Lockdown Part 2: The Year of Living Languidly

The Year of Living Languidly 

The Queen, dubbed 1992 her Annus Horribilis. Little did she know how much worse things could get.

On a wild hair, early in the morning in early February of this year I hopped on the train from Barga to Pisa to take in the last day of the Futurism exhibit at Palazzo Blu,  a stunning comprehensive show of an avant-garde Art movement documenting enormous global changes.  111 years, almost to the day, after the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published his Manifesto of Futurism in La gazzetta dell’Emilia, The Futurismo show at Palazzo Blu presented a panorama of its themes documenting global changes, the impact of the industrial revolution, early aeronautics, and man vs. machines, in all of its glory and destructiveness, pandemics notwithstanding. 

There was also a small permanent exhibit of the splendid 17th C. Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi, not to be missed. Her groundbreaking and gender defying work is only now being shown collectively and appreciated fully as represented by the exhibit at the National Gallery in London, which was planned for this past spring but postponed until its planned opening beginning 2 December, all things being well.  A documentary, entitled Warrior Paintress, of her life and work has just been released by Jordan River of Delta Star Pictures.

After picnicking and people watching in a piazza near the station I caught another train for Viareggio to catch the magnificent Carnevale Parade and its monumental floats of monstrous global social themes from corrupt politicians to gender inequality, technological mayhem and climate change. 

It was a gloriously clear winter day as is often the case in February and news of the Coronavirus was just beginning to spread and I wondered if it had been wise to be in such a crowded environment but it wasn’t, in fact, as crowded as It had been in past years. 

That was just about my last outing as not only the news but also the reality of the coronavirus began to spread soon afterwards. By late February rumors of a lockdown period began to spread as well and by early March we were indeed confined to our homes with increasingly strict regulations which ultimately resulted in a full lockdown including businesses.  

As the virus spread so did the despair. The spring passed listlessly inventing indoor activities or staring out the window. Most developed a coping strategy. The nadir included on March 21 watching television footage of Army vehicles transporting coffins from Bergamo, but Barga was spared the worst. 

In early May we were released but masks became the norm. Summer passed calmly and quietly. In early June expats with homes here could return and many did, by car. Flights to Pisa and Florence resumed in early July and more people arrived. The low key unhurried atmosphere picked up a little in August when there were successful socially distanced events throughout the summer including Barga Jazz in a new delightful outdoor venue at Villa Gherardi and Opera Barga ingeniously adapting the area above Piazza San Felice. Things almost seemed back to normal, or at least the new normal, masks, hygiene routines and hope. 

As the summer came to an end the virus began to spread once more, resulting in a new partial lockdown in mid November. Once again the days pass inventing indoor projects, on the internet or languidly staring out the window, fortunately out on a splendid cold clear November. On the bright side there is hope on the horizon, things will get better and the best thing we can say is that there is a future to look forward to, and a show and documentary on Artemisia Gentileschi. 

 

Lockdown Part 2, Day minus 1

It’s mid-November already. The leaves have cycled through their kaleidoscope of colors and now the trees in the Apuane Alps and Apennine mountains here in northwest Tuscany are mostly bare. The hillsides gray. The sidewalks, where the leaves had fallen and lay to rustle through and conjure deep scent memories, have been cleaned. The weather is still mild, thankfully. Today the inimitable blue Tuscan sky is promising.

Today we begin a second lockdown period. Reflecting on the first, there were pluses and minuses, advantages and disadvantages, and here are some with their corollaries.

- I don’t have to worry about missing or being late for any appointments, there are none.

- I don’t have to worry about missing or being late for any appointments, there are none.

- I don’t have to worry about housekeeping too much as no one is coming to see me. 

- I don’t have to worry about housekeeping too much as no one is coming to see me. 

- I don’t have to worry about clothes, hair, make-up, nails, because no one will see me.

- I don’t have to worry about clothes, hair, make-up, nails, because no one will see me.

- I can stare out the window at the birds without worrying if I’m wasting time.

- I can stare out the window at the birds without worrying if I’m wasting time.

- I can do all those projects, clean the garage/attic, because there is nowhere else to go.

- I can do all those projects, clean the attic/garage, because there is nowhere else to go.

- I can start postponed projects not worrying about any deadlines.

- I can start postponed projects not worrying about any deadlines.

- I can read all the books on the nightstand without interruption.

- I can read all the books on the nightstand without interruption.

