I’ve heard slightly the same (covid) life-changing story many times, but I still tell it.

It was September 2019, I’d just started a postdoc in OSU, life was taking a significant turn from my time in Berlin writing my dissertation. My mom had started our Spanish citizenship papers for my sister and I, so we were all bound to Madrid in October to notarize and set the wheels in motion. Luckily, both my mom and sister had everything in order. It was one of my documents that was missing (my US personal criminal records, which btw, are just a pain to get) and I could not set my wheels in motion just then. So, I would soon have to return to that dull office of that even duller notary. Little did I know what was going to come of the silly, short, but life-changing trip.

I have to say here that the Madrid part of the trip was cool, but it had a catch: a one week “layover” in Buenos Aires. So, I would go to Madrid, then to BA, and finally back to Ohio after a week…

find yourself a concert

As a postdoc 🤖 working in Immersive Audio 🔊 I often present my music live , performing with my custom made computer music instruments and my ps4 controller 🎮. Since I had to travel to Madrid, I decided to look for an opportunity to perform my music over there. As a postdoc at OSU, I needed to justify our-of-office time, so I figured a concert would do it. Figured wrong.

the concert was with amazing composer and performer Pedro Fraguela

Find yourself a conference

The Office of International Affairs affairs office needed more for me to justify our-of-office time. After all, Postdocs have only two weeks a year of such. Anyhow, I looked for a concert AND a nice music conference to present my work. Finally, I wrapped up a nice email to the OIA and was good to go.

Don’t listen to your mom.

The conference was called “JIEM-ESPACIOS SONOROS 2020”, my lecture “[clone fd_dacout]: real-time massively multichannel spatialization in Pure Data”

Ok so this is rather bad advice, generally speaking. But, if it was for her I should have bought a face mask in late February (2020!, way before it was cool), stayed home, and skipped Madrid. If I had done so, I would have probably not gone to Madrid. And consequently, I would have not come to Argentina to visit my family. My life would be completely different. So yeah, I probably should have bought a mask, but I did not listen to her, and was quick to dismiss her advice on this new “virus”… Nonetheless, I was lucky to travel despite her advice, because I am now a Spanish citizen living in Argentina for the past two years. Hah! So in the end I never bought a mask, she just gave me one. So, listen (partly) to your mom, and wear masks! 😷

fall in love

Here’s the thing: I did not mention the most important part; the most crucial element of all; the one thing that pulled me into a mindset where everything is possible; the drive that made me invencible: I was in love 🥰. The details of this story I will not disclose here, but I just had to mention that I was in love and she was in Argentina. Therefore, we had agreed to meet in Buenos Aires upon my arrival, spend a week together and then decide what was to happen of our relationship. We both had a common goal, the same city tattooed in our hearts, so things would be possible. There was a slim possibility for the two of us to meet, for our paths to cross, so we were giving it a shot. And we did, and still do, two years later. We have a cat now, and we named her Elektra. So yes, fall in love.

sync up with a cloud

I would not be writing this blog if it was not for her.

I took my carry-on, filled it with pairs of T-shirts, underwear, socks, and I forget what else. Clothes good for a week’s time. When I realized I would be needing some data, I decided (luckily) to backup all there was to backup on a cloud. I do have an unlimited storage, don’t ask why or how, so things were easy in that respect. It just took a couple days of uploading stuff on the University network. The entire month before to my trip to Madrid I spent it practically living at the office. Two offices, actually, plus the one at home. I wrote my paper and programmed some stuff on one shared office, one that had still my name until a few weeks ago. On another office, the Sonic Arts Lab, I mastered some of my music tracks that would be released later that year and wrote some new music. And at home I would write techno music and songs for the woman I was in love with. (Yes, that is true). So, I was working all day getting ready for a concert and a conference, getting in sync with a cloud, and getting some artistic things done I hadn’t had the time yet.

