It's been 51 days that we've been confined. An indecipherable time, in which good days follow bad days and the mood is even more fluctuating. When, like Alice in the book, I give myself good advices and saying "live one day at a time" or "it shall pass", beside the "patience" mantra repeatedly over and over, I even get to take a deep breath and wait that each day happens as it should. Not just because I’m aware that my situation is far from being the most difficult: I have a roof over my head, my children under the same roof, a loving companion and a table that does not know starvation (not to mention two cats, who comfort me through their unshakable calmness).
But there is a factor that is getting heavy each day, and when I look for an image to describe it, all that comes to me are "tied wings". It’s been 51 days seeing the same landscape and if, at the beginning, it was good to hear the symphony of spring birds again, to watch the leaves of the trees rise after the long winter, to see the flower buds open and to suffer from pollen (ah, rhinitis, you can’t forget me even now!), in these last days these things got a little still. The leaves have already become known, the birdsong is calming and the flowers begin to wilt.
I live in a small commonhold, but it has a quite large green space — with the birds, trees and flowers I just mentioned above — and I can move around it freely (always respecting the nasty social distancing gestures), but a few days ago this hasn’t been enough for me. I want more, I'm hungry for more! I feel like taking my feet and walking straight ahead until they get tired, any direction I choose. I joke that I'm living in a Swedish prison and going down to take a small walk is the same as sunbathing.
You see, I know I'm unfairly complaining . I’ve never been in prison. The closest I got to being stuck was in a hospital bed (and that’s bad enough), but I insist: I know I have a relatively privileged life. Of course, I’m lightyears away from being part of some economically privileged caste. My probabilities of having a more than six digits in my bank account is one in 19 068 840 but it decreases to 1 in ∞, since I don’t play lottery, but often I think about those who has less than me, those who live in under dictatorships or where poverty is extreme. Nope, I know I have no reason to complain (which does not prevent me from taking a critical look at public policies or our society, but that’s not the topic of this text).
What happens to me is a genetic problem. In my family we have the nomadism gene. Since we were little we moved of house or city with a certain frequency and in adult life I kept this itinerant spirit . So far I can count since my birth, 21 movings and among them 7 different cities and 2 countries.
At my parents' house, when we couldn't move away, we changed the layout of the furniture and the house was never the same from one year to the next.
So many comings and goings obviously didn’t bring only joy. It was hard to change schools and leave all my friends behind and try to reinsert myself in groups that existed before.
But the taste for the new, for the discovery, for new landscapes and new faces remained in me, implanted and absorbed as part of myself.
I’m part of that group that, when thinking about what I would I do if I had a lot of money, responds without hesitation: I would travel!
On weekends it’s not unusual for us to get together in the car and take a stroll in the neighboring villages. And when it comes to a day at the beach? Oh, my, this is on the top list!
Each new place enchants me by its diversity of culture, people, nature and history. And these images accumulate in my mental repertoire, helping me, in difficult times, to keep hope and serenity until the storm passes.
Everywhere I went — and every penny saved allowed me to go far places, from Portugal to Japan — what I noticed, every time was the same: under the varnish of our specific cultures, we humans are all alike, . And understanding that makes me love life and people even more (I confess that some people I love from afar, and for some, truth is that I can't, but these are very few).
Then I'm back to the 51 days. I haven't seen my friends or the rest of the family who live nearby, other landscapes, other people in “live broadcast” for almost two months now… and this is becoming heavy to bear.
Okay, we all agree to some degree that social distancing is the bitter medicine that will help the world avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. I, who have convictions that allow me to face death with resignation - a natural process; when I think that we can avoid death if there’s a hospital room and a ventilator to assist the sick ones until their body regains control, I come to an obvious conclusion: of course I can give up my comfort and of course I can silence my restless nature to contribute modestly to the common wellbeing.
Nonethless ... it's not easy. Perhaps because all this effort to maintain life is driving us away from life itself. Close to the heart, but away from the eyes, the hands, the hugs and the sonority of the sharing laughters, which is never faithful through the screen of our electronic devices.
But I already have a plan: when this is all over — because it will be over, this is an inexorable truth. Nothing is permanent!— I'll take my feet and walk. And I'm going to visit my friends and I’m going to see those at my reach right now. And as soon as the dark clouds and lightning have calmed down, I will spread wide my illusory wings and I will fly again, in search of food for the soul.
Until then, it is very likely that I will end up moving — again — the furniture in the living room! But it doesn’t matter, since this is all I can do for now.
As for you, who got to this conversation, what is your nature: bird or tree? Whatever it is, I'm sure you will enjoy listening to this song and traveling with me a little while