Hobbies

Over the past few months of being quarantined and social distancing, it would stand to reason that boredom would be inevitable. You can only rewatch your favorite show so many times before nearing the break of insanity. Odds are you or someone you know picked up or learned a new hobby. Some people left with unemployment turned new interests into burgeoning small businesses, while others just found solace in their new found passion — because, hey, not everything has to be about monetary gain. So let's take a look at some of these fun pastimes people picked up during the past few months.

Early on, when quarantine was first started confining people to their homes, panic buying skyrocketed, leaving many citizens without basic essentials like water and toilet paper. However, I noticed another phenomenon whenever I would comb the store for my weekly groceries. It wasn’t just the basic essentials missing from the aisles, but all the shelves with baking accoutrements were bone dry. For weeks, I scoured for a bag a flour with no luck, until about a month in I found one.

With that, I made my great grandma’s recipe for carrot cake, which all my friends devoured after my zero-contact drop offs. Clearly other millennials and citizens alike were watching too much Great British Baking Show or just needed to pass the time in the kitchen making baked goods. I can’t even recall all the loaves of bread I saw on my timeline when Coronavirus first started; which leads me to this perfect loaf! Made by Maggie in Melrose, she has become an expert bread baker with the help of quarantining. Maggie has always had an interest in the culinary arts - a self professed foodie, she figured, “why not give making bread a shot?” And as you can see, she makes one lovely loaf.

Maybe continuously eating and baking carb-heavy food doesn’t fit into your Los Angeles lifestyle, so you picked a new healthy hobby that got your body moving. With all this leisure time, you would think it would lead to laziness and more couch potatoes; however there seems to be a lot of people who now have the time to re-evaluate their fitness and health goals.

With little to no access to gyms, the focus on personalized workouts and different forms of outdoor fitness took precedent again. In the early months of Coronavirus, when being outside was deemed too dangerous for public health, short neighborhood walks became the only respite from a monotonous life indoors. For me and my partner, we would work from home during the day, and the only sun exposure we got was on our thirty minute walking route around our neighborhood. Since group sports are, for the foreseeable future, suspended, others have taken this time to develop other autonomous activities.

Alvaro, from downtown Los Angeles, featured in the photo below (left) started biking long distances down the Los Angeles river. At the beginning of quarantine he would average around seven to eight miles, now with months of practice and endurance he’s up to thirty — talk about a huge jump!

If you’re not into physical fitness, maybe you’re into face fitness — that’s right, face fitness, otherwise known as face yoga. Valerie, from east Los Angeles, (pictured above on the right) wanted to firm and tighten her face naturally. She found the practice on Pinterest and feels by practicing face yoga everyday makes her feel more awake and confident in the morning. Especially in times like these, hobbies that include self improvement can benefit your whole wellbeing by allowing yourself to accomplish and complete an activity.

If none of those hobbies pique your interests maybe something a little bit more introspective will. Many people used this time to reflect and flex their brain muscles in ways they weren’t able to pre-quarantine. I’ll admit this is not my strongest area. While I did attempt to read a book and make a valiant effort to restart my DuoLingo French account, neither of those activities really stood the test of time, and I quit after a few lessons or pages.

But unlike me, Dante, from Palms district, found a new love in mycology, or the study of mushrooms. He picked up a field guide from a thrift store and his love of mushrooms has led him to become an expert identifier when foraging. Reading also inspired him to write poems to friends which he send via USPS to support the cause!

Not a heavy reader? Maybe you’re into communing with nature. Another consumer good that seemed to all but disappear during early quarantine was soil and other gardening supplies. I’ve seen endless progress photos of my friends’ new tomatoes and listened to their all too rehearsed speeches about farm-to-table. I myself started growing lavender, mint, and some other herbs just so I too could experience freshness in my life. Azucena, from Los Feliz, decided to make her own garden paradise for her bedroom. She considered herself a great plant parent before but brought it to a whole new level with these wooden boxes. Now she can admire all her hard-earned parenting from the comfort of her bed.

Hopefully if you needed some inspiration to get out there and find a new hobby to fill the void of empty quarantine time, you found it here. Don’t just let the time idle by — make the best of it! Written By: Kahley Hickman