I was also learning music production. That is, I always wrote music and even composed electronic music, or rather what is known as electroacoustic music. That is somehow different from what is known as electronic music for clubs, like dance music or techno. So, I was used to audio programs, and more than used to music concepts (after all, I do have a license to compose 🥸), but I had never tried making techno music. I was learning how to do that. I was liking it. I still do and I would like to share that someday.

get on a plane ✈️

So, I was good to go. Off I went in March 2nd, from the John Glenn Columbus International Airport to La Guardia in New York. I got there about 6pm, but I was bound to Madrid later that day, from JFK! As soon as I landed I hopped on a bus 🚌 and went across town to catch the E train. I had an hour to get to my gate in time, and that included the bus, the train, customs, and migration! Any bump on the road meant an imminent delay, which in turn meant no Madrid. I did not stress out though, I was in a great mood. Everything was going smoothly. I even got there early! I had plenty of time to catch up on some emails. traveling. I also began thinking there’s at least 1 centigrade more in the world because of all the fuel ⛽️ I’d been using…

I slept the whole six hours but, in Spanish time zone, I woke up a few hours later that day, fresh as a rabbit. I went through Zurich, and I love that airport. It’s like the future, but real and you can buy stuff. It’s classier than the Oslo airport, and it feels smaller, but somehow less cozy. Anyhow, I saw some signs of preventive measures, not quite emphasized, but they called my attention. No one around was wearing any mask, and hand sanitizers were not readily available. I mean, it’s Zurich so they had some, so it was not a strange sight; often I’d see those in restrooms. Anyhow, I pushed my cart with a single carry-on (I was bored, I had to do something), jumping on one foot every now and then, towards my gate.

The flight to Madrid was like I remembered the meetings with my advisor: short and to the point, with a tiny bit of jet-lag. But, I managed to get to Madrid once again. It was my third time there, and I knew the drill, how to get from the Airport to the city, so I went almost in autopilot, like a ghost. All I had to do was get to my Airbnb and drop my bags. I booked a room downtown, as down as downtown could be 🏙. The host showed me in and it was quite a maze to get to my room: three doors, a staircase, across an inner backyard, small stairs, two more doors, and there it was, a room with a bath and a kitchen. I took a bath and dozed off for a while.

I had been flying for such a long time that it felt like I was returning to my plane instead of I’ll leave the rest of this trip off the books, but both the concert and the conference went great. My table had two other speakers, and someone asked questions, which was nice. The concert got a full house, and we were all very happy about it. We hung out afterwards and I made some friends I will always remember.

pretend nothing is happening …like most people are doing, I guess… 🤷🏽‍♂️

March 6th was the day I had my ticket out. For some reason I had to wait for hours on end on Puerta del Sol. There, I saw multiple groups of people wearing face masks. I felt they were overreacting to the situation, despite what I had heard on the night of the concert. One of the venue’s owners worked at the local hospital, and she mentioned several people had been hospitalized by a new highly contagious virus. Moreover, a friend had been quarantined coming in from the U.K., which was odd. A big ANYHOW , came after these thoughts, and I went on waiting for my turn to leave. I felt overwhelmed, I remember, uncomfortable, and I did not feel like jumping on a plane at all, but I had to. I suffered throughout the whole trip to the Airport, feeling numb, idiotic, and anxious. Angst, to put it mildly, or rather, confused. I was angry, but also tired of a very intense week. I did not get any sleep, not without aids, and that was building up inside.

I just had to keep going. I had a 12 hour trip ahead of me, I would catch up on my jet-lag later, I thought, one more week and I’m back on my bed.

When I arrived in Ezeiza, I came just as another flight was coming in from Italy. Those passengers were in front of me, and they were being told to fill out a form on which some declaration had to be made regarding some health situation. I got a glimpse of around 50 people trying to write with borrowed pens on feeble pieces of paper, making weird poses as the ink dried out, helping each other out, no physical distance. I remember walking right by them, using the same migration automaton machines they’d just used, as if contagion wasn’t a thing. I just walked out of the Airport, got on a taxi cab, rang my sisters’ doorbell, and hugged and kissed my family. All of this felt so normal that it is strange to describe it as an incredibly dangerous thing to do. It is only in hindsight, after two years of this never-ending pandemic, that I can question the responsibility of my actions. ANYHOW, I had my two year old niece up in my arms, all my troubles faded away.

listen to your friends

Great time with the fams, met with meine Liebe, all was in order. I’ll skip over 5 days.

