The Fernie Museum encourages you to journal your experience of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
All of us are making history every day as we experience these current events, and it is important that we value those experiences enough to document them. Journaling is a great way to share your personal experiences with your loved ones and future generations, whether those experiences be now or other events in your life.
With other museums, the Fernie Museum is promoting a series of steps and questions that will help you to focus on your life experience specific to the pandemic but is not meant to limit the topics you decide to explore while writing. We want to encourage all writing that reflects upon your personal history and experiences, no matter the topic.
1) Set up a regular day and time to write. This can be once a day, or as little as once a week. Scheduling ensures that writing becomes a habit.
2) Find a comfortable space where you can focus without interruptions.
3) Choose the medium that best suits you: handwritten, typed on the computer, audio recorded, or videotaped.
4) Plan on writing no more than a couple of paragraphs per entry.
5) Focus on a different topic/question for each entry, keeping in mind that, as time passes and your experiences change, you can go back and readdress any previous topic.
6) To get started pick one of the questions listed below, or choose your own topic.
- How has the pandemic affected your work/job and how do you feel about this?
- How has the pandemic affected your home life (for good and bad) and how do you feel about this?
- What are the challenges you are facing as a result of the pandemic? How do you feel about these challenges?
- What activities are you doing to keep yourself and others in your household busy while sheltering in place? Describe how your daily life has changed or stayed the same?
- Describe activities you are doing outside and what you see or hear while outside. How do you feel about what you see or hear?
- What activities or special events are you unable to participate in because of sheltering in place? What are you doing instead?
- What is your experience when you go out to get needed supplies? Where do you go and what do you see/experience as you are out and about?
- Did you get tested for COVID-19? If not, why? If so, what was that experience like?
- What news are you reading/viewing about the pandemic and how do you feel about this news?
- Has weathering this crisis made you more or less optimistic about the future? What do you think the situation will be like in four weeks, three months, a year from now?
- What, if any, experience of illness occurred in your family while sheltering in place? How did you react? How/was the illness resolved?
- If you were to curate an exhibit about your feelings and experience of the COVID-19 Pandemic right now, what objects in your home would you use and why?
- What are you learning about yourself, your family, your community during this crisis?
- How do you think local, provincial, and/or national leaders are handling the situation?
7) Pick a new question or your own topic for each new entry, but feel free to go back to previously addressed topics.
8) Continue to write about your experience!
Whether it is just a few entries or an entire book, we would love it if you shared your COVID-19 Experience Journal with the Museum. Please email us at info@ferniemuseum.com if you are interested in having your memories featured in an upcoming exhibit.