La Voz de Galicia – September 24, 2021 →
I have not yet learned the rhythm of time in this pandemic year. All that happened to me before March 2020 seems to have occurred an eternity ago…As if it were a chapter of a book of a previous life that has nothing to do with this one. As if there were two different persons: the one before March 2020, and the one from after. And on the other hand, the decisions I’ve taken since the pandemic began seem to be with me all my life even though they supposed a radical change in my way of understanding my relationship to time: not everything has to be done in a rush, nor everything has to happen now.
The other day, I stopped to pick my mother up to go to a loved one’s wake. I stopped the car at the Praza do Ferro, and because one cannot park there, I called her by phone to tell her to come down right away. But two minutes later, my mother came out the window holding a cardigan in each hand and yelled, «This one or this one?» I got out of the car, signaled «That one,» and returned to the vehicle. And then Maruxa opened the window again. Now it was two shirts, and she didn’t even call out; she stuck them out the window and I signaled that one I thought was best. And I thought that at that pace, we would arrive later than we had thought. And I was suddenly startled because I didn’t even care: «What’s the rush?» I mumbled.
And then Maruxa took out a bunch of scarves, looked at me and said nothing. And I cracked up with laughter, that kind of laughter for which one is grateful when one only feels like crying and I shouted: «Take them all, mom–we’ll choose in the car.»
And Maruxa came down, and we went to the wake. And I was moved again thinking about how beautiful that moment was. And how important it is to enjoy moments of waiting because magic happens when impatience disappears.
