It takes more than a couple of minutes to readjust mentally. No way to go outside your home, other than to get food or medicine, for at least the next two weeks: that is a new experience. Like, to a degree, being deprived of one’s liberty when one is imprisoned, perhaps, or exiled to some distant small storm-swept island like Napoleon ending his days on remote St. Helena.
Napoleon on Saint-Helena, c. 1820, oil on canvas, Franz Josef Sandemann (Image courtesy of Musées Nationaux de France/Malmaison)
But this is 2020, and practically the whole world is undergoing this same mental adjustment, at one point or another. We in the Western world watched in incredulity as coronavirus-afflicted China slammed all the doors shut and breathed fire on those who dared even think of breaking quarantine. Then finally Italy, then us here in Spain, and on we go, country by country.
So one takes stock. Everyone has a different situation, with young children, with jobs that suddenly require a room in the house being turned into an office-cum-schoolroom, with older people being unable to see family members… small apartments, big ones, homes with gardens, farms and the whole range of dwellings, suddenly full-time abodes.
Yet almost immediately wonderful things happen – the art of life. At eight in the evening, for instance, all of Spain emerges onto balconies and terraces to applaud the medical workers of the country who are the masked, gloved and gowned line of defence for everyone against the virus’ depredations. In Mallorca, all the ships’ horns join in the chorus, their distinctive booms echoing around the Palma harbour. At ten p.m., more applause, for the workers ensuring the island is supplied with food, medicine and other necessary items.
The habour, Palma, Mallorca, from Bellver Castle
Jokes fly around the web. Lots are about dogs and who can walk them, or potentially rent a neighbour’s dog to get out and take some exercise. Soon Spanish dogs are all going to be far fitter than their owners can be, if they are taken for numerous walks every day by a multitude of ‘owners”!
Unidentified lucky dog stepping out in Spain )image courtesy of Diario Veterinario)
Meanwhile, Whatsapp is full of friends sharing links to museums and their on-line riches, the free Metropolitan Opera performances amongst many others, free YouTube films and much more. People are going out on their balconies to sing opera arias, as was initiated in Italy and done now here in Spain, or to share an hour’s dance music with neighbours. Seeing the neighbourhood out on their terraces, in pyjamas, dancing their heads off for an hour, is something special!
This art of dealing with enforced confinement is a newfound art for most of us. Nonetheless, it is a time of immense possibilities for us all, of finding new ways to reach out to others, to create the best possible use of our time, whether it is making one’s home unrecognizably tidy, composing or listening to music from beautiful concert halls around the world, painting, writing, reading - so many activities that are not necessarily always possible in more normal, busy times.
Théâtre Graslin, Nantes
Originally created in the late 18th Century, Nantes' main opera house was destroyed by fire in 1796 and was rebuilt to coincide with an 1811 visit by Napoléon Bonaparte. It was restored again in 2003. It seats more than 800 people. Photo: Selbymay
As an artist, I find it of immense privilege to be able to go into my studio, sit down and draw in peace. Somehow this confinement period gives another wider sense of time, of innate peace; there is very little one can do outside nor very little over which each of us has power or influence. This helps feed into a creative frame of mind.
No wonder writers like Patrick Leigh-Fermor used to shut themselves off from the world by retreating to monasteries to write a book, such as A Time to Keep Silence. However, I am sure he would marvelled at the gift we all have: the World Digital Library.
Abbey of St Wandrille—Fontenelle Abbey, Cloisters and courtyard
We humans, despite today’s belief in the seeming need for endless hurly-burly days, descend from people capable of isolating themselves in remote, dark caves to paint on walls such as Altamira or Lascaux. All of a sudden, with internet, telephones, electricity and a multitude of other ways to live in coherent fashion, two, three, four or more weeks could become an opportunity for us to create and grow as citizens of a world that the coronavirus has reminded us forcefully is very inter-linked.