Well.. And then the world changed. Came to a standstill and toppled over.
Nearly exactly a century after the last time something like this happened. We, in the rich west, had forgotten that such things are ever a threat, and obviously so.
Here in Ottawa, Ontario, a state of emergency has been announced, the bridges to Quebec and hence Gatineau and Hull, usually the other half of the city, are shuttered. Most shops except grocery stores, tool shops, alcohol stores, tankstations and pharmacies are closed, and the streets are eerily empty. Last time I did groceries -last week- the line for the entrance of the grocery store snaked, with everyone dutifully two metres apart, past the building into the parking lot (I was early, just after the dedicated hour for the elderly) Papers are haphazardly tagged to several shelves: “Due to the Covid-19 situation, we will only allow an x number of x products…”
The border with the USA is closed, there are nearly no flights to Europe anymore. Had you told me at new years’ eve, when everybody was phoning everybody and wishing them a happy new year, that three months in, this would be a thing and we’d be looking at projections of millions of people dying worldwide this year before autumn, I would have looked at you incredulously. I might have laughed. I might have said: “Oh come on, World War three is not *that near!
And here I am, at home. I miss my new studio terribly. I had just moved, in February, one floor down to a bigger studio with the Enriched Bread Artists, and that space felt like home already two hours in.
Now, I am in the attic, with just my drawing stuff -no room for big painting here- and find myself near unable to work. Mainly because my brain is still in overdrive from what is happening.
The new queendom, where I long to return to. (picture is from February)
This newshunger, combined with horror, is slowing down now, luckily, two weeks into our social distancing, my brain is mashed to a pulp by all the news, all the numbers, the projections, the opinions, the hope, the fear, that I follow from The Netherlands as well as Switzerland and Germany, and for Canada my now temporary home. I feel I am starting to turn away from it, there is only so much a brain can take.
And now, now that the whole wide world is in quarantaine -or at least, everybody in the world who can afford to be in quarantaine and stay home, I am clutching my heart for the southern part of the globe- there is not much more to do then fight the boredom and turn to drawing.
I might make more Monkey Kings than Hannah Arendts for the foreseeable future, I presume. And use this time to go search for new series, new subjects (which will be related to my forever subject: humanity’s madness) And watch the pure madness unfold on my screen.
Be well and safe and healthy out there. I wish you all strength, joy, resilience and hope.
The least we can do is to make this a turnaround in society, in the way we deal with ourselves and our economy and the planet we are on. The time is now.
A new Monkey King, waiting to be numbered and added to the stock.
Newest Hannah Arendt, who smokes yet another one and will keep on smoking these glorious ideas of these humans that react, adjust, and abuse power in a way she described crisp and clear already many decades ago. This crisis immediately brings various people and nations to similar attitudes and behaviours. It is really unsure how any nation will fare, which way they will go, and how. All is open now, like a proton in quantum mechanics. Any of us could go whichever which way, be taken up by any wave rolling over us.
