Dear CIROS #1
'Our world has shrunk to five people.'
Dear CIROS is an online initiative to link students together in the unprecedented times and isolating distance we live in today. Read the first letter submitted to us below!
April 6th, 2020
Dear pen pal,
I’ve been at home for two weeks now. My sister sleeps soundly next to me, breathing with muffled sighs. It’s been years since we shared this bedroom. It’s an attic room filled with memories, a shrine of our childhood.Â
Our books line the walls. My sister’s are sorted by color, mine alphabetically. Pebbles from beaches and forests lay in a line along the shelves. The street lanterns shed yellow light into our bedroom. There’s too much time to think now. Do you find that too? That suddenly there’s time for the thoughts that you usually push away?
The weeks are melting together. Puzzles and bickering, crafting and cold showers. I forget what day it is. We watch the news and then we turn it off because we’re not sure what to say about it. Our world has shrunk to five people.Â
I imagined things like this. Not a virus maybe, but something. A flood, usually. I wondered what I would do. In each scenario I tried to find a way home. I imagined a lot more bravery in myself. More anger, more sadness. Instead, a strange serenity has washed over me. I had not felt it in a while. I cannot rhyme the feelings or put them away, so I simply allow them to exist. Outside, the world shakes and screams. Inside, my sister snores and shifts in her bed as I lay awake looking at the trinkets on the shelves.
I hope you’re alright. That you’re with family or at least that you know they’re okay. I hope this is over soon. Where are you? What are you thinking about?
— Anonymous.
Our first letter comes from an anonymous CIROS member, who prefers not to be named.
If you have thoughts, comments, ideas or anything you would like to share about this letter or the times we live in, feel free to direct them to info@cirosthehague.com.
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