An online notebook — unfinished, evolving, honest.
by Yatan
It’s quarantine time. After three months in an apartment on the tenth floor in a city of nine million people, you might think I would start losing it. Sometimes I do feel like that.
Luckily I am with my mom and not alone. And luckily I am the kind of person who thrives on constraints and sometimes gets lost in too much freedom.
The monotony of staying in the same apartment for so long gave me the mental space to let go of things that had been worrying me.
The lack of possibilities to go elsewhere has provided me with a more detailed view of where I live than ever before.
I started noticing and appreciating the places that give me peace.
Every evening I lower the blinds before going to bed. Not with the intention of sleeping longer, but as preparation for the ritual of the morning.
Here, near the equator, the sun rises around 6 AM, and I naturally wake up around 6:30 or 7.
When I wake up, my first act is to look at the blinds and wonder what is behind them.
Then I get up and pull the small string that lifts them.
I tie the string to the hook, and slowly look to my right and up to see the buildings, the mountains, and on a good day the strong sun rising behind them.
There she is.
The mountain.
It is my favorite place to look. It hides and reveals the sun. It is a symbol of what exists beyond this city—present, but unreachable.
It gives me warmth, but also its back. No day looks quite the same.
Life beyond the city is there, on that mountain and behind it.
Although I cannot go there because of the quarantine, I can still long for it.
After contemplating the mountain, I take a quick cold shower and brush my teeth, to be fully awake for what comes next.
I get dressed in quarantine-wear (you know what I mean) and knock on my mom’s door.
It’s time for meditation.
While my mom is getting ready, I return to the living room and sit in my favorite place in the whole apartment.
The bench.
It was once just a random piece of furniture I never really understood.
Now it has meaning.
I sit and sample the moment.
What is sitting on this part of the bench like?
Where on my body does the sun touch me?
Should I open the window to let the warm air in?
The answer is almost always yes.
I move slightly along the bench, testing different spots, until my mom arrives.
Then we start a guided meditation.
Eventually the voice says: close your eyes.
The feeling of the sun intensifies as I follow the instructions.
On days when the sun is strong, this is the warmest moment of the entire day.
I feel the wood of the bench beneath me and become aware of where I am.
After this ritual I go about my day.
But whenever I see the bench—once a useless piece of furniture—or the mountain—the reason it rains so much here—I feel grateful.
They ground me.
They give me a small moment of peace every morning.
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