One year and counting

Yesterday it was exactly one year since my first quarantine post.

The day before we had decided to close the office, at least for a week, and then see what would happen. One year later I have gone back to the office not more than 5 times, and never spent any time there doing any regular “day at the office” kind of work.

But what a year, uh?!?

While quite a few of my friends in the UK are getting vaccinated, as of today here in Italy we are back in full “red zone” lockdown. Oh, and my flight back to London has been cancelled, so now I should fly back to London on May 1st.

London… I think I have been less times in central London in the last year than in the previous dozen years. It’s odd.

But I have definitely spent more time at home in Italy than in the last six years (since I moved to London). It has been good.

Red zone means that you cannot leave your municipality, unless you have real needs, and in that case you must print a permit in case you get stopped by police.

These limitations to movement between municipalities got me thinking about borders. A while back I came across this post from 2007 I wrote on the day Slovenia entered the Schengen treaty, and how incredible it felt when that border disappeared. We were just not used to borders anymore. Now I’m mindful of the borders of my tiny municipality, aware that if I want to leave it I need to carry some sort of pass (let alone travelling to another country, which is a much more complicated and in some cases completely forbidden matter).

Of course this will all go away soon enough, but I think that I will be even more mindful crossing borders (especially when I will have to cross the border to the UK for the first time after Brexit).

Keep calm, get vaccinated and carry on.