In quarantine with Samira Tremiño
Where in the world are you?
About an hour and half out of NYC, close to a town called Newburgh.
Are you currently on lockdown?
Yes. I’m on my … i don’t actually remember how many weeks it has been.
Are you alone, or with others?
I’m with a friend
How are you keeping yourself busy, occupied?
To certain extend I have been trying to keep to my general routine. I work out most mornings, in the past I’ve stuck to yoga and pilates but since the lockdown I have been slightly obsessed with a more high intensity workout. It always lifts my mood. Then I normally have a nice breakfast (very important part of the day!) and sit down at my laptop for a few hours of work. At the beginning of lockdown I was trying to put in solid work days and at some point I realised that that’s not possible and that I didn’t want to spend this time pretending like a work day was still a work day. I don’t know how anything will look once this is over and I wanted to make space for all of that.
What are you finding the easiest/most difficult aspects of social distancing, lockdown?
The easiest part is probably how easily I can fill my days with things I want to learn or read or people I want to catch up with. The hardest, that my grandmother passed away in Spain during this time and only my uncle was able to be at the funeral. My grandmother lived in Spain and everyone else in my family is scattered around Spain and Germany, apart from me in NYC. Normally, everyone would have gotten on a plane and been there the next day, to be with the family. Not being able to do that has been hard, specially for my mother who had to stay in Germany. I’ve moved around a lot all my life but always felt I was just a flight away from my family. This new situation and uncertainty of how travel will look and when it will be back to some sort of normality is stressful for me.
Do you have any positive thoughts on what’s happening?
I think a lot of people have been craving a change in our society, how we work, what we value, how we spend our time and hopefully this is giving people space to think about it and make changes for the future. The inequalities in our world were very clear before it happened but this pandemic is really bulldozing through the incredibly shaky foundation that was propping up our society. Hopefully we can build something better.
What new things are you learning during this time?
Only in the last few years I’ve realised how much I love to learn new things. The one good thing about the lockdown is that I’m less distracted, and been able to dedicate time to cooking, reading and random new projects. I’ve been trying to become a bit more confident in the kitchen, exchanging recipes with friends and in general being a little more adventurous with my kitchen experiments. There have been some disasters along the way.
I am also doing a herbal course… I know it’s very in fashion at the moment. But the end-of-the-world-movie-fan that I am, just keeps thinking that if s#*t hits the fan I need to know what I can eat out in the wilderness and if I know which leaves to chew up to make some poultice for wounds … the better off my crew and I will be! But that aside, I love spending time in nature and it’s really fun to be able to understand all the plants around you a bit better. I’ve also been lucky that my lockdown partner just returned from her yoga teacher training and I’ve been able to absorb a lot of interesting new things from her. It’s really nice to be able to learn new things from friends or just be able to listen and discuss what they are excited about. I feel like I’ve had a lot of very interesting conversations with friends since the lockdown. Everyone is more present at the moment.
In your opinion - how will this period change our lives in the future?
I’m not sure yet, sometimes I’m thinking that everything will change, that our world will never be the same, some parts I’m excited about and others petrified. Hopefully we’ll change our excessive consumption patterns, hopefully we can build a better society for all of us. But then you watch the news and people are so crazy, there is so much misinformation and anger out there… it’s hard to imagine something better could be on the horizon.
What can we do to help those suffering the most?
This crisis is something we haven’t seen before. People have gone through terrible hardship before, many times, and a lot of people daily, but normally, in disasters or in crisis, people are able to pull together and support each other. People are amazing in times of crisis and for most part, the best comes out in them. But with this situation, people aren’t allowed to be together and pull together to get through this. We have to stay home. Everyone in their little isolation bubble. There is still a sense of community but we don’t know how this will differ to other situations. But how to help everyone? I wish I had the answer to that. But I do think making sure as an economic super power that people don’t have financial hardship and access to good healthcare while we are working through this is important and would make a recovery much easier.
What could be a new mantra to emerge from this with?
SUPPORT EACH OTHER AND BE KIND
Reading:
A Paradise Build in Hell by Rebecca Solnit, A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, Normal People by Sally Rooney, The Gift of Healing Herbs by Robin Rose Bennett
Listening:
All over the place, Some classical music like Nils Frahm and Joep Beving, Lot’s of Bob Marley Radio, And some dance tunes for the occasional early evening living room dance party.
Watching:
I don’t watch much TV but have enjoyed these during lockdown:
High Fidelity with Zoe Kravitz, Jane by Brett Morgen- a documentary about Jane Goodall with unseen footage from 50 years ago. Mrs America
Eating:
It really is a lot of work to prepare three meals a day and we’ve been so spoiled in NYC with all the amazing local restaurants. I’ve never cooked this much before. I do miss all of my favourite spots like Marlow & Sons and I can’t wait to sit at their table and order from their delicious menu again. In the meantime, there are a lot of things around or related to curry being created in the kitchen, chickpea flour base pizzas… faves are anchovies or tuna, sage and ghee pasta seems to be popular, vegetable soups, almond/oats carob choc cookies and of course, banana bread… it seems to be a must.
Drinking:
I hardly have been drinking alcohol for the past 2 years but i’m really enjoying some wine at the moment. Otherwise, litres and litres of tea and matcha lattes.
Cooking:
I’ve realised i am much more adventurous than I thought I was. I have a lot of dietary preferences and it has been fun to adjust recipes to my liking and see what happens, admittedly with some weird results, but one favourite has been foraged dandelion and garlic mustard pesto, both weeds from the garden.
Doing:
Apart from working and plotting potential future projects I have been reading a lot, face timing with family and friends, trying to improve my sexy dance moves with @movespurejoy and having a lot of fun while doing it, foraging the garden and trying to figure out how I can spend more time in nature, lot’s of yoga with @skyting and workouts with The Class by Taryn Toomey. The herbal course I’m doing is with theherbalacademy.com
Samira's quarantine diary:
