The Grandeur of Mundaneness

Whenever I think of the word mundane, I think of Burning, the film starring Yoo Ah In. It was described once as being like watching paint dry. That comparison lingered. In many ways, the pandemic years felt the same—new coats layered endlessly over the wall, each variant stripping away the hope that the surface might finally harden.

It feels almost obtuse to call the pandemic mundane. More than five million lives lost. Hundreds of millions infected. At moments, it threatened not just our survival, but our humanity—our ability to remain human, with hearts and intelligence intact. The first months were brutal. Our lives collapsed inward, reduced to rooms, screens, and routines that repeated without distinction.

Before all of this, I had built a life around the belief that life itself is art, paired with a devotion to minimalism. I found serenity in ordinary things: cooking, reading, knitting, tending to plants, coloring, crafting. Even cleaning brought a quiet satisfaction, punctuated by the sharp reassurance of bleach.

Time never changed its pace, but in 2020 it began to crawl. Sometimes it felt as though paint dried faster than the hours passed. Trapped at home, many of us experienced the world through other people’s lenses, reflected back at us on glowing screens. I normalized life with excessive online shopping. I felt trapped. Was I?

The ordinary things that once gave me peace no longer did. Part of this was the pandemic. Part of it was being confined within a toxic environment and an abusive relationship. Life narrowed to my laptop screen and a space I once called home. Everything felt forced. Nothing felt chosen.

When restrictions lifted and vaccinations arrived, I tried to return to the life I had built. I struggled not to fill the void with consumption and failed quietly, leaving packages unopened. My agenda book, once sacred, became an irritant. I read two books—Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret and The Other Americans—and abandoned several others halfway through. I don’t believe I read a single poem during those months.

We are still in the pandemic, but I no longer feel trapped. Leaving the relationship—and the orbit of toxicity around it—changed that. Starting over frightened me. I owned almost nothing. Not even a bed. And yet, I discovered that freedom is a powerful fuel.

I cried on my first solo trip to Target, buying only what I needed for my new place. Trash cans. Dish towels. Nothing aspirational. Nothing symbolic. For the first time in nearly eighteen months, the weight of fear and anxiety began to fracture. I wasn’t buying to soothe myself. I was buying to live.

As I settled into my new home, the ordinary began to call to me again. I wasn’t clinging to life anymore. I was living it. Time, which once dragged, now slips by too quickly. Twenty-four hours rarely feel sufficient for the small rituals that once sustained me.

Months earlier, trauma had robbed me of memory and language. Now, I remember—not through flashbacks, but as history. I write this with tears, not from sadness, but from pride.

Life cannot be splendid or curated at all times. Most of life is ordinary. And it is in discovering what we savor within the ordinary—and allowing ourselves the patience to heal—that mundaneness becomes grandeur.

_____

A companion reflection on moving on: And Just Like That… Samantha Moved to London!

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