CDMX: LIFE IN A FISHBOWL

Photographs & text by Gene de Paule

During the COVID pandemic lockdowns, I found myself photographing out the window, from the very same point of view, day after day: the same horizons and buildings, yet, capturing ever new and dynamic nuances in the sky. Through the camera lens, the “fishbowl” stopped being the apartment trap and became a doorway to a colourful and expansive atmosphere. As I stared at the world through my 9th-floor window, unbeknownst to me, I was also beginning to suffer the debilitating effects of disseminated-stage Lyme borreliosis — arthritis, fatigue, insomnia, restlessness — all of which colored my experience of this “stay at home” journey.

no one could have imagined what was looming on the horizon, not just for ourselves but for the whole world: months on end filled with uncertainty, a complete disruption of our “normal” lives, as the COVID-19 pandemic took wing and spread to all continents, to all regions, to all towns.

I had come to my hometown for the winter holidays. So when worldwide travel restrictions began sprouting up as a response to the virus’s uncontrollable spread, I was already here, in Mexico City.

The very same week that the Mexico City authorities declared a state of emergency and the lockdowns began, all of a sudden, my right knee gave up — clack! I’d been feeling an unfamiliar frailty in my knee for a few months, starting in Romania last autumn, but the malaise came and went intermittently and then went away altogether for a while. Yet, when the lockdowns began, I found that I could no longer walk, and staying at home was the only natural thing to do.

I did not attempt to visit the doctor to get my knee checked. I’d better wait for the pandemic to pass, I thought, guessing it would last only a few weeks, like the last time (in April 2009, Mexico City was quarantined for two weeks to prevent the spread of the swine flu). Staying at home, resting the knee, icing, compressing, elevating — that should do it! But the weeks kept on passing, the lockdowns extending, and my knee kept on swelling. Eventually, I had to go on crutches.

Unbeknownst to me, I was already experiencing the symptoms of disseminated-stage Lyme disease or borreliosis. The swelling of my knee was the result of an infection with a borrelial spirochete, transmitted by the bite of a tick, one that I never noticed. But as my symptoms lumped together over the following months, the borrelial infection would be the only plausible explanation.

In lockdown, I was growing restless. Over the past few years, I’d been traveling a lot, visiting many places, walking all over, meeting many people, being out in nature, capturing thousands of images… And now, all I could do was lie in bed, in a small room, in a cement jungle.

Insomnia, exhaustion, and frustration are not a good combination. So I decided to make something out of this fishbowl life I’d fallen into. I temporarily moved to an apartment in the city center, an apartment with a view — so I could at least have a view, and absorb myself in the view, and photograph the view, if only through the very same window, day after day, night after night.

And so it began. Staring out the window became my central endeavor, while trying to make sense of my deteriorating physical and mental state.

What was once one of the busiest avenues in Mexico City, Avenida Juárez, was now practically deserted — except for the sporadic skaters, rushing food delivery bikers, a lost organelle player, and a courting couple, here and there, hiding from the pandemic in plain sight.

Unlike the slow, slumbrous breaths commerce and tourism were taking, protests and demonstrations, which are common in this part of town, continued to roll with their unstoppable beat — some well-organized, with a few demonstrators, marching in a disciplined fashion like combat soldiers, obeying social distancing measures, while others, taking advantage of the stillness, struck the streets with bats and hammers and raged like wildfires.

Yet, in the end, none of them remained — but my window, the Alameda park, and the unstoppable cycle of the sunrise and the evening rains.

Click — evening. Click — sunrise. Click — rainbow. Click — rain.

Click — evening. Click — sunrise. Click — rainbow. Click — rain.

Click — evening. Click — sunrise. Click — rainbow. Click — rain.

Another thing that seemed unstoppable those days was the heat: I felt hot all the time. Thus, I kept the windows open most of the time and wore as few clothes as possible. I felt shaken inside. My sleep was growing shallow; anything would wake me. So I’d sleep without clothes or a single sheet, as even the slightest touch on my skin would wake me and keep me awake.

