Life in the Time of Corona Part 9 - Easter Sunday
There is a large part of me that wants to drink gin instead of afternoon tea, climb to the top of one of our neighbouring rocks and yell profanities at the top of my voice. Another part of me wants to strip naked and ride, Lady Godiva-like, through the streets of Granada. I won’t; indeed, I can’t so you are spared both treats.
We have had enough of all this now. I have almost lost count of the number of weeks we have been locked-down here in Spain; I think we are about to enter our fifth week. The 26th April seems a long way off, and even then there is no guarantee that we will be let off the leash.
We are trying so hard to carry on as normal and I am sitting here writing this being stared at by an over-enthusiastic chocolate rabbit who looks just a little bit too pleased at the thought of being chomped later this evening. It’s the Easter weekend, and we have a roast dinner lined up, lots of chocolate, cut roses on the table, but it all seems so superficial somehow. Facebook is proving to be something of a cruel mistress, waking me up with reminders of memories from a year ago, two years ago etc. This morning, I was reminded that we were having breakfast in the gorgeous village of Pampaneira with Andrew’s father, John, here for his first visit. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, we enjoyed tostada con tomate and coffee before venturing off to wander around the neighbouring villages of Bubión and Capileira. That seems like an eternity ago, and we seem to find ourselves in a parallel existence without visitors, without visits, maintaining the outward appearance of ‘being alright’.
Pampaneira, April 2017
Given the circumstances, we are alright. The relentless cycle of bad news tends to become too much sometimes. Like many, many people, we have no income, very little money and no immediate prospects of earning anything. The goalposts get moved further and further away, as predictions seem to indicate that no-one will be travelling anywhere for the remainder of 2020. In the meantime, I get moments where I feel like a fugitive hiding in a dark and secret place, scarcely able to breathe, while a sniper pops off individuals all around me until no-one else remains. I strongly advocate setting social media to one side, and turning off the radio to avoid hearing the news, but I still have a perverse fascination to know what horrendous comments, half-truths and non-apologies are being emitted by those people supposedly leading our families and friends out of this crisis. One of our neighbours in the village wrote a long thought piece on Facebook about the need to set political division and criticism to one side. ‘Suma, no restes’ is what he wrote: ‘add, don’t subtract’, and I though that was so pertinent. Instead of chipping away at everyone and everything around us, let’s think about what we can give back.
We both would love to think, along with many other people, that this might be a time for redress and rebalance. We would love to think that companies will realise that their employees are immensely valuable and can be more productive working from home, instead of having to spend hours commuting to some unnecessary and soulless office. Is it too much to hope that we will return to a much more community-based existence where we know everyone in our immediate vicinity, and we look out for one another. Perhaps we will continue to make sure our older neighbour is OK, and drop in some cake from time to time. Instead of rushing everywhere, because we have been made to believe that rushing is a sign of our success and importance, we slow down and say hello to people that we meet along the way. Nature has started to claw back at the life we have taken away, as we selfishly pursue some materialistic utopia that turns out to be just a mirage. Just being able to stop and hear nothing but birdsong is a revelatory experience and reminds us that we are not the only ones here. When did we get to be so selfish? How did we end up believing that what we do, as human beings, is beyond reproach and essentially the right way? Who made us so unbelievably arrogant?
So, when all this does eventually come to an end, what do we do? Please don’t force people to get back on life’s putrid underground train, or dirty bus, to be belched out into some meaningless vacuum of a job. Understand what it is that makes individuals productive. Work, I am afraid to say, is not the be-all-and-end-all; there are far more important things in life like family, friends, neighbours, nature, sun, clean air, trees. It’s interesting that, here in Spain, no-one is remotely interested in what you do for a living. You are not categorised by your job title, the car you drive, the size of your house or your postcode. These things are just not important. Here, a job is a job and everyone who has a job is grateful for just being employed. Productivity, even here, is something that is being assessed, but the priorities are much more about family and community.
Of course, we need work to generate an income so that we can enjoy our lives, but there is a balance. There has to be a balance, and it is a tragedy that we have to endure something as bloody awful as Covid-19 to be reminded that there are more important things. It is horrific to realise that it takes the lonely death of a relative, in a hospital surrounded by masked strangers, before we understand how important people are to us.
I had hoped to write a slightly more uplifting post this time around, but it is sometimes hard to see beyond the prevailing sadness towards a happier place beyond. I really hope that there is a happier place beyond and we don’t revert to type or else I feel that the tens of thousands of people who have lost their lives to this foul disease will have, somehow, lost their lives in vain. Despite the analogy being used by so many commentators, this isn’t a war; it isn’t about some vainglorious survival-of-the-fittest stoicism. It is affecting everyone in some capacity - a son who has lost a mother, a family that has lost a child, a single person alone in their flat struggling with a depression that threatens to consume them, a grandparent concealed behind the sterilised walls of a care home vaguely aware that family appear beyond the glass like fleeting phantom images of a life gone by.
There are days when I want to scream that it will all be alright, just to convince myself and those people I love. That’s quite possibly why I make, and we eat, so much cake because it is our way of reassuring each other that things are OK. The simple things in life, beyond the four walls of our home, often seem beyond reach. Walking down a bustling street in Granada, popping into our favourite bar for a beer and tapa, giggling with our neighbour over the state of the hens’ laying capabilities all seem completely elusive - the juiciest fruit on that branch just our of reach.
We haven’t got that regular life at the moment, so I will put on my walking shoes, tuck Alfie’s treats in my pocket and disappear into the campo for my moment with nature; my own rebalancing when I can just put things in perspective. I will try not to yell obscenities and I will certainly keep my clothes on.
Happy Easter and keep those people you love as close to you as you possibly can.
