Coronavirus lockdown: Day 7 inside Barcelona.
“May you live in interesting times”.
I forget where I read this, but whatever the origin or interpretation, there can be no doubt that we are all living through them right now. If nothing else, we are all unified by that fact.
It’s now Day 7 of lockdown inside Barcelona. I anticipated that this week would be a roller coaster of emotions and it was. But once again, I’m writing with words of reassurance for those of you who have not yet reached this point.
On Monday 16th March we entered the first official day of lockdown, although as I previously wrote restrictions really began on Sunday. Things had accelerated quickly, and the transition was pretty much a binary one. The weather also rose to the occasion, with the usual sunshine and crisp March air being replaced by dark clouds and rain.
Jen and I decided to walk down to our local supermarket mid morning before things got busier at lunchtime. I’ll be candid and tell you that I felt a level of apprehension as we set out, as I wondered if the shelves would have been stripped on Saturday after the announcement. Like other countries, Spain had had its fair share of panic buyers amid the uncertainty. On Friday night a friend had shared a video of what appeared to be panic buying in a large supermarket — though I have to add that the main focus of the video was a family who were walking around with plastic bags on their heads. That’s never a good strategy for safeguarding respiratory health in my opinion.
What I hadn’t expected though was to have to wait outside the supermarket in a somewhat confused and disorderly, but patient queue. This wasn’t due to volume of people, but due to the restriction of how many people were being let in at a time. The staff member on the door monitoring things was wearing gloves and a mask, and as the rain dripped from our hoods it really started to feel like we were in an early episode of a Netflix series. Once inside, all the staff were wearing the same protective gear, which was of course sensible but incredibly surreal. There were also hand written signs taped up everywhere, reminding everyone to maintain a one metre distance from each other, and payment could only be made by card.
However, although some items were visibly depleted, there was plenty of food available including fresh bread. There was even toilet roll…on special offer. If you were hankering for a pizza you were making do with frozen, and if your pasta taste leaned towards farfalle then you were slumming it with penne, but there wasn’t anything that I needed that I couldn’t get. One interesting aspect of the policy in limiting numbers which didn’t really occur to me until afterwards was that there was an overriding sense of calm. No one was taking big numbers of specific items, and everybody behaved with great courtesy and consideration of each other in the store.
I’m not sure how well I’m able to convey the surreality of the experience at the time. It was undoubtedly the strangest shopping experience I’ve ever had, and it was a watershed moment for us both in knowing that however much things return to the norms of old, our outlook will never be the same again.
Yet this is where it feels very interesting for me from an experiential point of view. Part of the reason I feel I’m unable to convey the surreal nature of the experience I know we had and felt is that now, only 6 days later, shopping in this way feels normal. Yesterday the sun was back and I went to get our shopping for the weekend. This time the queue was much more orderly, but also bigger as clearly lots of other people had the same idea. My initial reaction was to turn round and head back later, but I realised that queueing was now a golden opportunity for cranking up the outdoor time.
The other thing that has flipped round is the perceived chore of dog walking. Whereas previously we would debate and negotiate as to who was putting in their fair share of the task, now we’re chomping at the bit to take them out together. Dogs are now the new bling in Barcelona, and if you have one, you’re quite the man about town. Well, about barrio at least.
As we could have predicted, the people of Barcelona are rising to the challenge of lockdown, and finding ways and means to make the best of the situation. At 8pm every night, the whole of the city continues to take to their balconies to applaud the health and medical workers. In doing so, everyone is taking the opportunity to smile and nod to the neighbours they’ve never previously spoken to. I’m sure this is the same throughout the rest of the country, and I believe Italy is the same.
On Thursday evening, we were walking the dogs (show-offs that we are) when we heard loud music from a neighbouring street. As we turned the corner, a DJ was playing from his balcony and had just dropped ‘Billie Jean’ to the loud cries and applause of his neighbours. On both sides of the street, they were all out on their balconies dancing. I considered throwing a few shapes, but I thought that might be taking the piss a bit from our VIP area of the dog walking pavement.
As I said though, it has been a roller coaster emotionally, with our sense of stability and place in this new world fluctuating throughout each day. That’s of course the same for everyone right now. We’re at pains to keep up to speed with what’s happening here, and what’s happening with the UK; both nationally and with friends, family and the clients we work with. But being in lockdown has continued to provide, for me at least, an increasing sense of stabilisation. Emotionally I might be trying to control a large kite in a heavy wind, but the lockdown has anchored my feet to the floor.
While I continue to have concerns over the length of time things will be this way, and huge economic and social challenges ahead of us, at least for now I no longer worry about food supplies. When everyone’s main opportunity for getting out of their homes is to shop for food, it’s a task that everyone ekes out over several trips. I know from speaking to friends in the UK that panic buying and a shortage of some goods has continued to be an issue this week, but from my experience here I feel confident that if you move into lockdown, this will be one thing that will quickly become a less of an issue.
The key takeaway I really want to convey to you is this: However surreal and bizarre things may feel right now, trust me, as a voice from your potential near future, they will normalise quickly. We have been, and continue to be, the most adaptable species on the planet.
Let’s also keep things in perspective. We may find queueing outside a supermarket initially disarming, but while we queue, elsewhere someone is walking several miles to fetch a gallon of unclean water to drink, cook and bathe with. That person also now has a new disease to worry about. This knowledge is a strong note to self when I reflect on how I felt about shopping on Monday.