In the morning, no alarm was needed. The tender light on the horizon was enough to wake me, inviting me to watch the spectacle of the sun rising above Bellas Artes, the Palace of Fine Arts, every day, again, and again, and again. Thus started one more day in my fishbowl journey, looking out the window, as the sun, the moon, and the clouds played their games with the water and the light.

The Bamer

For this fishbowl photographic journey, I stayed for two months in the city center, in what had previously been the Bamer Hotel — a recently renovated tower that opened as a hotel in 1953, and one of the only towers in the area that had withstood decades of severe earthquakes. I could feel it in the air as I entered my apartment on the ninth floor: the lineup of thick, sturdy columns seemed to challenge the passage of time, resisting against all odds — while at the same time standing as a sinister reminder that this was a site of high tectonic activity, where many other giants had collapsed.

I soon learned that my window to the east would have been obscured, at another time, by the adjacent building, the Alameda Hotel, which collapsed in the earthquake of 1985. All those wonderful views — the evening rainbows, the rising sun atop Bellas Artes, the play of clouds beyond the Latinoamericana Tower — all could only be seen now because the Alameda Hotel was no more.

I stood by the window and imagined the Alameda Hotel building still standing, rising from the ground, right beside me, and then vanishing and, having become rubble and death, opening up this view to the east.

Like the tower I was in, something inside me was also standing strong, attempting to resist a massive attack. I could feel it: my whole system was in search of its own strength and balance, trying to overcome an invisible shadow that was invading me. I could feel it, but I didn’t quite know it just yet. I’d been rehabilitating with gentle exercises, and my knee seemed to be gradually recovering its strength. Yet there were also signs on the horizon that the real storm was still to come.

One day, just as I’d finished having breakfast, a strange buzzing sound went off all around the Alameda park, across Juárez Avenue. It took me several seconds to first pay attention to the sound and then realize what it was. It was the city’s earthquake alarm, and this meant I should be preparing to evacuate the building immediately!

Still doubtful, thinking it might be just a drill, I began to put on some clothes — when the building started rocking from side to side. At first, the motion was just disorienting, but two seconds later, I could no longer stand without holding onto the breakfast table. Just the sound of the building shaking was terrifying. Things began falling to the floor, the windows broke free from their locks and began sliding back and forth in their tracks, the hanging lamps began shaking violently, and the walls began to crack. It seemed to go on and on. I was standing by a column, grabbing onto the table, in a location I knew was safe — so long as the building withstood the shaking. Still, the rocking and the noise were absolutely terrifying, as though the building had been taken over by evil spirits. In an effort to hold myself together, I began repeating a mantra out loud, while putting my life in God’s hands.

The shaking ended, and I grabbed my crutches, phone, wallet, and camera, and slowly began to make my way down and out of the tower, discovering cracks in the walls all the way down the stairs. I crossed the road and sat on a bench in the Alameda park, thinking about how simple it was to be alive.

One warm evening, lying on the couch, I fell asleep and had a brief dream. I felt a graceful presence approaching. He gently put his hand on my head and began caressing it, while his loving eyes pierced mine. In the silence, he seemed to say: “You are great, you are strong, and you will withstand this, too.”

I woke up, startled, wondering what else was to come. I thought that this thing with my knee was finished. That the back pain was gone for good. That the insomnia and the frustration were passing. That I had survived the pandemic, and that it was soon to be over. But little did I know that the pandemic was just getting started, that one year later, we would all still be immersed in it… And little did I know that the arthritis, muscle spasms, insomnia, and restlessness would soon be followed by episodes of brain fog and headaches, extreme exhaustion, and, finally, inflammation of the heart. It would take me two more months to connect all the dots and realize what was happening to me. But for now, only the thought remained: “You are great, you are strong, and you will withstand this, too.”

By mid-July, I was beginning to walk without crutches, and I’d go out for gentle walks, helped by walking sticks, across the street, to the Alameda park. I usually went late at night, when the streets were quiet. I’d slowly stroll around the fountains, the monuments, taking in the silence, the freshness, and the night.

My downtown adventure was coming to an end. After two months of exploring the fishbowl life, I decided to move on and visit my sister, who had recently given birth. It seemed fitting to pay my respects and welcome this new life, who, unknowingly, would, in turn, save mine. But that is another story, for another time…