I’ve been coping with being house-bound much better than I expected. As an introvert, I’ve trained myself to be comfortable and content with my own thoughts and surroundings. I have been told that this is an inherited trait from my father — the ability to accept and sink into the present reality without fuss.
On this particular Sunday, however, the sunshine filtered into my apartment a little too temptingly for even me to resist. I was also tired of having consistently eaten my standard breakfast of dry toast with tahini or soggy overnight oats for the past two weeks, and I started to crave a buttery, flaky croissant.
It was meant to be just a quick trip to the small French bakery next door. I threw on a heavy coat over my “indoor clothes” and ventured outside. The burst of fresh air that hit me as I stepped out was akin to jumping into a cool, menthol flavored sea, and I realized how badly that I had needed this.
The boost to my mood did not last long, however, as the glass window outside the bakery displayed a prominent sign that they were closed due to the Coronavirus outbreak. It was the same story with the family owned Greek restaurant, the Thai massage parlour, the Gelato shop and the orthopedic shoe store nearby. It was a jolt back to reality from the temporary high — my feelings of being cooped up were immaterial when compared to how the situation was upending some vulnerable people’s livelihoods. Reading about affected people doesn’t quite compare with seeing in reality that perhaps the kind-eyed old man who runs the Greek restaurant, or the cheerful barista who regularly serves me coffee were being forced to make some very difficult choices.
At the bakery chain outlet a few blocks away, the door was propped open, and the customers were standing in a queue with a good gap of a meter between them. The unusually cheerful cashier quickly served me my croissant and coffee. I could not bear to go back to my apartment right away, so I decided to have my breakfast in the nearby park.
The main abnormality in the park was the red tape cordoning off the tiny playground with its solitary slide and swing-set. There were joggers, elderly people sitting on the benches, toddlers riding scooters and young families watching the ducks in the pond. The ping-pong tables that were usually in high demand stood empty and unused. Everybody seemed determined to soak up the last remaining dregs of normalcy before life changes into something unrecognizable for the foreseeable future. We Berliners are not known for our neighbourly charm, but there was a stiffness and wariness in all of our demeanors that made me wonder if a permanent chasm had opened up between us all.
In myself, I observed the unusual desire to sit on that park bench, doing nothing, munching away at my breakfast, not feeling any urge to scroll through my phone or put on my headphones. I had unwittingly had two weeks of detox from the real world, as everything I did I predominantly had to do on my phone or my laptop. Now was the chance for my senses to get a fill of the real world — the sun on my face, the wind rustling through my hair, the sparrows hopping around the bench I was sitting on. I had nowhere to be but here, nothing to do but be present, on that bench, on a Sunday, with the remnants of a world we are desperately holding on to.
If in the weeks before, I observed denial as the dominant mood in the general population, I can say now that I noted a range from defiance to cautious optimism. There are a myriad of studies on the scientific and the economical aspects of this crisis, but it would be interesting to study the human behavioral angle as well. Collective strength and social living has helped us humans thrive so far, but now it has changed into a test of individual resilience — how long and how well can we live, with hardly a meaningful connection to the society we have formed, while also looking nervously over our shoulders for an invisible enemy? Is this new normal going to slowly chip away at our sanity, or will we summon up enough courage to overcome all odds?
