Imagine this situation: you and your friends get together on New Year’s Eve in Moscow. You get drunk, really drunk, and eventually pass out. Two of your friends are still awake and remember that one of you must go to Leningrad (nowadays Saint-Petersburg) and needs to catch a plane, but they don’t remember who. So they decide to put you on the plane.

So far, this enclosure has given us the rare opportunity of meeting people who are not that close to us in the most intimate spaces possible: their houses. As an inevitable extension of this new reality, the smooth and focused rhythm of the academic world has suddenly been interrupted by events and accidents that belong to the domestic sphere. In some way, these moments have also become the most dramatic and intimate instants of this new, otherwise dull, days.

Ever since the Corona crisis struck, I have discovered a few neighborhood walks, among them a path to a nearby estate named Clingendael. The winding path crosses a stream, then follows it until reaching a pond embraced by several impressive oaks. While I walk this route alone - and so do most other obeying humans - birds, insects, sheep and all other organisms have continued their gatherings enthusiastically. Never have I paid more attention to these fellow city dwellers than during the past month. Their lives have continued unchanged and I have been observing them keenly.