Trapped by Corona. The Mindset Conceiving the Next Trip. (4 weeks into lockdown - April 2020)
Warsaw, April 11, 2020
(4 weeks into the lockdown)
A prisoner in his cell – he maximises space subject to constraints. Pacing up and down. Letting his eyes travel up the wall to the ceiling, through the bars to the source of light, of smell, of sound, of freedom, of boundlessness, of space unlimited.
On his daily walks in the prison courtyard, he walks around the outer perimeter, parallel to the walls, sometimes in their shadow, sometimes throwing his walking shadow on their bleached-out colour of vagueness, of non-descriptiveness. Above him a rectangle of blue sky. Shuffling feet before and behind him.
I have never been to a prison. ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ (1994) with its heroes Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, and their dream of freedom, is as close as I ever got. And it would be entirely delusional, self-pitying and egocentric to equate the current lockdown of four weeks and counting, the closed-down borders, the parked airplanes, the interrupted train schedules, the move to ‘autarchy’ in solving the global pandemic health crisis and its economic ripple effects of tsunami dimensions, with the freedom- and companion-depriving confinement in a state penitentiary.
And yet – the mind tries to come to terms with this sudden, proliferating, omni-present, apparently interminable restriction of movement, of social contact, of freedom to choose, to meet, to talk face to face, to hug, to laugh loudly together, to do sports together, to listen to performers or musicians or actors or buskers.
It moves from disbelief, anger and denial, to self-resignation, to accommodation, to daily self-prep talks, to containment strategies, to copying mechanisms, alternating between acquiescing in the new state of being, to seeking to find its positive sides, to encounter joy in the quotidian beauty of flowers and trees blossoming in spring time, before succumbing to sorrow, grief, a sense of deprival, to emotional isolation, to anxiety and depression – before switching on the flame of hope again, making plans for the future, counting forward to scenarios of ‘exiting’ the lockdown, pinning hopes on flattening curves and encouraging changes in daily mortality statistics.
It’s an enemy you cannot see, cannot touch, rarely meet, and yet it is all powerful, pervasive, unyielding, oppressive, menacing – so much so that we yield before we ever catch sight of it.
We are isolated from our friends. Unable to let our hearts and lungs do the talking. Forced into yet more digital communication, when our working days are already inundated with phone calls, video calls, WhatsApp calls, zoom videocalls, emails, WhatsApp’s, messages, and looking at rectangle screens in so many forms, speaking into the air like the members of a lunatic asylum.
Never have I had more international working days in cyberspace: starting with China in the morning, including Hong Kong, moving to Warsaw, London, Stockholm, Helsinki, Madrid during the middle hours of the day, shifting hemispherically westwards towards NY, Texas, Washington DC, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Rio, and Santiago de Chile in the afternoon and evening hours. So connected to so many colleagues and friends, on a daily basis, and yet at the same time quite alone, talking to my air in my enclosed space.
So the mind wonders a little – has my master gone quite mad? Is this the new normal? Do we have to accept this as the new given? Will someone eventually call an end to this folly? Will we still be the same if and when that happens? And what will come afterwards? What relationships will survive this ordeal? Which businesses of my friends will have survived?
Some have more degrees of freedom than others. Globalisation has favoured some professions more than others. And while I have never considered it a privilege nor an attribute of elitism, my cosmopolitanism, my linguistic capabilities, and my professional luck of following a global investor to far-flung places populated by people of cherished idioms and with friends scattered among them, I have taken advantage more than most of the world that is my oyster, of inexpensive air travel, freedom of movement, public order and functioning institutions and infrastructure. Based in the regional backwater of Warsaw, which just 30 years after the peaceful political changes ushered in by the round table in 1989 is - in its officialdom - politically moving back to the middle ages (although for every misstep by the current administration, a proud freedom-loving Pole is fighting back, as my friend K just pointed out to me). Living lives in Barcelona and London, with sojourns in Santiago de Chile and Bogota, and many places in between – as if it were second nature. Dropping in on Barcelona friends for a game of padel, and a fiesta, wining and dining with friends in London to my heart’s desire (when not working there), dropping in on friends in Montevideo and Buenos Aires for asados and laughs, not missing out on NY, Tel Aviv, Italia, and all the friends there.
So yes, I feel grounded, and the change in lifestyle is drastic, radical, of umbilical-cord-cutting proportions. I feel cut off from my friends, shut out of my former life, detained in preventive custody until further notice. So the mind starts wandering (with an ‘a’), to travel to seek outlets for Fernweh, for Wanderlust. Like Alexander Humboldt, when after his formative Latam voyage in 1799-1804, he had to stay at the court of the Kaiser in Berlin for many years before finally embarking on another far-flung voyage (to Russia, in 1829); the recent biography entitled ‘The Invention of Nature’ on this foremost scientist, polymath, and inventor of many fields of study including climatic zones by Andrea Wulf was one of the best coping mechanisms with being grounded.
If one cannot travel to the afar, maybe the anear will suffice? An idea was taking shape a couple of weeks ago, slowly but surely. It has escapist features, no doubt. It involves two wheels. It tries to emulate a Spanish trip done three years ago, in May 2017[1], and retraces some first Polish steps taken in 1984. But what the heck! (Stay tuned.)
[1] https://www.menschenfreund.pl/menschenfreund/spain-motorcycle-blog-day-1-alicante-550-km-south-of-barcelona
Rearing to go …