Everything was in order, all but one ☝️ thing: the president gave a speech where he expressed deep concerns about a worldwide virus. A few people in Argentina were already dying because of it, and cases were being reported of a weird flu coming in from overseas. The cases, however, were a handful, but the whole country became alert. No measures were stipulated just then.

My ticket back to NYC was on the 18th, so I was worried. My family was worried: traveling during that time meant exposing yourself to the possibility of the virus. No lockdowns yet, though, just generalized concerns. It was March 12, so I had three more days to mull about changing my ticket or not. I asked my mentor and people at the OIA at OSU, expressed my concerns, but nobody really knew anything. Cases in the US were rising, but that was as far as everyone knew.

So I kept my ticket for the 15th and decided I would cross that bridge when I got there. That turned out to be a bad idea, because on the 15th I felt unbelievably uncomfortable going to a very touristic Japanese park rather than the airport. I called a dear friend of mine in NYC. (I was for about an hour on data roaming, which cost me quite a lot, but I had no idea my wifi was off 👽🤷🏽‍♂️). Anyway, she gave me the best advice I could find: do not travel, stay in Argentina until things are sorted out. So I did, I lost my ticket, booked another Airbnb and stayed another week. Meine Liebe and I stared at those Koi as they wandered aimlessly around the green, opaque pond. The sun burnt my neck. Was I making the right choice? My friend in NY was not the only one with that advice, though. I met with another dear friend of mine who biked to that park, and she gave me the support I needed right then, as she usually does with every aspect, but right then it made me feel I was making the best choice. And that was that, and I always owe her for that.

adapt

A few days later, I had already booked another week on an airbnb to stay further in BA, the president announces mandatory lockdown. That was the 18th. On that day, there was a major collision in some planet orbit or something, Mercury was retrograde, I will never know, but it was a hard day. I had to make another choice: do we stay in BA or go back to my hometown, Cordoba, to wait the lockdown out. Hard choices. Economically, it made sense to go to Cordoba, so that is what we did. So, we took the last bus to Córdoba, last one in several months to come, and bailed. In the following weeks, with only a carry-on and a laptop, I relocated, shifted to online lessons (I did not mention this, but I was teaching, and the week off campus was Spring break!), and changed my research focus from immersion to networked audio. During this first time, the pandemic was being felt differently all over the world and nobody had any clue as to what was going to happen. So, I could not plan anything. Nobody could. I kept my room in Ohio until the end of the lease, just in case I needed to get back after WHO got rid of the pandemic. That did not happen, but still, the uncertainty, and coping with the “open possibility of” became tiresome.

I was living in meine Liebes with her brother back then, and six months into our relationship we were needing a place for ourselves. We were ready to move to Ohio anytime, though, so we were waiting until lockdowns and travel restrictions were lifted. That did not happen. So, in July I called and asked to stay here in Cordoba for the rest of my Postdoc. I was lucky to have such great mentors and colleagues at OSU that were extremely comprehensive under such circumstances. I was living in uncertainty and they made things very easy for me to secure my work from home, and such a long way that was. I will always be grateful for that.

It was September 2020, by the end of it we were sharing a lease, adopted a cat, and I began teaching the Sonic Arts Ensemble, and later Audio Analysis and Machine Learning in python. Things were flowing.

epilogue

I have heard many people tell the same covid story, that story in which they were doing something until the pandemic hit, after which their lives were relocated, reshaped, reborn. It feels good not to bear that story alone, so I tell that story and find myself in resonance with others.

Thanks for reading this far. I hope this story resonates with you, too.