Tadpoles

I'm not sure if you saw it, but it was above the fold today in the NYTimes: here in Spain, we were allowed to go out for a walk.

Doesn't that seem weird? I don't know where you are in the world, reading this, but here in Spain, they've been taking this Covid stuff seriously, as they should. When things got out of control, they locked IT DOWN. No leaving your house unless you are going to directly visit some emporium of essential goodness. A grocery store, a pharmacy, a tobacconist, and dry cleaners, for some reason, as if any suits need pressing in the age of social distancing. 

But, today. Exercise time. Last week, it was the kiddos under 13 who got some free-range. One hour a day. Today, Saturday, we adults were allowed the same liberties and got some time to leave our front doors behind.

What did I do with my hour? I have a feeling you'll see the path I took, the roads less traveled (so to speak!) in great detail in the days and weeks to come. I can't tell you how much I've missed walking around. 

I live in a VERY rural area, so during my trek, I encountered not a soul (except for a shitload of sheep in a pasture and one very old Great Dane). And on my walk, I was reminded of many things... Flowers blooming like madness; disused fields, surrounded by Roman-era walls; a few new cutaways from the beaten road.

Aside from deliberate relocation, it has been illegal for me to leave where I live, until today. I'm a homebody. But the simple fact that even going outside my front door could incur a €1,000 fine has been impetus enough. 

Until today.

I missed it.

My hamstrings burned as I thought about new (in)sights that only come outside the door. That this whole time has been, no matter where you live as you're reading this, a sort of madness. What a terrible, revolutionary thing it is to be restricted the one thing that makes us most human: our social-ness?

So, without that, what do we have left? Those times left with our own thoughts? I know some of you are first responders. Some of you provide essential services. Some of you are easing your way back into work, in a perverse landscape. Some of you are gonna stay at home as long as you can. But you know what I'm talking about... This time. This, right now... 

This is the first time in all of our lifetimes where we've had the opportunity, at one revolutionary point or another, to actually sit down and take stock. The world moves so fast nowadays, doesn't it? 

But, this. It's a time where we're forced to sit in silence. The bars are shuttered up. 

I have a feeling, as sedentary as I've been, that I will look back on this time with a pang of regret... that I didn't DO enough with this Me Time. That I could have mastered something. That I could have emerged with a set of skills greater than my ability to boil dough, dabble in ink drawings, perfect squatty TicTok dances in the shower, or keep up with the Joneses, 

Don't worry about what you've done with your time... I'm only speaking of my own experiences. We don't talk enough, in a good and encouraging way, about mental health, a thing that I struggle with myself. So I don't want to make anyone feel bad. 

But, since we are still in the very middle of this in so many ways, it's something worth at least blurp-ing about.

So, today, I took a walk. God. It was nice. I actually forgot what grass and cow shit smelled like. There are flowers with bright, weird-shaped petals, and tomorrow, I'm gonna go out and press some between parchment paper in an old big encyclopedia book that I'll carry with me. 

And on my way back, today, at least, I found a puddle in the road. It'll be evaporated by tomorrow, what with the sun that pleasantly coincided with the lifting of restrictions. The critters around the edges of the puddle won't be very lucky. But the birds have already come along to pluck them up. You can tell by the footprints. Survival of the fittest. 

Nature operates outside of most viruses, and even more sanctions. And in this puddle, in the last couple of days, there must have been a frog — maybe Frank?! — who laid some eggs. Life, as the more gregarious of Attenborough brothers said, finds a way,