Skye Parrott- Photographer and Editor -in-chief Playgirl magazine
What do you do and are you still able to do it? If not what are you doing on a daily basis?
I’m a mother, photographer, creative consultant and most recently, Editor-in-Chief for the relaunch of Playgirl. Mothering never stops, so of course I’m still doing that. The pandemic has put a pause on the Playgirl relaunch for the moment, which is disappointing because I’ve been leading a great team who has been working on it for almost two years. The first issue is done and was supposed to come out in April, and I don’t know when it will now. I have one consulting project I’m working on, and as a photographer I’ve got some odds and ends, mostly licensing requests. I really feel for my clients who are trying to figure out how to create content and communicate in the near future, and even more so those who have small businesses and are trying to figure out if they’ll be able to weather this. It’s thrown everyone into such disarray. I wish I were feeling more creative personally, because I haven’t had this much time to myself work-wise in quite a while, but my head just isn’t there. I’m sure the three children at home aren’t helping, and the worry, as well as not being able to travel or see anyone, which are primary wells of creativity for me. I was going so stir-crazy that I decided to enroll in school for the summer, so I start a remote program in June.
Where are you social isolating and with whom? How is it being home with them all the time?!
I’ve been isolated with my partner, Jeremy, stepson Stig, who is 13, two daughters, Oona and Nova, who are 8 and 3, and Yara, who helps us care of our kids. My family has been living for the past two years in a little surf town on the Pacific coast of Mexico called Sayulita. Our plan was to spend two years here, and we had been planning to leave after this school year. Of course those plans, like all plans for everyone in the world right now, are up in the air. Our town has been completely closed off for the past nine weeks by a local vigilante group. They have both entrances to the town blocked so tourists can’t come in, the beaches are closed, and all the restaurants and shops are closed except the food markets. There’s no Covid here yet, so we have felt very lucky to be in this little bubble for the time being. In the past three weeks we things have eased up a little. Some of the restaurants have started to do takeout. We’ve started to let Oona ride bikes at night with the boys who live next door, and Stig is allowed to go shoot basketball.
Do you have a routine you try to stick to?
Yes, absolutely. I cannot function in a state of perpetual vacation, and I don’t think it’s good for my kids to not have a routine. They do much better with structure. As soon as the shutdown happened, I pulled them out of the school they’ve been attending in Sayulita and put them back into (remote) school at the schools they previously attended in New York. I wagered that NYC public schools would get it together with remote learning faster than their little school here in Mexico, which turned out to be the case. We’ve been so impressed and grateful for the programs their schools have put together and so in awe of how hard the teachers and administrators are working. Yara is with Nova until she takes her nap at 2. I have never been more grateful for childcare in my life, and so aware of how lucky we are to have it—to the point where I feel bad writing it here because it feels like such an incredible good fortune. Most of my friends are without any help or release valve of any kind, and having been there in the past I have nothing but empathy for how hard it is. During the day Yara usually takes Nova out to walk or ride her little bike. The big kids do their school work. Jeremy helps Stig and I help Oona. I have an office here that I used to go to every day, but now it’s more like two days a week. Mostly right now I work from home, juggling my own work with helping Oona do hers. She has a question every five minutes or so. Afternoons, especially late afternoons, are harder. It’s already really hot here and you can’t really leave the house, not that there is anything to do anyway. I’ve been doing a lot of puzzles with the kids, but most of the time the kids end up doing devices in the afternoons. Everyone, myself included, has been using devices a lot more than I wish, but I try to be easy on myself about it, given the state of the world. I feel like this is a time to try to be easy on everyone. Our evening routines haven’t changed much. Dinner, sometimes we go for a walk on the beach, and then it’s bath time, and the best time of the day: bedtime.
Do you get dressed in the morning or stay in your PJ’s?
I have been self-employed for many, many years, and have worked from home for much of that time, so I ALWAYS GET DRESSED IN THE MORNING. It is my experience that I will go completely insane working from home if I don’t get out of bed, put my clothes on and make some semblance of a routine for myself.