- I can linger in the bath because I don’t have any appointments or dates.

- I can linger in the bath because I don’t have any appointments or dates.

- With so much time on my hands and nowhere to go I can virtually keep in touch with everyone.

November 15, 2020

- With so much time on my hands and nowhere to go I can virtually keep in touch with everyone.

- We can still go for walks, albeit alone.

- We can still go for walks, albeit alone.

In short, we’re all going to make the most of a very difficult situation. 

Take Care

 

Those Damn Birds

 

They’re having a ball

Dancing

Doing loop de loops 

Do-si-dos

Circling 

Chasing each other

Swooping

Squealing 

Screeching

Squawking

Sending signals crosstown

All those things that birds do

At 4 AM

A regular riot at 5:30

Without a care in the world

As I am just 

Trying to get back to sleep

Those damn birds

They’re having a ball

Seasons Change

Winter

Turns to spring

Spring turns

To glorious summer

Summer

To brilliant autumn

Autumn turns

To winter

Which turns to spring

Until it doesn't

©Kerry Bell 2020

Laying the Cards on the Table

 

The Jack of Hearts 

Has lost his smarts

And doesn’t know where 

To find them

Leave him alone and 

He’ll wreck your home

Switching his tail behind him

Of a September Evening

residual warmth

of summer allays panic

impending winter  

Summer's End

Summer ends

In a downpour

Washing away

Hot memories

Dreams

Music

Dancing 

And sublime food 

Leaving

Cloud shrouded mountains

Clear air

And uncertainty

 

Post Lockdown and the Three Rs

To all who are still suffering through some version of lockdown or re-lockdown or premature reopening or just severe anxiety, there will be relief, comfort, solace, and even great joy. I promise. Sometimes now, I’m euphoric. 

Italy, one of the hardest hit countries in the early stages of the pandemic, reacted, locked down and has emerged with cautious optimism. The success of our lockdown is multi-faceted. In addition to strong leadership, this society, I like to say, is the most civilized I have ever experienced, and came through lockdown through solidarity, compassion, pragmatism and seriousness. We really were all in this together. 

That which helped me, and many others, through this was reading, for both entertainment and enlightenment; writing - keeping a journal every day of even the most trivial thoughts was like having someone to talk to, it just happened to be myself, but it was comforting - and then, this is where we come to ‘rithmetic. 

When we were younger, we often wondered why we had to study math. I can now cite several applications of the math I took. Many of us used it in all that lockdown cooking and baking, modifying recipes for available ingredients - I have now pretty much nailed eggless, butterless, oatmeal cookies - or proportionately reducing recipes for fewer people. Some of us here have an additional challenge, calculating metric vs. American or British measuring quantities or oven temperatures.  In my professional life as a clothing patternmaker, I drew on geometry and used Pi to calculate  the circumference of the waist or hip measure for a silk chiffon circle skirt. We all use it to understand the impact of mortgage or credit card interest rates. There are many other reasons to have paid attention in class.

In terms of its impact during the pandemic, the importance of recognizing distancing requirements, and most of all, as we are reminded daily the virus isn’t gone, it’s always lurking until there is a vaccine, so one of the most important things to have learned in algebra is the concept of exponential.  

 

Post Lockdown

Hillsides covered in irises, roses and purple honesty 

Amidst spurious poses and dis

Honesty

Wading through a wall of dense humid acacia

Scented air

Passing pungent wild fennel 

Delicate dark deep purple roadside posies

Cyclists racing downhill 

Hurtling towards Bethlehem

As if

There were no danger 

Around the next turning

Darkness disaster or dystopia

An antique pale pink tea rose

Its warm sweet spicy perfume

Makes 

Me raise my head

If the centre holds

The lindens will bloom in June

Lockdown The End

On Monday we can move about freely, with conditions. Masks and gloves required and keeping our distance. It will be very unlike usual. Inhibiting.  

When you walk out that door in the coming days did you learn anything about yourself? 

Did you learn about what you really need and what you don’t? Who you really need in your life, and who you don’t? Who you will tolerate and who you won’t? What’s really important to you and what isn’t? 

What could you not have done without? For me it was reading material and dessert. A lot of one and a little of the other. One cup of strong sugarless tea a day. 

What will change and what won’t? I’ll probably keep to the limited shopping schedule and shop for more than just a couple of days at a time. When bars and restaurants open up in a few weeks I can’t really see myself hanging out in mask and gloves, so I may give that a miss for a while. 

