I live alone with my rescue cat. We share a twenty square-metre mansion in Barcelona. That’s my studio flat, which is now my bedroom, workplace, yoga studio, kitchen and living room. My bed doubles as a desk when I teach online, my laptop propped up on a cardboard box so students can’t tell I don’t have a proper desk. The bed has also become the place where I’ve started reading Tarot cards. I’m not sure I believe in them, but they give me stories, a glimpse into different types of emotions, conflicts, learning stages, moments in life. I am reminded there’s more to life than my four yellow walls and faces behind screens.
I have two medium-sized windows but no balcony. I can hear my downstairs neighbours in theirs, and I am eaten up by envy that they have someone to talk to in person, someone to share jokes and ideas with, while I haven’t shared a meaningful face-to-face conversation that didn’t involve screens in over a month.
Sometimes I escape to the communal terrace. It’s supposed to be off-limits, but those of us who have a key break that rule every day. I look at the stars and there’s an eerie, unfamiliar silence around me. I see people watching TV in their living rooms and I feel lonely. Then I look up and I recognize Venus. I have never seen it shining so big and bright. I can see Orion near it. They remind me that outside my little mansion there are other stories, other entities and matter, and everything in our little world will pass, one day at a time. It’s a strange comfort. It makes me feel better when I go back inside, where it’s nice and warm and a cat is waiting for me.