SUSANNA Post 25 On friendship, On independence on a whim

Camilo and I were very excited as we planned a quick trip back to Boston in the middle of the gap year, to do high school revisit days.  We were so ready–we confirmed the dates of our school visits, we arranged to stay at our friend Angie & Alberto’s house, for Camilo to have an in-person music lesson (the first in 2 years), to see my friend Nastja, we got our COVID tests to fly back, and we even went through our stuff and made a pretty big package to take back to Boston and arranged with our tenants to drop it off.

We were so happy to make it there late Friday night and our first night was wonderful with Angie and family. After sharing (literally) a good cup of coffee and breakfast on Saturday morning, Camilo and I went to run errands at our home: we dropped stuff off, picked tax papers up, went through the mess in our basement to retrieve a couple of things that didn’t make it to our trip in a last minute decision as we had no space; and we stopped by to have tea with Ahlam in the second floor. Pretty weird feeling to be back home for a bit except now it kinda felt like…trespassing?

In the evening, I took Camilo to an in-person recorder lesson in his teacher’s house, which was 2 blocks away from Angie’s–his first in-person class in a very long time! As a standard practice for in-home students, Camilo’s teacher and his wife ask for guests to take a quick home-based COVID test. And to make a long story short, I tested positive! I thought it was a defective home-based test or something. We did 2 additional tests and the same result. I felt completely well and had a PCR test 2 days before at the American Hospital in Istanbul. And so from one moment to the next, recorder class was cancelled and we returned to Angie’s, me a bit in disbelief to say the least. And I can imagine that Camilo was perhaps a bit concerned, even though he maintained his characteristic positive outlook. He reminded me how fortunate we were to find out I had COVID so early, as I could now take appropriate measures so as to not pass it on to others.

When we made it back to Angie’s I had to immediately quarantine. Ella gave me her room, Ugo gave Camilo his room, and both kids moved to Angie & Alberto’s room. Alberto’s dad, who I was pretty worried about given he is older, stayed in the living room downstairs. So in a weird turn of events, Camilo and I pretty much took over their home for several days. Seriously, I wanted to be a non-intrusive guest and instead, I managed to get COVID the very first day! And so Angie and family helped us out in all sorts of ways–Angie drove Camilo to his first school event (¡Gracias, amiga!), helped out with errands when not at work, and she made sure I had a glass of wine every night; Alberto cooked his always wonderful food; Alberto’s dad chatted with Camilo; and everyone made sure Camilo felt completely at home at all times. We chatted through WhatsApp every night, glass of wine in hand. But really, after not having seen my best friend for over 7 months, I was in her house and still had to talk to her over the internet???

On my end, I invented a new verb in Spanish, very appropriate for the COVID times we are living in and for making sure I didn’t pass COVID onto anyone: cloroxear (regular verb, -ar ending), which means to clean with Clorox anything that one comes into contact with. Examples of its usage: Yo cloroxeo el baño.  Ya cloroxeé el vaso de agua. ¿Cloroxeaste la manija de la puerta? So pathetic....

But, seriously. Camilo had to manage, all of a sudden, on his own. I talked him through using the T through WhatsApp and he went to his revisit events alone, mostly using the T. He ran all sorts of errands every day–going to Harvard Square to get a gift for Angie and family; dropping up additional items in Fainwood Circle, and making himself (and oftentimes me) breakfast or lunch.

Fortunately, I had no symptoms and none of the people I had contact with got it–neither Camilo, nor Angie and family, nor Ahlam, nor Camilo’s teacher, nor Sol & Horacio. I was so glad we managed to get our booster back in Oman, because I am sure it contributed to me being asymptomatic.

The highlight amidst this situation was that we were at Angie and Alberto’s–our friends, our family in Cambridge. ¡Gracias familia Cabré-Jockovich, por todo! We are all incredibly grateful to all the love and support and everything you did for us those days, in the middle of getting COVID and in spite of taking over your house.

PHOTOS TO COME