The government finally decided they’d let us take the kids for a walk. Following the 1111 rule, of course – that’s 1 adult, for 1 hour, 1 kilometer away, once a day.
Thank God.
Cause, you know, Confinement starts getting on your nerves after a while. You may start strong, but eventually lose that initial enthusiasm to catch up with old projects, revisit old friends on that new videocall app, try new recipes and even (God forbid) publish in social media. To be honest, I even lost the passion to write about travels past.
Whatever. Now everybody is arguing with everybody else about how poorly the government did. 9 pm caceroladas sound angrier, while balcony to balcony bingos and karaokes grow few and far between.
And your colleagues start getting cranky and developing existential crises. I’m not meditating lately but I’ve learnt to be patient and wait it out. It’s simple: quarantine is no time to make any serious decisions. I’m sorry, it ain’t. Mostly.
But then it happened. I was out for no practical reason – no grocery shopping, bakery or pharmacy. And I was out with them, my life-in-the future. It was sunny and the countryside was in full bloom. They were reluctant to change out of their pijamas, but eager to explore once outside.
And damn they looked good- the oak trees, the flowers. Like nature saying, no need to travel far, no need to pollute to no end in order to get from there to here, from here to there. Beauty is everywhere and accessible on foot.
And damn my kids looked pale after being housebound for so long. But they looked good on those paths that I had assumed would be covered in dogshit because only dogwalkers go there, plus who would ever wanna go there when you can drive to so many great places where huge dogs won’t jump at you?
They weren’t. The paths, I mean. Covered in dogshit. And we only found one dog – he was on a leash.
It felt adventurous, avoiding ant nests en route to a secret cabin.
Next time we’re going in, I told my daughter. Not today.
Gotta save some excitement for the next trip – there, or maybe just a tiny bit farther!
B-Side Travels 