2020.05.14
letter home vii
hello friends,
spring has come and is threatening to go. time is doing strange things.
our apartment windows look out onto the forested campus of the Hungarian Institute of Fine Arts. spring came as an explosion, making our view an opaque ocean of green. now the temperate and soft spring is retreating to give way to the pure heat of summer. the air has begun to carry that promise of sweltering days to be only broken by warm thunderstorms.
it’s strange to reflect on our quarantine to date. this marks our 10th week largely stuck indoors (a figure I had to double-check just now, because it feels impossible). our morning commute is from bed to the kitchen counter. many of our human neighbors have left our building (presumably for more remote locales in the Hungarian countryside), leaving us suddenly more aware of the birds that live in on the 3rd-floor canopy of our street. we spend our days reading, baking, cooking, and avoiding thinking of an unknown future. we’ve been existing purely in the present for so long, it is hard to imagine life outside of the extremely small, comfortable, and boring world we’ve built.
so it is with great effort and gnashing of teeth, we’ve begun to plan our return to the states. we’re set to leave Hungary at the end of June, headed to New Orleans to stay with my mother, and from there to eventually make our way to Nashville. we hope to be able to return briefly to California this summer and to see many of you, but all plans feel cursory at this point.
I know that this time is strange for all of us and we hope that you are all keeping afloat amidst this dull chaos. I look forward to hugging all you again, someday.
with love,
sam