OPINION | Isabel Allende has made me reflect

Editor’s note: Mari Rodríguez Ichaso has been a contributor to Vanidades magazine for several decades. She is a specialist in fashion, travel, gastronomy, art, architecture and entertainment, film producer and style columnist for CNN en Español. The opinions expressed in this column are solely his own. Read more opinion pieces at cnne.com/opinion.

(CNN Spanish) – Isabel Allende has made me reflect. And I have done it very seriously! And it is not for his latest book, Women of my soul, about her life and feminism. No. It was due to some very simple and spontaneous words, said in an interview in 2020 on the television program Small table with José del Río, from La Nación, from Argentina –which has been broadcast on Milenio.com, Yahoo News and other media.
And it has impressed me because, when talking about the pandemic – the one that she has experienced with her husband and their two dogs in their home in California, where she has lived for 30 years -, it coincides with thoughts that both me and other women, including friends and family of different ages, we share and comment with each other every day.

One of them is that nothing will be the same when we go through this great tragedy. And may the world awaken from its indolence and frivolity when we can sit back and think about how we wish our future life to be.

According to Isabel Allende, “there was the ‘before’ time, now we are living the ‘middle’ time and then it will be the ‘tomorrow’ time. Let’s see if the last one is a little lighter and clearer than we lived before. “And using the word light is precisely what has struck me the most.

Lighten life, not buy and buy so many things, know what we need and not what makes us happy and what is useless. What unnecessarily complicates our daily lives, what is an absurd waste of ‘things’ and what is not … I love feeling that many women think this way and this pandemic has shown me that it is possible to live with little and, nevertheless, we can appreciate more what that surrounds us!

According to Isabel Allende “we lived in an unsustainable situation, an abuse of the planet, the climate, nature, other species … a consumer society without any interior life and without interior satisfaction either”.

The famous writer of Chilean origin affirms: “I don’t think we live in a happy world, far from it. It is the first time, possibly in history, that there is a feeling that we are one humanity, that what happens to one happens to all. We are all stuck in this virus, in quarantine, “he said.

And it is very sober to come to that conclusion. I believe that I will never stop being a good “consumerist”. But this year and a half, when we have made so many sacrifices and feared getting sick and dying, it has taught me to be less impulsive and buy less without rhyme or reason. And to value a thousand times more what I ALREADY have! And to be more spiritual and more grateful with life!

His words resonated with me when he said: “The pandemic has taught me to let go of things, to realize how little I need. It seems to me that I have too much. To realize who the true friends and the people I want to be with are ”.

Well yes, Isabel, I agree with you. I have been trying for many months to “lighten up” my life. And I have reduced my group of loved ones. And so I have more time for them. And the same I have been told that many of my friends do! And now I also like to go through my ornaments, my cabinets, my bookcase (full of wonders that I stopped reading because I bought another new book that tempted me!), My photo albums and bask in pleasure seeing things that I had already forgotten that they were my dearest memories and belongings. What a joy to discover these old material friends!

And, curiously, reading this interview with Isabel Allende, whose life is full of both joys and deep sadness, her words have stopped me in my tracks. And his reflections have made me reflect. Like someone who receives a strong hug from woman to woman, from California to New York. We are not alone!