This isn’t a get out of jail free card. We will not pass go or collect $200. 

But when we do walk out that door, spring is at our doorstep and summer is around the corner. Though nothing will be as it was, for some time to come, everything will be as it is. 

Lockdown Day 49

7 weeks in another time zone. The twilight zone. 

Quando la Pania porta il cappello, allunga il passo o porta l’ombrello. 

When the Pania wears a hat, lengthen your stride or bring an umbrella.

These mountains have stories to tell and in watching some are revealed. 

The Apuan Alps are the western coastal range between the Serchio River Valley and the Ligurean- Tirrenean sea. Barga rests on the opposite slopes of the Apennines. On both ranges are the medieval villages which have kept watch over the valley for centuries, and before that, other cultures for thousands of years.  

These mountain ranges have provided perfect points of reference for astronomers since before there even was such a thing named and the skies are fascinating to watch at all times for clues to the weather, which many of the older generation can read. Planting is done rigorously by the phase of the moon. 

Our planet’s movement is obvious as the sun sets each evening gradually traveling from a precise point on the Apuan range in the north west on midsummer night to a point south south west on midwinter night. Although to be clear, to my mind, the sun never actually sets, we go hurtling by, waving goodnight. 

A spectacular, but rare to see, due to weather conditions, phenomenon occurs twice a year, in November and January, when the sun sets above once and then through the enormous natural arch of Monte Forato, perforated mountain, in the Apuan Alps, in the event known as the double sunset. 

But every night it’s a delight to watch the skies here, as we pass all of the constellations and Orion seems to leap over the mountains as I sit in my kitchen sleepless. 

The moon is often a beautiful warm yellow, as it approaches the mountains. 

In the late 16th century astronomy was on many peoples’ minds. The native son, latin and greek scholar, poet, philosopher and humanist, Pietro Angeli, Pier degli Angeli, or as he was also known, Il Bargeo, taught at the University of Pisa. He and Galileo Galilei taught there within a year of each other, perhaps they crossed paths. 

There is quite a bit of ambient light in Barga these days and, although the night sky is still remarkable here, going out into the countryside it is spectacular. On a midsummer’s night you can have a VR experience with the depth of field confusion between fireflies and stars. Oh wait, that is reality. 

Now that we’re permitted to do vegetable gardening, and so many do here, many are preparing their “orti” for planting with each category planted in its phase, seed and gradually transplant during this waxing moon, with new plants at the full moon.

The sun, the moon, and the stars, and the clouds. Endless diversions when there has been nothing else to do but watch from inside during this quarantine. We’re all looking forward to being out and about. Whether it’s a Midsummer Night’s Dream or a midwinter’s tale, even in twilight, we can always dream. 

Lockdown Day 44

With so much time on our hands it is predictable that we would spend a lot of it online. Although in the spirit of the self-discipline of Lockdown Day 11, I try to limit it, especially on the social networks which tend to just be echo chambers from a Narcissus to an Echo. 

There is talk of creating an app for our cell phones for virus contact tracking and limited freedom of movement for those in vulnerable categories. In the recent past the surveillance state has insidiously crept into our lives. CCTV is ubiquitous. This is another level of control purportedly for the common good. Big Brother has a nefarious history going back over 70 years before the putative reality TV show.

We use the social networks to stay connected to friends, family, and possibly news, although that is a matter for debate based on confirmation bias. This is where A. I. comes into play. With our hearts and minds. 

An algorithm analyzing previous searches or ‘likes’  feeds us similar information we’d like to have or need. This applies to communication and predictive text editing. 

My news feed supposedly shows me things I might like to know based on my google searches. I use ad blockers so it doesn’t have the opportunities it once had to feed me advertising based on a random word in an email, which was way too creepy anyway. 

In my news feed it now comes up as ‘sponsored’ or ‘suggested for you’.  So I get posts captioned: this wild pony is so patient while someone sets him free, or various others about horses mired in mud, caught in fences, baby animals abandoned by their mothers being raised by humans, etc. I have never in my life searched anything like this. Or there are the ones captioned “we could sit and listen to “hair education” all day. Hair education? Really? The best are make-up tutorials performed by already attractive 18 somethings applying extremely elaborate layers of stage make-up for everyday wear and ending up looking literally plastified. Imagine having to remove that or what the pillow case, or whatever, would look like if one doesn’t, before going to bed.  These networks know exactly how old I am, it’s not like I’m hiding it on a Tinder profile. 

