It’s quarantine time…
a perfect time to start blogging, and after 3 months in an apartment on the 10th floor in a city of 9 million you might think Id start loosing it, and sometimes I do feel like that. Luckily I am with my mom and not alone. And luckily I am the kind of person who thrives on constraints and sometimes gets lost in too much freedom.
Monotony ⇒ appreciation
The monotony of staying in the same apartment for so long, gave me the mental space to let go of things that had been worrying me, the lack of possibilities to go elsewhere has provided me a more detailed point of view on where I live than ever before.
I started noticing and appreciating the places that give me pleasure and peace.
Every single evening I go to bed and lower the blinds, not with the intention to sleep longer, but as a preparation for the ritual of the morning.
Here, near the equator the sun comes up around 6AM, and I naturally wake up 6:30-7M. When I wake up, my first act is looking at the blinds an trying to figure out what is behind them, second is to get up and pull on the little string that lifts the blinds. Third is putting the string around a hook and then, slowly, look to my right and up to see the buildings, the mountains, and on a good day the strong sun coming up behind it.
My two friends (and my mom) ⛰️
There she is, the mountain is my favorite place to look, she hides and shows me the sun, and is the simbol for what’s there but yet unaccessible, gives me warmth but also her back, no day like the last.
The life that is beyond this city, is there on athat mountain, behind that mountain, and although I cannot go there because its inaccessible due to quarantene. I can long for it.
After I contemplate the mountain, I enjoy a quick cold shower and brush my teeth, to be fully awake for what’s next. I get dressed in quarantine-wear (yeah you know what I mean), and knock on my mom’s door. Its time for meditation.
In the 5 minutes my mom is not ready yet, I go to the room again, and see my favorite place in this whole apartment.
????
The bench. The bench that was a random piece of furniture I never really understood the point of, now has great meaning. I sit and sample. What is sitting on this spot of the bench like? Where on my body does the sun hit me? Shall I open the window to get that sun-drenched air in here? The answer is almost always yes.
Now move to another spot, and keep testing till my mom arrives. And we put on a guided meditation on the speaker, the voice eventually says “close your eyes” and the feeling of the sun intensifies as I follow the instructions.
The days when the sun is strong, this is the warmest part of the whole day. I feel the wood of the bench and start getting aware of where I am.
Once I have done those rituals I go about my day. But whenever I look onto the bench (an otherwise useless piece of furniture) or the mountain (which is the reason it rains so much) I am grateful to have them, to ground me and give me a little bit of peace every single morning.