The Earth is Healing!
But can’t we co-exist?
It was the evening of February 29, 2020. A friend called to warn us about the recent Covid-19 development in Iceland — there had been one, the first confirmed case that day. We were scheduled to fly out the next day to Iceland for a two week vacation. We deliberated over the new piece of information, but honestly, hardly contemplated. Of course, we did our due diligence and looked at the States travel advisories and/bans the absence of either, cleared our almost-clear way to Iceland.
On March 2, 2020, we landed at the Keflavik airport, took our rental car and drove on. The country was sleeping under a thick blanket of snow. It was dangerously beautiful. Getting accustomed to the blue and white roads, soaking in cold mists rising from the partly frozen fosses, hiking the snow-clad mountains with crampons on, feeling the angry gusts of winds slapping against our faces, we made it to day 7.
It was March 8, 2020. We had reached the south-eastern part of the country, and there was a snow blizzard; an odd thing for this time of the year, our guide Adam told us. “But can we blame nature, we are the ones wreaking havoc on it”, he said. A group of 6 people scaled the glacier with a rather robust pair of crampons supporting us through the uncharted territory, and an ice-axe to climb the steep crevasses in and out; I clambered. The immaculately white untrampled snow, and the crystal clear ice crunched under our crampons, as we hiked our way up to the summit. We made it to the top, many of us conquered the fears and some of us, the majestic glacier. Adam brought up Global Warming. In 170 years, the glacier tongue has receded from there — he pointed to the distant shoreline, the drive from where, took us around 40 minutes. “The Global Warming is real and here”, he said. There was a genuine concern in his voice when he impressed upon the urgency to become sensitive to our earth’s needs. “She needs to heal”, he said. The fellow hikers threw in terms like, car-pooling, water conservation, eco-friendly alternate fuels, say-no-to-plastic, save earth.
But, what if the damage we have inflicted upon her is beyond repair; what if we have scarred not just the face, but her soul.
On March 12, 2020, I woke up to a call informing me of the Europe travel ban imposed by the United States, effective March 13, 2020. Frantic — and frantic is a mellow emotion to what we felt at that moment, we called the airlines to make rebooking, stuffed our bags, got the fuel tank full, and drove 600 kilometers straight to the airport. The airport was thronged with passengers flying out to the States. Every face reflected the same emotions — fear, uncertainty and doubt. We boarded the plane — it smelled sanitizer. But we made home, safely.
Our company had issued remote working guidelines; the situation was uncertain, and uncertainty breeds fear, which was quite evident from the empty roads to empty shelves at the supermarket. The American select favorite essentials were the first ones to be swept clean — toilet-papers and sanitizers made it to the top. Inconsiderate hoarding was/is the order of the day. National Emergency was declared a day after.
From that day till today, when I am writing this article, the world has changed dramatically. We are officially, living and breathing in the Pandemic-era.
From the busy schedules, we have moved to making schedules to keep us busy.
From what-are-the-weekend-plans, our question has changed to what-day-is-it-today,
The most elaborate travel plan we make today is to the grocery store, if at all.
From indulging in restaurants, we have resorted to cooking at home.
From celebrating every little happiness, we are struggling to find a reason for it.
High dopamine activity has given way to a forced dopamine fasting.
Lives are lost at an unfathomable rate.
Even worse, they are lost in isolation.
The feeling engendered from seeing “Papa” ringing on my phone has changed from happy, or more likely, mundane, to that of dread.
Livelihoods are uprooted in unprecedented numbers.
The perpetrators of domestic-violence are inflicting more damage than ever, while the victims have nowhere to go.
We have been socially-distanced.
The man is miserable.
But certainly, there is someone who is reveling in our misery.
Her air is clean,
And her distant mountains can see each other, after ages,
Her sky is clear, once again,
And she can gaze at her stars at night,
And watch her birds flocking to the lands they once loved, during the day,
She can hear them chirping,
She finally has clean water,
And is inviting dolphins to her much loved shores,
She is unburdened,
She is safe, the man is no more scarring her.
She is healing herself, after all.