coronavirus

A silver lining of the quarantine, the intentional go-slow of the Earth’s populace, is the chance to see something new in the everyday. A quotidian walk becomes utterly fascinating if I see the neighbor’s kitten in a tree, whose hunter’s gaze is fixed on a bird out of range. Or the new colors in the horizon at sunset that I haven’t been aware of or seen yet. Moving here in mid-autumn, every week has brought changes to the monte, the agricultural activity of our neighbors, and my feelings of staying put.

I tested out my microphone yesterday, recording a little bit to experiment in Ferrite. I plugged it into my phone, used Røde’s Reporter app, and used the normal white earbuds as monitors. Strangely, I don’t mind the sound of my voice, only the occasional cadence it takes. But talking to myself down in my basement is something I’ll have to get used to. I do want to have conversations with others as well. We’ll see what comes out of it. I’ve decided on the name Left Abroad. Hopefully a short episode #0 introduction will be released in a week.

There have been rebrotes, new outbreaks here in Spain. The Alcoa plant in Lugo is shutting down, en plena pandemia, laying off over five hundred workers. There is an uprising across the United States. I have a tendency to be digitally swept up in the fervor. But I have to remind myself to stay grounded, even in uncertainty. The future will be strange. But I’ll keep enjoying the new colors of blooming flowers, the shape of the clouds, and the warm air at night, because I’ve gifted the circumstances to be near to them.

It’s my Saturday today. I’ve been out on the terrace, watching the fig tree away with the breeze. There are more insects buzzing, snails crawling up the stone walls, and birds darting between the electrical and phone lines that surround our house. I’m also playing around with the vintage camera app Vooravo for some retro-looking photos around the house. I’m bored of photographing the same trees from the well-worn paths of the monte.

This is one of those weekend mornings that reminds me of my years in Sierra Leone; the unhurried day, the privilege of watching time and life of the village pass by from a veranda, the warm sun on my body, the ability to read as much as I want to.

Grateful and guilty, which has been a recurring tension during the lockdown. Grateful to have had the privileges and opportunities to organize my life in this manner, and guilty knowing that not everyone is so lucky. But I know I’m in my head a lot, and that guilt will lead to paralysis or unnecessary suffering.

I misread a quote from some article a few weeks ago. In my head in went something like;

The best safeguard to life under late capitalism is withdrawing from it.

But it actually wasn’t that, at all. It was a critique, that the privileged ones, the ones with an inessential, work-from-home job are the ones who can safeguard themselves from coronavirus.

I recently talked to a friend, a madrileño musician from West Africa with a similar practical philosophy. He mentioned the protests in barrio de Salamanca and the incessant material desires that nag certain classes of people in the capital. It feels foreign, otherworldly. That wasn’t always the case, but a product of half of my life, maybe started after they extubated me. Who’s to say. But I think it’s possible that most can come to the conclusion that infinite growth on a finite planet is illogical.

We can thread the needle, withdraw from the capitalist mentality without completely withdrawing from society like Christopher McCandless; plant a garden, reduce costs and discourage consumption habits, prioritize immaterial experiences, read books, go for walks, re-valorize the countryside, or enjoy voluntary frugality in the city. Flatten the curve of coronavirus and of climate change by socially distancing and driving less, flying less, removing animal products from my diet, eating seasonally and locally. Prefigure a better world by thinking, talking, and planning other ways of organizing life and social relations. Want less, need less, and perhaps work less because of those priorities and that organized withdrawal.

For now, I’ll “do praxis” by non-participation, as much as I can, and theorize by writing into the void, ruining conversations with family and friends by talking climate, and reading Bookchin in my hammock. And I’ll never forget to enjoy the conference of the birds on the phone lines.

I can once finally go outside in the morning with shorts and sandals. The weather is still a little cool, but it’s a pleasant change from always being bundled up for most of the winter, even inside our house.

A few weeks ago, I woke up to a smoke-filled house and a malfunctioning pellet heater. That scared us enough to not turn it on again until someone came to look at it the other day. We think there was a small gap in the pipe leading out of the ceiling and the ashes. Unclear if he solved the problem, but luckily we’re getting to the season where we don’t need it.

On Monday, all four of Galicia’s provinces will be promoted to phase 1 of the deescalation plan. Notably, Madrid will stay in phase 0. But here, we’ll be able to:

• gather in groups of up to ten people while maintaining social distancing. Luckily we have about four friends here plus their kids!
• drive in the van together. For the whole quarantine, we have separately driven down to town to buy groceries or to the post office and back up. We’ve saved quite a bit on gas.
• sit at a terrace restaurant of 50% of its normal occupancy. We’re both not desperate to do this, as we rarely ate out before the pandemic.
• visit the countryside and beaches in limited groups within the same province. The last few weeks with the warming weather, I’ve daydreamed of taking the van out and camping in the middle of nowhere once again. It’s been so long.
• use the gym, but not the changing rooms and by appointment. I finally developed a good routine of going to the gym before the virus came and I hope to be back soon, but I’ll be waiting much longer until things are calmer.

I expected to be in quarantine for much longer, but it seems we’ll make it out of this first wave and finish our different phases by late June. Other than possibly seeing a few friends from a distance here and my in-laws at the coast in July, I’ll be maintaining my social distant vigilance for quite awhile.

People who have never tried fasting before are astonished to contemplate not eating or drinking all day. But it becomes easier as one moves through the month of Ramadan. A rhythm is introduced; perhaps different than normal. Maybe your sleep schedule is different. You find something else to do during lunchtime. I find the change itself beneficial, especially during the quarantine.

I’m still being a bit stubborn. Other years, I’ve given up coffee for the month. This year, I didn’t dare think of it. In the early morning, I drank a cup (usually it’s two) before having the leftover vegan pizza from the iftar last night along with dates, cashews, almonds, cranberries, and homemade soy yogurt.

Spain is deescalating the estado de alarma with a series of phases. Each phase lasts approximately two weeks and gives more freedom of mobility to individuals and businesses. By late June, if there isn’t another big outbreak, spain will have transitioned into la nueva normalidad. There are still fatalities from COVID-19, however.

Even though it’s the fourteenth day, the 13th part of the Qur’an has one of my favorite verses:

“God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves.“ [13:11]

People who are skeptical of any religion or supernatural/unexplained phenomena in the world constantly wring their heads about why God would allow poverty to exist. But we allow it to happen. All the conditions are there for us to eliminate this, if people awake from their materialistic, individualistic stupor. We are connected to each other, our earth, and everything else within creation. We have the technology and resources to do away with poverty and cancer. We simply do not act on this on a big enough scale for us to achieve utopia in the here and now.

On Lamp of Islam, I came across a great response to the question of the mosque-goers during the pandemic.

God, according to the Quran, is not an external entity/deity that is separate from everything. He works through His laws, manifested to our perceptions as laws of nature… Though it is God who is the ultimate ‘doer’, it is through His agencies that He eventually actualizes His will to ‘do’ the things. On this particular occasion, when some people are dying from the coronavirus pandemic because of going to the mosques, the agencies involved in actualizing God’s will are mainly these people’s own irresponsible actions. The Quran relentlessly calls on us to act, to remember the law of consequences and to live so consciously that we feel morally accountable for our own actions.

Read the full response, along with cross-referenced verses.