A beginning cold on the first cool weekend after the summer forced me to rest and so I did almost nothing but read and think. I was shocked how fast this year has already progressed, in the midst of all the work I hardly noticed that now summer is coming to an end.
The restrictions associated with the pandemic have not really threatened my habits so far. At the beginning of the very strict curfew, I took it more as a sign to (finally) finish all construction sites and projects one after the other, especially the restoration of a house. And I enjoyed the peace and silence in the village and how the nature that has visibly reclaimed its territory.
When we had to interrupt our construction work because we couldn’t buy materials anymore, the restrictions felt more like a forced retreat. I felt more and more disconnected from the “real world” and even all the hastily developed online exhibitions and art events didn’t work against it.
The more I “visited” online galleries and exhibitions, the emptier I felt afterwards. My life felt thinned out. I missed the physical experience associated with visiting exhibitions, walking through the city, sitting in a café, especially I missed traveling.
Admittedly, this is a luxury problem compared to the fears and needs of many people, but a slight panic was building up inside me that I might lose the possibility of having such experiences.
With the end of the strict curfew, friends and acquaintances returned and the encounters with them relativized my isolationist thoughts.
I found time and leisure and peace for a new painting, which expresses my thoughts described above quite well.