When I was a little kid, we didn’t fly to a beach in Thailand during summer. We didn’t explore Columbia, Indonesia nor Mexico. We stayed at home and traveled in our minds, houses, and gardens. We played with sand and water. We watched films. We sang songs. We made drawings. We were bored. We chased chickens. We explored the forest and made detailed maps of it. We played hide & seek, again and again, and again. We built houses with blankets. We stayed there for several nights until we had it with the mosquito bites :)
I was really lucky, growing up with a big garden, a sandbox, animals, a playhouse, and a big forest next to our house. A brother and 2 sisters and always friends & family visiting us. While the adults were having political discussions around the campfire at night, we were exploring life with a huge amount of freedom and trust. And it felt amazing. The most important thing for me was that. The freedom and the trust we got, and the endless belief that ‘everything would be alright’. And that was more than enough to have a good time. We didn’t need to travel to faraway places.
Today, in these corona times, it might be a reality for a lot of us coming summer. That we have to travel in our own houses, gardens, neighborhood, heart & minds. And I do hope, that we can all do that with enough freedom and trust. For and with each other and ourselves. And even more, that we stay hopeful. That everything will be alright. No matter.
Take care, lots of love from Quarantaine Land.
Marieke, Ghent, 19.04.2020
