Returning Life its Colours
Natalia Mokhovikova
No one was ready for this. It feels like yesterday that my daughter and I packed our suitcases for the upcoming May trip to London. Today we live with COVID-19, isolation, and a sense of anxiety that grows while we listen to news about how quickly the pandemic is spreading around the world.
There are only two things left: my volunteer work at RAPS on Mondays, taking care of elderly cats, and the birds in the hundreds that fly over our house every night to the east and return to the city at dawn. The call from Malena’s former high school coach changed our situation. She asked us to paint 100 watercolour bookmarks for a project to support older people who were alone and isolated during the quarantine.
Malena and her coach bought everything they needed – paints, brushes, and paper- at a craft store where the staff continued to work. Malena painted distant beaches with palm trees, where she could not go now. I drew birds, but for some reason, they turned out to be in a cage. After looking over my drawings, I added an open door to each cage. When I wrote positive messages on the back of my watercolour bookmarks, a positive vision of the world returned to me.
“I drew birds, but for some reason, they turned out to be in a cage. After looking over my drawings, I added an open door to each cage.”
Every day, the watercolours became more colourful and positive. Now some quarantine restrictions are being lifted; we have nearly finished 100 bookmarks; I continue to draw every morning and write something positive on the back of each bookmark. The world is slowly going back to normal.
Yes, quarantine affected each of us. But as social isolation allows us to look inside ourselves, it is possible to open new aspects of our souls.