My most common searches are in the dictionary category: odium, laconic, Fauci, which means jaws in Italian, let that sink in; seraglio, the area where the sultans’ wives live, harem or, in italian spelled serraglio, it means enclosure for ferocious or exotic animals, get the picture? Otherwise, I look up literary references, or similar information. 

The predictive text on my phone is helpful, except when it’s not. You would think that it might predict the most common usages or expressions as you’re typing, it doesn’t, to my endless annoyance. 

What good is it?

Why are these things connected? Why are such random posts coming up in my news feed? Why isn’t predictive text very good? Because A.I. isn’t. 

Which brings us back to the recent calls for interconnectivity for the common good in the time of the coronavirus and beyond. What could go wrong? A lot.

Cherries Jubilee

Trees blaze 

Burning bright 

White 

On steep dull gray

Forest slopes

In the hopes 

From another life
Nights

When the flambé king sang songs of love

Lockdown Day 33 of 55

swallows or house martins 

or whatever 

you Insist 

they are

screeching and chattering

like they rule the roof

pumping their little pointy wings

loping to gain loft

flying arcs 

jet-propelled from gutter to gutter

flapping and flitting

and dive bombing

kamikazes until the last second

Lockdown Day 30

There is hope. Thirty days into lockdown and it looks like we have real progress. The peak was at eleven days in and then it has taken another 18 to 20 to confirm real improvement. We seem to be coming out the other side. Our rigorous reclusion restrictions have been effective. 

Language is a living thing and while we’re all inside there isn’t a whole lot else to do but read or watch films, unless you’re working from home which is a whole new challenge.  

With so much time on my hands and reading a lot, I’m thinking of languages, reading friends’ posts in italian and french, all pretty much the same woes and diversions, and an excellent exercise for language skills. I read anything and everything I can, in Italian in particular, no matter how ridiculous or colorful. I’ve learned a lot.  

Italian is a beautiful language, poetic, descriptive. It is easy to learn to pronounce, as every letter is pronounced, you say it like you see it. Grammar, though complicated, is also very clear in certain ways. Verb endings tell you exactly who, how many, and when, and sometimes even gender, such that you often don’t need a pronoun. Andiamo! Let’s go! 

Adjectives, though often similar to English, sometimes have very different meanings. My husband’s home made pizza was often described as squisita! exquisite? Well that’s one way to put it. It usually applies to food. Whereas we would say delicious, that word in italian has a different application too in that it is not unusual to describe “una donna davvero deliziosa,” a truly delicious woman, lovely in other words.  

Sometimes I use mnemonics to remember words, or some other associative element.

As I read about the pandemic pandemonium elsewhere, I cannot help being reminded of another word association. When our son was in school we’d hear about friends having bocciato, flunked, a test or the year. It comes from the verb bocciare, something that didn’t pass, e.g. a law, or was put off to be done over. In the Tuscan dialect it means failed. Although there seems to be no origin connection, ours comes from old english, I always remembered it by our word: botched. 

Lockdown Day 25

At risk of seeming irreverent, there is so much suffering out there, but here’s some fan fiction, a little fantasy, which we could all use right now.

In more optimistic moments there is something delicious, like being a person of leisure. Hm, there’s no C there. Weird. Never mind. Too much time on my hands. The long empty hours of nothing doing. Killing time as if there were nothing else to do, or perhaps to keep from worrying, as April may, in fact, be the cruelest month, for some. 

Soaking long in a fragrant steamy bubble bath. Staring out the window at no traffic below.

Lounging in leisure wear, looking at the clock to see if it’s the cocktail hour yet, no, only 10:45, 15 minutes to go. Not really, but like something out of a Fitzgerald novel, or mid twentieth century drama or better yet, Nick and Nora Charles in their suite at the Ritz, or was it the Plaza?  Wherever.

-Nicky?  Nicky!  (Reclining odalisque-esque in her charmeuse dressing gown, bracelets jangling, on a sumptuous suede chaise lounge, Nora stares blankly at her cerise nails, and then sighs and raises an immaculate eyebrow at the empty martini glass in her other hand )

-Yes, darling? (Amidst the sound of clinking ice cubes, Nick calls brightly from the other room )

-Nicky? Where’s Asta?

