say yes to everything just because it's got a paycheck on it.
ANNA: Yeah. That's a good one.
PARKER: That is a good one.
ANNA: Ok so I'm warning, I'm-- it's gonna be a little bit heavy so I'm gonna rely on you Parker to bring it back up again. But I think that I'm realizing-- I realized in kind of a superficial way, the privilege, that I get to live with. But it really wasn't obvious on a day-to-day basis, and there's some experiences in this quarantine environment where I'm the one that is on the end of privilege you don't want to be on. Or maybe, said more specifically, I'm experiencing other people's privilege in a way that I haven't before, in that way where you get frustrated and pissed off because it's not fair. Because somebody else gets it so much easier than I get it right now, as a single mom, with three kids, and three different ages, and working full-time in a small house. And it's just frustrating. And so, there's something about feeling that, that has caused me to pause and notice all of the other places in my life where I'm lucky to have privilege. And I don't want to forget that feeling. I don't want to go back to being just completely oblivious to how lucky I am.
PARKER: You know, since we started Stoked, 9 years ago, 10 years-- 9 years ago, I think. We have been kind of hard-charging for a long time. Those first couple of years were really, like a little bit slower, and more interesting. It was just Anna and I, and we kinda took gigs when we wanted and we, you know, said no to gigs we didn't feel like we should be working on, and we spent a lot of time with our families, and out walking dogs, and like, goofing off, and my stress level was a solid 50% lower than it has been probably the past five years. And so I don't regret the hard-charging, and I don't regret the amount that we've worked, or the places that we've traveled, but I'm also now experientially getting to understand what it feels like to take naps in the middle of the day, and to read, and to stop and have a conversation with somebody in the middle of the day, you know, like a friendly conversation, which is not something I allow myself to do real often. And so I have-- I'm gaining a very different outlook on how I want to work moving forward. I'm 46 years old, so I'm not like retirement age yet, but I'm also not getting any fucking younger. And so I want to enjoy my life, I want to enjoy my time with my wife, and our dog, and working you know, eight, ten, twelve hours a day, and thinking about work all the time after that, is not something that I want to return to. And it's subtle, and it's sneaky, and it kind of creeps up on you. You don't even know what's happening until you're in it, and you look back, you're like, "What happened to the last two months?" So anyway, I don't know yet how to stay on guard about that, but I want to continue to live this kind of like, what I consider to be a very like, European workday and attitude towards work. I don't know if that's true or not but every time I go to Europe, it seems like you see people reading fiction at 10 o'clock in the morning and I'm like, "The fuck are you doing? Do you have a job?" Like I'm angry at you, and I want your life, and you know. All of those things. So that's mine, is mostly around like, my work ethic, and this like, Western idea that I have about how much I need to work and how much money I need to have and all that shit. I need a lot less than I think I do.
JACOB: I think one of the first conversations that we had on the phone or-- I don't remember if it was Zoom or on the phone, but when this all started happening and you said, it still might be my favorite line-- I've got a kind of a collection of quotes from different people that I've been talking to over the last few weeks, this might still be the top one as you were like, "I think I might end up making a third of the money and be twice as happy." That one sentence might just be you know, etch that on your wall and make you-- that's it.
ANNA: Yeah and how to not lose sight of that and forget that when life becomes plush again.
PARKER: Right.
ANNA: That's the trick.
JACOB: You got a wonderful writing habit and you're a good writer and I think you mean you aspire to write even more, and so I think the world is just kind of kicking you into that cabin on the lake, bro.
PARKER: Who's buying the cabin on the lake?
JACOB: Until they come with a shotgun and make you leave.
PARKER: It's a four million dollar cabin. It's huge. It's got three boats and two Jet-skis
ANNA: You know, you might have to earn your way into that cabin through yard work.
JACOB: There is like a serious, like I totally picked that up that, I resonate with that I'm like enough is enough. We lose track of that when we get into the work grind and there's a reason, because, you know, we're all ambitious, and we all have goals and we-- but to really sit in the enough is enough, be grateful feeling. And then we're all going to look back at this, hopefully one of the positive things we'll remember, there's a lot to be negative about, will be that we we lived at half-speed and we caught up with old friends in the middle of the day, we live by a clock even of our own making.
ANNA: Well then we had a chance, there's a period of time where we had a chance, to let go of the way we thought things should be. And we got to be surprised by how wonderful they were when it wasn't the way we thought it was gonna. There's a good lesson in there, that we get to hang on a grip that's not quite as tight.
PARKER: Yeah, there's something that happens when you're so out of control, you know, like, we're so powerless to anything about this, that you just kind of relax into it, you know. If you still think that there's some way you can control something, you still tend to try to control it right, you still try to grip it too tight, but when it's something this big and you're so utterly powerless over, you just let go and kind of sink into it and be like, "Well, alright I'm just I'm going for a ride right now." Like you know, and it doesn't doesn't help for me to try to swim against the current.
ANNA: You know, when I think something that's interesting about that for me, Parker, is letting go is not a passive act. Actually letting go is also active, and it's not giving up, it's just being open to something that isn't the way that we thought it was going to be. And so it's a very active way of allowing our lives to be something new.
PARKER: Right.
ANNA: To unfold in a new way and to surprise us.
PARKER: Yeah I'd frame it like in my mind it's like, I'm not giving up hope but I am giving up control. And those are different things, you know. I'm not giving up, I'm not just like, "Okay I'll just die now," like, that's not it. Yeah giving up what I think my vision of how things should turn out, and how we should get there, you know, going back to that old thing that we used to say years ago which is like, "I'm letting go of the map and I'm grabbing a compass," you know.
ANNA: Exactly and you know what? I think that that's what going back to the very beginning of this conversation, that's why I'm making a list of the things that I love right now, is that good acting as my compass as I navigate this, it allows me to have a sense of, "okay so these are some guiding principles for me as my new life is designed."
JACOB: I think we should-- should we just check in weekly here? I think that's the idea?
PARKER: That is the idea. The weekly check-in. We'll invite some other team members, folks that don't often grace us on Reframe, and then we'll do this as long as it feels pertinent and relevant and hopefully it provides a little short bright spot in people's face
ANNA: It sure felt nice to connect with you guys today.
JACOB: Likewise. Thanks for coming on.
PARKER: Yeah.
ANNA: Yeah.
JACOB: Sorry about your snow up there.
