The nation of Strangers…
“How has the world changed after Covid-19? Before and after. New normal. New reality”. How many times have all of us seen these headings coming all over the internet and TV? So, we are all pretty tired of it, but I want to talk about something different, something more personal and more “human-like”, something not striving for the ratings, but for each one of us, something that might touch you or not.
Let’s take a view back to when it all started, first closures, lockdowns and SMS-permissions in order to get out. The spring was taking its rights from winter, the weather was perfect, the streets were empty, people were so scared that even if they still could they preferred to stay at home. To be honest, I pretty much enjoyed that time. Me and a couple of my friends took the best out of that situation. We walked every day not recognizing the city we grew up in, it was so different, so majestic in its solitude. For the first time we could hear birds singing not only early in the morning, but also during the day and even at night. A little later the government decided to close the park entrances, was it a justifiable measure? Don’t think so, but we even accepted that and once again didn’t lose our optimism. We started to take walks around the area where we lived, fortunately we are all neighbors. That was a whole new experience. As we walked in the neighborhood, we saw the same people almost every day and we started to greet each other with a smile (those who don’t live in the US would understand how uncommon it is for us), we somehow felt the connection between us, as if we were like-minded.
Then came the total lockdowns… the hardest time so far, I can conclude now. Panic, I would even say hysterics. People literally demolished grocery stores buying 10–20 pieces of bread for two days, packs of buckwheat, tens of liters of water. And then what? On Mondays you could see all of that dried bread in the trash cans. For me that was the moment of revelation, the moment of realizing what herd instinct was and how the brain of the nations could be “washed”. I mean have you ever bought 10–20 pieces of bread just for the weekend? Why one would even do that, like Monday would never come and stores would never be opened again.
Never mind, life is like a zebra and the black lane is always followed by the white one. So, the quarantine restrictions began to ease. I remember the first day the restaurants were open I expected to see crowds and queues, but I was mistaken. There was absolutely no agiotage, life continued in the same rhythm, with just a slight revitalization. And that, I think, was a good sign, meaning that people are not “dependent”, and they can entertain themselves, meaning there is HOPE!
Time went by, number of infected rose up again and of course everything closed. This time I was not as optimistic as before. I very well remember the day it was announced that everything would be closed. For some time, I felt very desperate and tired. In spite of despair, I quickly pulled myself together. Then I finally got infected, COVID-19 in propria persona! Well, as I am writing these lines, means I am still alive. Anyways, let’s not deviate from the point. The whole time of restrictions I was looking forward to the opening, even arguing with my friends as some of them were pretty happy with the situation.
Drumroll – February 1st was the day! All shops and restaurants were now open. It was the third day of the “opening season” when walking on the Torgovaya street (downtown) I suddenly caught myself thinking that I felt like a tourist. I tried to peer in people’s faces in order to find something familiar. You know that feeling when you belong to a nation, you know its DNA, even when you are abroad you can immediately recognize a tribesman. Well, I wasn’t abroad, I was in my hometown and still could not find anything I knew, anything that was dear to my heart. People are different. People are unrecognizable. I wouldn’t undertake to state whether it is for the better or for the worse, it is just different. Time will show the rest. But I have to admit that for the first time during this year I actually wanted everything to be closed again.
I believe this situation is not over and won’t be over anytime soon. More restrictions and closures are yet to come. Everything happens for reason – if we take this as our moto, then we will learn to find a meaning and even positive sides of a situation we happened to be in. Seems like the whole world is on a “pause” mode and definitely it won’t be easy to get it started. However, we finally have time for ourselves and it is up to us to decide whether we spend this time complaining or turning it to our advantage. Everything is changing so fast now and as we are stepping into the “whole new world” we need to be ready both mentally and physically. I won’t state anything futuristic saying that there is already a list of professions that will die out in the nearest future. This means that we should use this time to learn something new, maybe to finally ask ourselves what is that we really want to do, who is the person we really want to be…
