Lockdown “detox” style
Now that I’ve shared my first few stories about my move to the Med let me share some of my lockdown experiences and begin with the apartment I moved into on December 1st, a few weeks after my move to the island.
I was to rent it through April. My landlady was in Bali for the winter teaching yoga & breathing workshops planning to be back in April for when the season kicks off here. It was a sweet small colorful jewel box, a one bed with 2 terraces decorated Bali style in a charming gated community comprising of 64 apartments just outside of Santa Eulalia, a busy year-round port town on the northeast side of the island. I found this charming apartment on-line from my kitchen table in Brooklyn Heights, the same day I found a great gal to sublease my Brooklyn apartment. It was all looking divinely timed and mapped out for me to take this sabbatical. I knew I was on the right track.
Settling in well to my new life and exploring some of the healing modalities this island has to offer. I had just completed a 2-day course on Integrative Quantum Medicine. Fascinated to learn about quantum physics and everything I believed in — that we’re all made up of energy and the power of the mind can heal the body. Everything the documentary “Heal” was about and a big part in me changing my life. This was powerful stuff and I was enthralled with the learnings. I was loving my downtime to explore the things that fascinated me.
Just finished the course a few days when my son, Connor came over. It’s mid-March, my first visitor, on his Spring Break. I was beyond excited to show him my new world. Meet my friends, eat at my favorite places, and explore together. We shared a wonderful week. It went by too fast, we packed in so much. The last few days were somewhat stressful as the island was gearing up to go into lockdown mode. He was one of the last flights of the island and out of Madrid when America was closing the country to incoming flights.
Before he left I put him to good use. Stocking up on water and dry supplies taking advantage of his strength to hoof the many 5 gallons bottle of water up the 2 flights of steps to my door. Saying goodbye to him was so hard. No one knew what we were dealing with or how long we’d all be kept apart for. I was back to being alone in the apartment. Lockdown came in harsh & strong.
One day it was life as we all knew it, the next we couldn’t leave our homes except for a doctor’s visit or the supermarket. It felt intense. I couldn’t access the beach which was a couple of hundred yards from my balcony. The place turned into a ghost town. Children weren’t allowed out of their homes those first 7 weeks! An empty silence by day, no children’s voices to be heard. Only the sound of the cars honking their horns in the evening to honor & celebrate the healthcare workers.
It was our 2nd Sunday of lockdown. I’d been home now a good week & I took it on myself to head down to the pool to take in some vitamin D & a new view. A few hours to read, socially distancing around the pool would be good for me. I was starting to feel like my apartment walls were closing in on me. I headed down through the lush gardens to the communal area, I spot a few other neighbors, they had the same idea. We’re all doing our thing, some doing yoga, some chatting and a few like myself just reading. No one in the pool, it’s not warm enough yet. I settle in for a good read and some fresh air. The next thing I hear, a helicopter fly-by. I pay no heed & go back to my reading. A few minutes later I hear a lot of excitement. I look up and see some of my neighbors running away with their yoga mats. I thought they were playing catch or hide & seek and thought how cute! Not realizing that we’re running from the Policia National, who had entered our property — entered our gated community! It was literally minutes after the helicopter had passed over. It had never dawned on me that they were this intense about us staying indoors. There were 2 of them. I just remember looking up from my book, one is headed straight towards me. I was frozen. I can still hear his boots crossing the gravel. A tall vision in black. Head to toe in black — boots, masks, helmut, gun the works — it was like something from a Star Wars movie, he was right in my face. He yelled something in Spanish that I understood fully by his tone — to get indoors & stay indoors! I was off that sun chair in a flash, grabbing what articles I’d taken with me. Running back to the apartment, my heart was pounding. I remember him following me back and shouting to a neighbor who was out on his balcony, 2 levels up having a coffee, being yelled at to get inside. We couldn’t even be on our own terraces! It was very scary and very real.
I got home and was rattled for hours. On a zoom call to my family later that evening, I had a hard time containing the shock of my experience. I was numb. But I was one of the lucky ones, I got a warning and I got to run. Some neighbors had to go down to the station that evening to collect their confiscated, bags & phones, the belonging that had been taken. They got everything back with a hefty warning of a “multa” aka a fine if they were caught out again. It was outrageous. It put the fear of God in me. That afternoon looking up and seeing the trooper come towards me triggered something on a deeper level. I just wasn’t aware of how much it affected me till a few days later.
After some nights of sleeping badly, due to a pain in my right shoulder, that I’d passed off as a pulled muscle, I couldn’t get comfortable in the bed. That along with the collective energy of fear I was tapping into and feeling very isolated on the island. Told to stay indoors and keep our windows shut, something on a deeper level was triggered in me. I tried not to pay much heed to it, but, I was definitely off.
I noticed some redness under my right breast and later that evening after showering I noticed small red-like blisters all over my right side, under my chest creeping around to my back. I was burning up. It was the start of adult chickenpox. I had come down with shingles! It was a brutal experience. I didn’t have a car then, as I’d had to return my rental just before lockdown, and I didn’t have the energy in me to walk the 1+ kilometers into town for a pharmacy. I was really knocked out by the illness. Nites were the hardest, blisters on fire and them bleeding, made it hard for me to get comfortable under the sheets. I hated those dark never-ending nights. I remember one of them being so out of it, body burning, aches all over and me sitting on the window seat, shutters wide open looking up at the moon, it was around 3am. I couldn’t sleep for love or money. Glass of wine in hand, delirious from many nites of no sleep & anxiety of where our world was at. I was definitely fighting my own demons on a cellular level. My immune system had been triggered big time that day the police came onto our property. Something from a past life was awakened, big enough to bring this virus onto my body. Big enough to affect my auto-immune system, detoxing from the energies of my old life in NY to the new energies of this island. Those first 6 weeks in lockdown had me very isolated from my old world and with so much uncertainty of when things would resume back to normal.
My April move-out never happened as my landlady couldn’t get back from Bali. I was fortunate to stay on longer in that little jewel box. So thankful for the front terrace that I crept onto daily, hiding from view to soak up the sun, meditate with the birds, and surrender to the Spanish lockdown rules I had no control over. And thankful for the few wonderful neighbors who looked out for me. They fed me when I was too ill to boil a kettle, came daily to put creams & oils on my back that I couldn’t reach, and kept my bed linen fresh all the while creeping around the complex to help me out. I was feeling very safe and protected, in the right place with the support I had around me.
It was some way to start my shedding. Detoxing all the old energies out of me to allow the new energies of this island to settle in. Looking back now I’m thankful I was able to release them all. Rather have the toxins out of me that in me. My journey of healing on many levels was just beginning.
