Gonzalo Herman
07/19/2020 - 17:09
- Clarín.com
- Society
With the covid lurking, you experience a kind of reality chewing gum, which stretches and shrinks, which opens and closes. This seemed to be the last four months; 120 days. Lots, right? But for the reopening that begins this Monday - and it is not known how long it will last - people definitely stepped forward and went looking for the lost normalcy. It was a spring Sunday afternoon: porteños on bicycles, pedestrians in stroll mode, talks in the parks, men and women drinking coffee on the benches in the squares, couples strolling hand in hand and the happy bustle of the boys.
It is a sepia reality. Worn out by the disease. As a familiar eighties photo, of those kept in cardboard boxes lined with flower paper. A truncated normality. Wound. With closed premises and empty businesses. And with distant people, protected with chinstraps, trying to avoid contact.
That yes: movement without contact. Joy with silence. A city that mutated due to the pandemic, and which is now governed by the sound of an internal courtyard of a public hospital.
Lucia adjusts her flower stall. Carefully, she builds the showcase. Put a rose here, an orchid there. It had been two weeks since it opened. She says she is tired of the situation and that she needs to work. That he lives this reopening with relief, but that he takes care of himself because the disease continues to circulate. "I am not afraid, but I do respect. God protects us and thanks to him we will get ahead," he says with an open heart. "We all have to unite to get ahead. We don't have to let this virus destroy us." she adds, warrior.
After two weeks, Lucia opens her flower stall. Photo: Adrasti
He lives in Bajo Flores and came to work by bus . She says that this Sunday they did not control her. "There was no one in the bus," she says. He repeats that he feels relief with the reopening because "I was going crazy". "We have to go out, see people, we can't go locked up," wishes this lady who has just reopened her flower shop to make some coins to "pay the rent."
The unexpected heat and the feeling of a spring day pushed people even further onto the streets. Everyone's comment was: "There are many people on the street." "And how can there not be ?!" exclaimed Roberto, an energetic goalkeeper. "If we have been locked up for four months. Everyone is tired. They want to live," he said with some sense of justice.
Florencia was one of the people who took advantage of the heat to see a friend. Sitting in a plaza, enjoying the benevolence of the Sun, she expressed that "she was waiting for this day" like no one else in the world. "We went out for a little while to take a breath, as I did before, when there was no covid. I didn't see her four months ago," she said, pointing to her friend, who shyly fled to question this journalist.
The two friends were talking, sitting on a plaza bench. Drinking coffee and sharing their experiences in these four months of abusive pandemic.
Florencia allowed herself to be questioned and said that she hopes that the reopening will continue and "that we can quickly return to the normality that we lost with the arrival of the covid. You have to be aware and take care of yourself, but you also have to go out and see yourself, because if not , we are going to have a worse time, "he reflected.
Natalia was on the same plan as Florence. But in her case, she was visiting her father. She said that she misses traveling and hopes to do it as soon as possible. "I lost a ticket to Europe. I was leaving this month, two weeks. But with all this, I asked for the refund, which, by the way, has not yet been deposited."
He also expressed that "as soon as he can" he will go on a trip. "Over here, within the country," he explained. "My idea is to go south in September, obviously if the authorities allow internal circulation." He acknowledged that during these two weeks he went outside. "Always with protection and keeping distance. But the truth is that I cannot stay locked up in my house. And look, I do not have the need to go to my place of work, because I can solve it in my house."
Florencia went for a walk with a friend. Photo: Adrasti
Ricardo and María Victoria, from Venezuela, also decided to move the body and let the blood circulate again. "We are expecting something like this. Besides, with this day and this warmth, you cannot stay in the house. We had to go out," he acknowledged.
She commented that she works as a Yoga teacher from home but that she misses the contact with her students. "I hope we can meet again. To be close. To bond as before," she said. She suspects that this year will not be. "We are going to have to wait until next year to do that, because the virus did not go away and we have to take care of ourselves."
Roberto and María Victoria, in search of an ice cream, as in the old normality. Photo Germán García Adrasti.
In his case, Roberto, who works in logistics, expressed that he hopes to never use the chinstrap again. "If I could I would take it out right now, I don't because it would be irresponsible now. But when the virus goes away, or a vaccine appears, or allows it, I keep it in a drawer forever."
After these words, the two went down the street, looking for an ice cream parlor to enjoy a small room sitting in a square, as they did before, in the pre-covid world.
GS
