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Glamping in a Bubble
I’m a really big fan of camping – in theory. I love the idea of going to sleep listening to the cicadas, waking up with the sun, and cooking meals over a fire. But in reality, camping and I have a difficult relationship. I get claustrophobic in tents, especially smaller ones that you can’t stand up in. Bugs love me. And I get totally freaked out at not being able to pee without going outside where I could get eaten by a bear. So yeah, we’re not a fit. Which is how I wound up in a bubble last weekend. There’s a bubble hotel just outside our town, about 10…
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The trauma of losing our normal
From the looks of my social media feeds, it appears that the world is in some kind of collective grief right now, specifically the first stage: denial. There is so much talk of “getting back to normal.” People are comfort-eating away the quarantine, just waiting for normal life to resume. I don’t think we’ve fully grasped yet that there is no getting back to normal. Normal doesn’t exist anymore. Having spent the past decade in various stages of trauma, and different stages of moving through it, I feel like I’m watching all my friends pass through this place. And for once, I’m kind of a step ahead. I think anyone…
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Spanish Lockdown Day 5: We Keep a Schedule
One thing I am realizing about this whole Forced Confinement gig is that you absolutely must keep a schedule, or you will lose all sense of time, and anything you had planned will go right out the window. You also have to get dressed, and when you live in a house with multiple people (especially children) you need breaks from each other. Living on top of each other 24 hours a day is hard, even if you’re in a large house, and you need some space and quiet time. Today we started our new schedule. The guy who owns Impact Gym in Marbella is doing daily kickboxing classes via Facebook…
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Spanish Lockdown: I go out!
Unimaginably bizarre. That’s how I’d describe the grocery store experience I had today. I was prepared for madness. I was prepared for crowds. I was prepared for empty shelves. What I got instead was silence, wariness, and everyone in gloves. Spanish people are huggers, and kissers, and generally very touchy people. They don’t do personal space very well. They’re also extremely loud. Go into any cafe at lunchtime, and you have to scream to be heard. So when I entered the Lidl here and was met with silence, it was freaky. I saw someone I knew, and instead of the customary greeting of kisses and hugs, we just smiled a…
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Spanish Quarantine Day 3: We make Inspirational Signs
We’re still on quarantine here in Andalucia, and they’re taking it pretty seriously. People at the beach on the coast are being given tickets for being out and sunbathing. A woman was fined for being in the park with her daughter. A friend posted on Facebook yesterday that he thought the restrictions weren’t going into affect until Monday, and tried to go for a bike ride, and got yelled at by three people including a police officer. He quickly rode home, shamefaced. We live out in the countryside, so it’s not as hard, but it’s still weird not having any structure to our days from external sources. There’s no school…
