19 Jun A Moment Of Clarity, 3 Months Into Quarantine (COVID-series)
Today marks exactly three months since Stevo and I arrived in the small town of Hermanus in Western Cape, South Africa to begin our self-isolating quarantine. We had to cut our honeymoon in Malaysia short by a couple of weeks, and completely change our (travel) plans for the year, and head “home” to wait and see what would happen. Good thing we left when we did, as South Africa closed the borders only a day after our arrival!
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Three months is a long time (especially as we got married just a month before quarantine began) and we’ve (surprisingly) done a lot in this time. I’m sure you can all agree that this pandemic has been more than eye-opening, as all the time away from the normal you know, and the sheer anxiety and uncertainty will get your mind going, and have you reflect (and maybe even over-think) about everything.
Well, today I woke up with an extra surge of energy and gratitude, and wanted to share it with you, because I don’t feel like we’ve shared a lot about ourselves and “our life in quarantine” publicly, so here goes.
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It’s been one hell of a way to start married life, I’ll start by saying that! Our incredible ceremony on the 9th of February was the last time we physically saw most of our closest friends and family, and we cannot thank our lucky stars enough that we were able to have the ceremony, right before the whole world went into lockdown. We’ve spoken to so many of our guests, and they’ve all said how our wedding was probably the last time they travelled (and will travel) in 2020, so we’re beyond grateful for that.
Being stuck with my new husband, day in and day out, just the two of us, has been nothing short of amazing (and actually not too different to the life we lived the last five years – besides the fact that we just haven’t been moving around at all, but we’ve definitely experienced long hours indoors, glued to our computers, with no one else around). We’ve had a couple low moments (I’m sure everyone has), one huge fight (which actually resulted in a breakthrough for us creatively and professionally, so we’re kind of glad it happened), but mostly it’s been a time to enjoy each other’s company, and grow even stronger, now as husband and wife.
We were able to share our wedding adventure with all of our readers, subscribers, and community across all our channels, so that was really special, and we hope it brought some good news in spite of everything. If you missed it, you can check out our wedding series right here on our blog, or on YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok.
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I’ve cooked some of the most inventive, creative, and delicious meals I’ve ever cooked in my life. It’s been fun pretending to be in Munich for lunch (with vegan sausages, sauerkraut, and baked potatoes) and Mexico for dinner (with some very delicious – and sadly not-vegan – nachos). It’s been fun having a kitchen to myself, playing house, and creating our own routine for the first time in over five years. We’ve bought foods we’ve haven’t been able to buy as full-time travellers (like dried pulses, seeds e.t.c. – it’s impossible to invest in foods like that if you’re only staying at an Airbnb for a couple weeks at a time), and being back home has allowed us to travel down nostalgia lane, buying condiments, sauces, and snacks from our childhood (and of course, life pre-HFFH), so all of that’s been a real positive.
I mentioned already that we’ve played house, and that in itself has been a real change for us. Of course it’s not our house – we still don’t have a base…maybe one day…but we were blessed with the most incredible Airbnb hosts who have taken us under their wings, and even shared their home with us every other weekend, which has made us realise how important it is to have a community (even if it’s just a couple people with shared interests, that you can have a glass of wine with). Seriously though – if you ever visit Hermanus (why wouldn’t you – it’s one of the best whale-viewing towns in the world and offers SO much for nature lovers), make sure to book Shaun and Dom’s place on Airbnb – you won’t regret it!
We’ve been reading, almost every night. We’ve actually been relaxing and staying sane through books, which might not sound unusual, but for us it certainly is.
We’ve connected with friends (probably more so than any other time during the last five years) having regular Zoom / HouseParty / Google Meet / Skype / FaceTime / WhatsApp calls.
We’ve become more health-conscious – being mindful of our eating, and practicing solid exercise routines (Stevo running and exercising, and I have been doing yoga with Adrienne every single morning – except maybe those two days when I chose to sleep in ;). It kind of reminds me of when we first left for How Far From Home, experimenting with new routines, meditation, yoga, and passion projects.