(an indecipherable mumble from the other room, drowned out by the sound of the martini shaker)

-Nicky? You didn’t… No… Nicky… No.  (Nora rolls her eyes, bats her long eyelashes, and tries to stifle a smile)

(Nick appears in the doorway with martini shaker in hand and a conspiratorial smile under his pencil thin mustache)

Lockdown Day 24

In a recent Facebook post someone said they never wanted to see the word: “unprecedented” again, and another added: “tremendous.” They were, of course, referring to certain political dialogue. 

We arrived here when our son was 3. Our neighbors had two children and they would all play happily together. Our son was very energetic and at times the other parents would laugh and shake their heads, “e’ tremendo eh”. Tremendous, I thought? Great, terrific? No, it means, you’re a little terror, in a good way if it’s said with a smile, or at worst, terrible or a real Brat! Today, that would be an understatement, fortunately no longer in reference to our son. 

Many languages have “false friends” similar words that do not mean the same thing in different languages. 

My husband, even after speaking french, italian and english for 25 years, had occasional lapses into other languages.  One night he was talking to a french friend about additives, you know the stuff they put in food to preserve it , “préservatifs”  he said. We all had a good laugh.  In french and italian “préservatifs” , “preservativi” means condoms, and that’s certainly not what he meant.

A young boy I once knew, got his head stuck in the curved arm of a rattan arm chair, as they do, and yelled “ Help! I’m castrated!” directly translating the italian word incastrato, caught. 

Long after buying  a house in Italy and all the administrative correspondence, I still feel that when I address a letter to: Egregio Signor, I’m making a flagrant error.  No, I’m addressing it to: Distinquished Sir.  

It has been on my mind a lot lately as I read the word for hospitalized, which in italian is: ricoverato, which is so close to recovered, but yet so far. 

We’re still not out of the woods yet, although the statistics are better, many more are recovering, and only slowly but surely consistently improving. 

Time and patience

Lockdown Day 19

pigeons on the red tile roof ridges 

ducking and swooping 

in their beak to beak love dance

squawking and preening

and communing in the morning sunshine 

lighting and landing 

like an airport tarmac

coming and going 

at their leisure

traveling far and wide

flying in formation 

in great widening circles

Lockdown Day 18

There is a fierce March wind blowing from the east northeast, between “Grecale” and “Levante” as described on the beautiful chart of Italian wind names. The promised snow never materialized here but you can see its line through the mist that shrouds the coastal Apuan Alp range between Barga and the Tirreno-Ligurian sea. There will be snow in the Apennines behind Barga as well. 

The story of The Buffalo Soldiers is fairly well known. James McBride wrote the novel entitled Miracle at Saint Anna, which is a fictionalized tale of two cities, Barga and Saint Anna di Stazzema. Unfortunately this combination of the two very separate and distinct real events has been promoted in several books, and Spike Lee made a movie of James McBride’s novel. The real stories are much more tragic and each worthy of its own recitation. The real story of the Buffalo Soldiers at Sommocolonia near Barga in December 1944 was discovered and has been described in the new book entitled Braided in Fire, by Solace Wales which will be available in June 2020. 

The chapel at the house has its feast day Mass celebration on Corpus Domini, or Corpus Cristi Sunday usually near the end of May, the primarily Catholic holy day which honors the real, as opposed to symbolic, Eucarist. 

We could arrange 12 chairs in the chapel and the rest of the congregation remained standing just outside the door, reciting the prayers and responses which they all knew by heart. The original tradition of the Mass there, years before, had always been to have a merenda either on the property or sometimes down by the river. The principle of the merenda is that of a picnic, where each family brings enough for themselves including, table cloths, paper plates, utensils and glasses. The reality was a feast where each family brought enough food for all to enjoy.  

The serene Mass over and all congregated to enjoy a sumptuous buffet on trestle tables on our graveled courtyard. 

There was a very tall gentleman in his late seventies who enjoyed talking and told me some of the stories of his adolescence during the war. He lived in a village above my house and, as with all the residents of these mountains, knew all the properties like the back of his hand, and walked down to see what was happening. He told me there was a small American encampment at the farmhouse just below my house and soldiers who were using my cantina as barracks. They were very friendly and well behaved, he said, and would joke with the local children and hand out chocolate and chewing gum. 

