What’s in your home ?
It’s 5pm in Algiers and everything is quiet. Everyone went home except for a few old men in beach chairs sitting downstairs hiding behind a wall. The coronavirus has forced almost a third of the world’s population into the same type of confinement. Ours starts at 3pm and ends at 7am, the 8 hours that the government judged necessary for work and grocery shopping.
I look out the window of my 15-stories home. I am amazed at the quiet. The city has never been this silent, this calm or this scary. I heard a woman screaming yesterday, I know what that meant. Everyone knew what that means. I look out at the neighborhood and on the rest of what I can see out there and I wonder, what’s in these people’s homes? Who is enjoying family time? who’s sleeping? who’s studying or working? Who is being abused? who can’t breathe because they have no space in the house?Who’s worried about their bills?
This is a tough time for our country. It’s a tough time for my people. They are too social and they all rely on eachother for their self-definition. When you tell them to distance themselves from others, they may be at loss of who they are. This is a time when we all look back in and wonder, what have we let in to our homes? And are our houses actually OUR homes?
When a man looks at his wife, kids, tv and maybe some other things the society told him is a house necessity, does he wonder if this is what he wants out of life?
When a woman looks at her kitchen tools, her makeup kit, her wardrobe and whatever golden jewelry she holds dear, does she wonder if she shouldn’t have listened to her cousins?
This is a time when we’re all rediscovering the objects, people, habits and ideas we have right at our homes. Surprisingly, we’re all surprised at what they are. I found out I’m good at shooting darts and that my brother grew up so much that we can hold a whole conversation. My mom found out my sister knows a lot more about cooking then she thought and that Facebook is fun! All these discoveries are superficial and the deeper ones are coming up every now and then too. What does my family mean to me? What do I want out of life?
This isn’t the first time I ask these questions but it is the first time I have so much time that I can’t run away and brush them off with quick answers. Having to stay inside the house makes you rethink all your previous shopping. Things you bought years ago suddenly show up to remind you of a self or a dream or an idea you abandoned a long time ago in search of a quick buck. Having to stay inside has made us all, suddenly, remember that life isn’t full of possibilities. It really isn’t. We have a set amount of time and energy. What we choose to spend those two on matters.
The confinement reminds you that what you choose to let in matters. What you keep or throw out of your house matters. What you let into your soul and what you let out of it matters. Procrastinating on a movie is one thing but procrastinating on an abusive husband is a crime towards yourself. Because there’s only so much life you can get. And we all owe it to ourselves to look back in and ask the right questions.
So, what did you find in your home now that you have to stay in it? What did you find in your soul?
Being confined while knowing there’s a possibility you may die or people you love may die is a very interesting social experiment that we’re all unwillingly taking part of. If you come out of it untouched, you’re lucky, but if you come out unchanged, you’re underutilizing your brain. So, again, I invite you to consider these two questions: What’s in your home that you have been procrastinating? what’s in your soul that you have been denying?