How are you finding the juggle of home schooling and trying to work?
I hate it. I have known some families that home school their kids and while I have envied the freedom it gives them, I have never once thought, I should do that. Teaching is not one of my skills, especially not teaching my own kids, and especially not while also trying to show up for my own work. This experience has just crystalized the immense gratitude and awe I feel for my children’s teachers and schools. Trying to do everything all at once makes me feel like I am falling short everywhere, a feeling I am constantly fighting right now.
How is your life and your headspace changing as the weeks of isolation continue?
The first few weeks were incredibly hard for me. I have traveled constantly for years, and it is a big source of joy and inspiration in my life. Even the past two years living in Mexico, I’ve gone back and forth from here to NY constantly, sometimes spending a week or two there each month. Movement is one of the ways I deal with myself, and the combination of having that movement grind to a halt so suddenly, and then not even being able to leave the house, sent me into a psychic tailspin. The sense of absolute uncertainty was a major extenuating factor too. The combination of those things really spun me out, and the first few weeks were very hard. I indulged some of my worst habits, which are basically reading news constantly and trying to think my way out of whatever I’m experiencing. After a few weeks of that, though, I feel like I hit a wall, and finally reached place of acceptance. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. No one does. So I can make myself insane trying to figure it out, or I can let go, and be present in the moment I am in right now. I can’t do both.
What frightens you the most about this, do you have ways of calming yourself?
I’m not going to share all my fears with you here, because 1. you all probably have the same ones and 2. I can’t even let my head go there. Sufficed to say, I can be scared of anything all the time if I let myself, and this situation has provided plenty of opportunities to imagine worst case scenarios, big and small. Instead I can tell you what I do to calm myself. I meditate. It’s the only thing that shuts my head up. I talk a lot on the phone or on FaceTime with friends. And I look for opportunities to be of service. Where we are in Mexico, the entire economy is based around tourism. There are so many people who live day-to-day, and as soon as tourism was shut down they had no work. I’ve looked for every chance I can find to be of service to my community here, donating to and volunteering at the local food bank, giving food and money to the vigilante group that has blocked the entrance to town, helping the school here to set up a remote fundraiser, and checking in on friends and neighbors who are older and don’t want to go out, shopping for them and helping them set up their technology. I’ve looked for opportunities to be of service to my New York community, too, donating prints to every fundraiser that has asked. I've welcomed every chance to be of service, not only because it’s useful, but also because I know that thinking about other people is a really effective way to not be obsessed by my own worries.
Have you managed to find any silver linings?
Of course, there are silver linings everywhere if I want to look for them. I’m grateful to get to spend so much time with my kids, and not have to be away from them every few weeks for work. I’m grateful that I’m able to be of service to those around me. I’m grateful that I’m in this little town in Mexico, where I not only have access to great food and nature, but I’m also able to directly help people I wouldn’t even know if I were in NY. I’m also grateful for the opportunity for growth this provides, even if I hate it in the moment sometimes.
People are saying this is a time for real change both personally and worldly. Do you agree and if so how do you see your life changing from this?
I don’t know yet. I am definitely not diving deep into my creative practice or anything like that. I’m a serious reader normally, but my attention span has been so shot I’ve read only one book during this whole time. A lot of what I’m doing feels like triage, both personally and for my family. But I know that I’m changing through this - how could I not be? Even just walking through the discomfort is going to lead to growth. And it has been an opportunity to think more deeply about what kind of life I want, although we have been doing that for the past two years here in Mexico, so I thought I had answered that. But I guess I needed to think about it some more!
Are there any conspiracy theories you subscribe to?
No.
If you were president what would you have done differently?
See: Jacinda Ardern
Using the color chart below please tell me in general what colors you are feeling. It can be a whole rainbow if you want or just one…! And please add any colors with feelings that have not been included.
Red- angry
Yellow- scared
Green- inspired, this is giving you time to reflect and/or create
Blue- sad/depressed
Pink- happy. You see and focus on the silver linings.
black- doomed this is hard
cream- you feel no difference
orange- over whelmed
pink, yellow and orange