Human Connection

Since my last post I have been sleeping better. I have studied a lot. I have gotten in contact with good friends. I’ve cooked and eaten a lot and stopped worrying so much about the planet.

JULIAN

I live with Julian. He is the monster of the house. He is light and dark. He makes me laugh and have fun in these times. He is in pajamas. That's how we've spent most of the time. We take showers whenever we feel like, we sleep later than we should, we sleep more hours than we should, we take breakfast in the evening and lunch in the morning and Mondays feels like Sundays with him. 

SARA ACOSTA GOMEZ

I spoke with my friend Sara in Colombia to see how she was doing. I haven’t seen her since I left Bogotá to move to Malta. Sara is one of the best people in my life. She has been with me before I even realized. We are friends since we were just babies. We grew up together in Colombia and studied together in school. We have been separated physically for a year but are always together in our friendship. 

Sara has been an artist all her life. She is 25 years old, and one week before the quarantine began in Bogotá she moved out from the comfort of her parents’ house to a rented room in the southeast of Bogota. She felt that she had finally found a bit of stability with her job and she took the risk, but once the quarantine started the government policy and concern for the health security of her parents meant she couldn’t return home. 

In the professional life of a musician, there is never something fixed or stable. A lot of Sara’s students at the music school where she teaches stopped taking classes. She told me that this year there will be no more concerts and presentations. For her, music is the greatest gift. She can’t imagine her life without music, especially in isolation when she sometimes feels alone, sad or worried. Music is her medicine.

For Sara it is evident that the world is not going well. The economic model is not working and a big and deep change is necessary. She has realized that she doesn’t need many things to live in harmony, but “now the world is on fire and we make more fire.”