New Year, Same Old, 1. Inauspicious Beginning.

So begins a new year, but with the same old problem. All over Europe, the rates of infection are skyrocketing. In many countries there is a strict isolation, of one type or another. Except in Spain, where each autonomous community decided on doing their own thing. Here, in Galicia, it was like last week, which helped the total numbers go up. On the 31st, curfew extended to 1:30 AM, and travel between closed and open townships allowed until tonight at 11 to visit family. So, with the holiday of Epiphany still next week, January promises to be hot.

We ate alone, again, though the three of us were just fine. But, instead of dressing up and going out with friends, our daughter went to bed at two in the morning. She and her friends agreed not to get together until contagion goes down a bit. One of them had a close shave within her family, and almost got in contact with someone who tested positive a day later. So, they decided to wait a while to meet again, even if it's just to sit in one of their cars, eating candy and junk food and laughing together. 

Last night, we watched the campanadas, the clock striking twelve, from the Puerta del Sol, in Madrid, on television. It was so absolutely eery and unsettling to see shots of the empty square. There was no shouting, no applause, no cheers, nothing. Only the presenters talking about the year going out, and calling for a better year to come in. A couple of minutes later, we heard the usual fireworks in our area. We stepped outside our front door, and down the road a neighbor was throwing brightly colored fireworks. Everyone is happy to see 2020 go away.

This morning, we turned on the television to watch the New Year's Concert from Vienna. When the cameras showed the Golden Hall of the Musikverein, hung and garlanded with a multitude of flowers, and the musicians in their spots, yet with every seat in the audience empty, it was heartbreaking. Tears came into my eyes. I understand perfectly well why Austria will not allow public at any concert until January 4th, but it was so sad to see the hall empty. The music was beautiful, and the choreographies, and stories (set in Burgenland this year) gorgeous, but the total lack of audience, of people other than the actors, dancers, and musicians, was heartrending. And the Radetzky March, without the people clapping from the audience, was not the same. I didn't feel the same spirit of movement that infects me every year, as I clap along at home. 

The rest of the day, overfilled with too much food, has passed uneventfully. Cold air has come to stay for the rest of the week, so cold fingers and nose will reign for a while. Darkness still falls too early, and the ocassional cold showers drawing a dark curtain over the sky still sweep by. 

Happy New Year. I hope this year ends better than it begins.

Life continues.