The end of the beginning

I don't know if I misunderstood the Federal Council's press release, but my latest assessment is that everything will be back to normal from Monday, except that the virus is still there. So we should live as we always have, but be more careful than ever before.

This also means that eight weeks of lockdown are coming to an end for the time being. They have been gruelling, exciting weeks. I'm someone who generally likes change - «You have to welcome new things, otherwise they'll go somewhere else» is something I'd like to have written on my tombstone one day - and so I also liked the state of emergency. Not the worry and uncertainty, of course, but simply the fact that something was different. Like moving to a foreign country.

You had to learn new manners (for example, there are often queues in front of red traffic lights because nobody wants to press the button. «Okay,» I then say, a little annoyed but with a heroic undertone, «I'll do it»). We had to learn new words («zoom», «exponential growth», «compulsory masks») and consider new procedures (washing glasses after every meal or reusing them?).

Above all, however, there was something to talk about that anyone and everyone, regardless of age, could say. The question «How are you coping with the lockdown?» was the perfect conversation opener. For the more advanced, this follow-up question: «What habits did you get into during the lockdown that you would like to keep?».

«What habits did you get into during the lockdown that you want to keep?»

You are immediately in the middle of an exciting conversation in which people reveal a lot about themselves. My wife, for example, said without hesitation: «Sleep late». If only she could, she'd turn the clock forward by two hours; everything would start a little later and go on into the night. My daughter also knew immediately what she would like to take with her from the state of emergency to normality: «Doing school at home in comfort». Self-care, making herself comfortable - that's important to her and she now had time for that.

The lockdown seemed to have left my son unscathed; he simply mused that he might want to shower «in the morning instead of the evening» in future. One friend wrote succinctly: «Beer at four», another had a home office insight that I would sign up to immediately: «Avoid all calls and video conferences. Communicate consistently in writing.»

For my parents' generation, on the other hand, the lockdown was above all the unpleasant experience of not being allowed to meet their children and grandchildren. «The family has moved closer to me,» wrote one relative, but she wanted to «take a closer look at her friends' lives, I am probably alone and will guard this space.» My stepmother reported that she spoke to her mum on the phone every day during lockdown and tried out two new recipes every week - a practice that you can't object to even under normal circumstances.

And then there was my uncle in Finland. He told me that he had been practising an extreme form of social distancing for decades and that he never met anyone. Nothing had changed for him in the last few weeks and he intended to continue living like this. No one would have believed that eight weeks ago: a Finnish hermit is the figurehead of the new normal.

Mikael Krogerus is an author and editor of «Magazin». The father of a daughter and a son lives with his family in Basel.

He now writes a column once a week on the topic of coronavirus.

More from Mikael Krogerus on the subject of corona:

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