Fourth week with prohibition to go outside. In the last weeks I sat more or less around the clock in front of notebook, to manage homework for the whole school and then explain to kids and parents by phone how to use Office365 and teams.
I’m starting to feel like a tiger in a cage, I sleep terribly badly … I think I have to change my lifestyle … Now the EASTER HOLIDAYS are in sight… *ahahhaaaaaa*
Curfew? That means staying at home, only the most necessary courses, like getting food, are possible. Outdoor sports activities are not allowed. Nobody really knows exactly what is allowed and what not. It seems that you are allowed to move around in the immediate vicinity of your home … What is the immediate vicinity? How far away may I go? I wasn’t sure before, but now I know.
Yesterday – beautiful weather – I just have to go out. Exactly the same I want to do it, as in the last weeks rarely times: 300m away from the house I „hit the bushes“ and cross-country, on unmarked paths through the forest up. Pocket knife and bag with me to take care of the dinner. Delicious dandelion, served with potatoes in the skin. My body is longing for exercise, fresh air and sun. Earplugs and audio book and off you go! Along the road for a bit, then a hiking trail starts steeply upwards. I turn my head to the left, so as not to see the red and white striped barrier tape … Someone has probably torn it off and the remains are hanging in the bushes. Cheerful heart, how super beautiful hiking is. I didn’t know that anymore … one is satisfied with so little at the moment. Just passing the last house. Before me already the forest. I continue to climb briskly, listen strained to the voices in my ear, the story seems to become exciting. But some kind of noise comes over me. What was that? I turn around, and at the same moment, evil is in my mind. A dark figure comes running after me. I can guess it. A slight guilty conscience sets in. A forestry officer … Where are you going? – Oh, dear, what do I tell the good man now? A thousand thoughts collapse upon me… Truth? Yes, I decide to tell the truth… If only I hadn’t done that… „I had planned to plunge headlong into the forest and up to Karnol , the little church on that hill up there….“ „Don’t you know that’s not allowed? Where do you live?“ „Down there by the houses, I’m about 300 meters up here… You know…“ And I tell him the whole story about my current workload and that I absolutely have to get out of the house, otherwise I can’t go on … and what sense does it make to let people move only around their house, where everyone meets in a small space … and I, who go alone into the forest, am punished? If it goes on like this for any longer, then I can hang myself from the next tree, which I am not even allowed to go to, that is no longer a life and this restriction is so pointless. The officer pulls out his mobile phone, then he says „But don’t talk like that right away … there is counseling … psychological …“. Reinforcement is approaching, uh-huh – the colleague. I say that I did not mean it seriously and once again I am offering them my opinion in a very objective manner. And they actually agree with me, but unfortunately they are bound by the rules. And if everyone did so … I can imagine the scenario well: Thousands plough through the steep forest, mistresses in high heels, chain smokers, men pushing beer bellies in front of them … I would laugh out loud if the story wasn’t so serious. We can’t find a solution … I give in, so as not to make things worse, they would be right … One of them interjects: „Yes, if they hadn’t said they wanted to go to Karnol, but made a little round up there and down again … but now please go home again! „I will! Goodbye!“ (Ogottogod – better not – what kind of stupid farewell phrase is that …) I turn around and walk downhill. In my head it works. What should I do now? Go home? After 300 meters? This has nothing to do with not wanting to go home. I just felt the need for air and exercise. So after the first houses I turned left again, parallel to the hiking trail the next street up and at the edge of the forest over the promenade to the left … From a distance I can already see two bright points directed at me, the two faces of the fort officials … My thoughts turn somersaults. What will happen now? But hadn’t the officials said beforehand that if I wanted to make a round down here … that would have been OK, but Karnol up, no … That would mean that what I was doing was OK … it was only in the opposite direction … I walk past them, smile and wave timidly. No response.
Phew, over. Now I’m going to the next round. As I walk up the road again, the car of the forest guard comes towards me, the two passengers are turned towards me … They are over. They are lucky. But it was not nice … „hiding“ behind the Trunthof and lying in wait for harmless single „wanderings“ … at the edge of the forest, where fox and hen say good night to each other … Aren’t there bigger problems in the city …
I will run another three laps. Turn off and disappear into the forest? – No, that’s out of the question. On the one hand I feel right and at the same time my conscience is talking to me: If everyone would act like this … So I will stay at home for the next few weeks and be a good boy? No more secret excursions? No, it would be too embarrassing for me to be „caught“ again…
But I am thankful that I am allowed to walk at least in a small radius. But I can’t concentrate on the audio book anymore. But I calculate the following: Distance to the house 300 meters… that means a radius of 300 meters … Circumference – two times radius times π – that would be … yes, that would be 1800 meters per lap … with five laps then 9 kilometers… Each lap of almost 100 meters of altitude gain makes about 500 meters of altitude gain … It’s a good thing … One is not satisfied with much in these times…
Reading my story again … Every day I hear and see so many bad news in the media, stories of people who are much worse off, who have to fear for their lives and the lives of their families, who have to live for weeks with many roommates without a garden or balcony, who can no longer afford the necessities of life and I AM SO EGOISTICALLY … For the coming weeks I will take on the following tasks: I WILL STAY AT HOME. And after a friend told me about her experiences during a 10-day stay in the hospital … and what the doctors and nurses do … a sprained ankle really doesn’t belong there right now.
I’ve been doing that for over a week now… and only today I did my curfew rounds again.
But a worrying development is… the Watch Your Neighbor wave… A colleague was visited by the Carabinieri officials, because (probably) the dear residents are watching and denouncing …
Sorry if it’s written a little funny. Blame deepl translator…
