Sheltering in place by myself. 

The lockdown started in Buenos Aires on March 18th, since then I have only left my apartment to buy groceries once a week, and for some medical check ups.  I live by myself, my neighbors are a couple in their 30s. They fight all day, their child cries a lot, a few days ago I could hear the man saying "you made me do it" and she was crying. Now I feel I have to be in waiting mode, trying to find out what's going on behind the wall. Am I being nosey? I don't know. Every 27 hours a woman is murdered in Argentina. Crime rates decreased during the quarantine  but violence against women and femicides increased. 

I'm at home and I'm safe, I have a job and my loved ones are safe too. And if I miss human touch I just have to remember this, all the love I have got in my life is the reservoir that gives me strength in difficult times. But sometimes it’s hard so I do things trying to avoid the sadness, so I bake, I do yoga, I read, and sometimes I write. At the beginning it was impossible, it was such a huge interruption of “the Real” (as the Lacanian concept, the is defined mostly by what is not, it’s not Imaginary and it’s not Symbolic, and writing has to do with that)   but now that we are getting used to the new reality I’m writing again. 

Yesterday I heard my neighbors, they were having a noisy argument. In the afternoon I saw her from my balcony, I tried to make eye contact but she kept her eyes down. Maybe next time she will raise her head, maybe next time I could tell her that I’m here, next door. 

I guess she is afraid of being alone, as I am, as we all are.  How to deal with loneliness has been a great struggle during these months. The cup of coffee that I have with my friend standing on the sidewalk when I go out to buy groceries has become the only face to face interaction that I have had. 

But the remote support of my friends and family has been crucial, in fact I wrote this while I was talking with Jimena Repetto, the other mentée from Argentina, we set a deadline, and cheered each other to finnish the task.  I know I have accomplished it because I have the support of a friend. Because the best of this project, that has made me write more and become a better writer I think,  is that it has also brought new friends into my life.