We celebrated my birthday with good wine, great food, and wonderful coziness during a wet and rainy day in the Cape. Hello 35, I’m ready for you!
Besides the cooking, we’ve also had time to experiment with our work.
Stevo has been drawing every week, and honing in on his digital painting skills. He’s taught himself how to create Instagram filters using the Spark AR software (you can check out the ones we’ve launched so far on our profile), and of course continued with his video editing as we’ve worked with a couple tourism boards to create cinematic “best of” videos.
We’ve been briefed on a couple new creative projects (in realms we’re not familiar with, but are definitely excited for the challenge), and we’ve even expanded our services to offer planning, photography and videography for adventurous weddings and elopements (although we only foresee this only picking up some speed in 2021 and beyond).
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One thing I’ve been really excited about, is our new passion project which we launched just less than a month ago, allowing us to collaborate with fellow creatives, artists, photographers, filmmakers, creators, and small businesses from all around the world. We figured, since we wouldn’t be able to travel anytime soon, we’d try and send positive vibes whilst inspiring travel dreams through other amazing creatives’ work (and our interpretation of their work) in our #HFFHdreamingof project, which has allowed us to continue to share inspiring travel content, be creative, and do what we love whilst stuck in quarantine. So far we’ve featured Western Australia, Morocco, and Greenland (with Botswana coming out this Sunday), and a ton more exciting destinations planned over the next few months, so if you want to dream with us, make sure you’re following along on Instagram.
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We’ve also started the long-overdue project of updating our website (update: it’s now live and you can read all about it here) hoping to clarify our offering for businesses and our offering for individuals, and share even more inspiring content in various forms. It’s still a work-in-progress, and will probably take a long time to get to where we want it, but at least we’ve started the marathon.
Now, I can’t only focus on the good, because of course it hasn’t all been peachy on the work front. Three work trips were first postponed, then cancelled all together. We took some heat (and probably lost many followers) after sharing our opinion on how COVID-19 was nature’s way of fighting back. We also disappointed a few of our fans with our lack of public acknowledgement to #BlackLivesMatter, reminding us that having a platform (any platform) means we have to be vocal, as not having an opinion actually does more harm than good when it’s a humanitarian crisis.
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It’s been a lot of learning in such a short space of time, but when the world is reacting to what feels like a world war, it’s no wonder so many factors come into play.
Side note: check what restrictions may apply to you if you are planning some upcoming travels, using this handy COVID-19 travel advisor from our friends at Expedia #notasponsor
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So what is next for us?
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We’ve had a moment of clarity, three months into this quarantine, and what we now call our new normal.
#1 We’ve realised that we need to believe that whatever is meant to be, will be. If it’s not in our control, then we cannot get stressed about it. Whether we continue travelling as photographers and filmmakers with no base, or we end up living in a cute town in Europe as adventure elopement creators, or we build a modular home in the middle of the desert in South Africa and make a living as freelance creatives, or we end up with full-time jobs again, working as content creators in Sydney, Melbourne, Cape Town or Amsterdam 🤷🏼♀️ – whatever is meant to be, will be.
#2 We’ve realised that patience really is something that we need to hold onto. I, especially, always want things done now, and want my goals and vision to always be clear; to know that I’m working towards something, and my time is never wasted….and being patient is very difficult for me, especially when our goals aren’t too clear, and we don’t even know where we’ll be living by the end of the year…but as I said in #1 – whatever is meant to be, will be.
#3 We’ve realised that we have each other, we have our health (thankfully), and we have everything we need with us, and (as our new friends Bec and Gary reminded us yesterday) “everything we need is enough”. This is the only way we’re able to remain positive and get through these times.
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I hope this post, in some little way, inspires you to also remain positive, stay patient, give in to the bigger picture, fight for love, fight for what you believe in, and always go to bed knowing that you spent the day doing what you love.
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