Huir hacia adelante

Midway through August, in the South Cone, we had only 12 days of sun - a sun that was barely a sun, exhausted and lacking drive - over the course of 76 days where the sky seemed boiled, a mass of low clouds, the exhale of a brain in a state of depression. Used to a sky of tense blue, with a smooth beauty that seems ready to tear, how could one not be infected by the atmosphere's mood?

People appeared remote and defeated, ensnared in a tangle of scarves and jackets, with drooping faces, as if they had spent weeks submerged in water or formaldehyde. From the lanes, a gelatinous humidity emerged, a reflection of the new habit of the sky. At times, a ray of light was glimpsed, but it was like seeing the glazed pupil of someone who has lost their vision.

For the first time in the last seven months, I was at home in Buenos Aires, gazing at a long stretch of weeks without travel. Suitcases were stored, there was no need to think about airplanes, trains, hotels, or shifting work hours. I wrote, edited, cared for plants, cooked, cleaned days of all obligations that were not those, like a gardener protecting their garden.

Through my study windows, I contemplated that drab and monotonous landscape, but there was a liking for the shelter, for the confinement, for what Voltaire called "the happiest of all lives", which he describes as "a busy solitude". Yet, in the background, I felt unease. It was like having a treasure without knowing how to use it.

Amid any situation - writing a foreword, finishing a soup - a warning would assail me: "You should be doing something else". One day, I entered the website of the company I fly with the most, opened my profile and saw that since 2016, I had made 11.94 trips around the world. And I understood everything. The uneasiness stemmed from having spent years fleeing what now gave me scope: time.