The teenager, who would eventually become the tailor of Barga, heard the news that the Germans were nearby in these mountains and, with his father who had lived and worked in Glasgow and spoke English well, took the news to the soldiers at my property and the one below. It was then planned that the outpost would decamp to headquarters at Camaiore. As he told it, he and others led the soldiers on foot westward through the Apuan Alps to Camaiore where they met up with the American forces training units there.

The American and allied forces influence during World War Two is still in the collective memory. There are other fascinating stories of the children and grandchildren of the war years. When we first moved here we spoke to a woman in Barga who recounted the story, that as a child, of having walked out to my property during the war to take shelter from the bombing with the family there. And, Don Cola, as an 11 year old, and family, with their belongings in a wheel barrow, walked down to the town of Mologno in the valley.  

I have a copy of the certificate awarded to the owner  of my house “as a token of gratitude for and appreciation of the help given to the Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen of the British Commonwealth of Nations which enabled them to escape from or evade capture by the enemy.”  signed by H. R. Alexander, Field-Marshal, Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theatre. 

I’m going to brave the wind and go out to the house as soon as I’ve printed yet another more detailed version of the self-declaration of movement. 

The statistics of those infected, which I cautiously read each evening, while still better than before, have taken another slight jump, though those recovering consistently improve. We just need to hang in here. 

The winds of change. There will be stories to tell. 

Lockdown Day 16

Barga, in its heyday during the late Renaissance, was the westernmost city in the Grand Duchy of Florence. Most of the buildings in the old town date from around 1500 through the1800’s. There are still residents whose family ancestors were titled nobility from that period. 

My old farmhouse is on a mountainside above the deep valley of the Ania River, or Torrent as it is known,  and looks out on to another mountainside to the southeast.  These mountains are spurs of Monte Giovo, in the northern Apennines.  

I was always fascinated in winter when the leafless chestnut forest on the mountains opened vast vistas where you could see for miles and exposed all of the dwellings and outbuildings that were hidden to view the rest of the year. One structure that particularly intrigued me was what seemed to be a shelter, just a post supported roof, high up on the ridge directly in front of the kitchen window. I wondered how you got there, until one day my neighbor, whose family have been in the area for countless generations, explained carefully that he could ride there on his horse on one of the ancient and elaborate system of mule tracks that criss cross these mountains and served as the main roads connecting the farms and still are today the legal rights of way, open to hunters and mushroom pickers. Or, he said, you could go toward Coreglia and simply drive up the other side of the mountain and, that it was the Bocce court of a wonderful family restaurant I’d been to several times. 

Bacchionero is a remote village deep up into that mountain range and it was an active farming community in the 18th century. It was originally within the confines of the ancient watershed of the Florentines including Lago Santo. Villagers and visitors traveled from farm to village on foot or by mule on the well trod tracks. The village thrived. Winter snow came early, but prepared and well stocked, the large families of up to ten children, hunkered down, stayed put and kept warm by the hearth in their solidly built stone houses.

The Bertacchi family was one of the noble families of the late renaissance period. Their grand palazzo, now Casa Cordati in Via di Mezzo, was renowned as the palazzo in which at least one of the grand dukes of Tuscany were entertained, and dates from that same period when the originally named Porta Mancianella was renamed Porta Reale in honor of the nobles’ visits.  

Bacchionero was part of the Bertacchi family holdings and in 1784 Dottor Anton Filippo Bertacchi was given verbal permission by the Archbishop of Lucca to build a church for his villagers, who were otherwise isolated and unable to get to church, which was such an integral part of their lives, particularly in winter. And a grand church it was for such a remote site. It could hold sixty seated or up to eighty including standing room, seeking spiritual peace, serenity, quietude, safety and security. It served sixteen small villages from Tiglio to Coreglia Antelminelli. 

The church was dedicated to San Lorenzo, the patron of faith and charity, whose saint’s day is celebrated on August 10. From 1959 until 1963 the intrepid Don Cola of Tiglio traveled by foot, bike or eventually motorbike to serve mass there. In 1963 the village was no longer much inhabited so the church was deconsecrated and fell to ruin.  

Fast forward fifty years to August 10, 2013.  An older, but still fit, Don Giuseppe Cola presided at Mass for 100 enthusiastic parishioners, some of whom arrived on foot from many surrounding communities, at a makeshift but solid altar of stones amidst of the ruins of the stone houses and the church, in remembrance of a way of life established over two hundred and twenty nine years earlier at Bacchionero.

Enzo Tognieri of Coreglia called the village the lieu of lost souls. San Lorenzo, August 10th, is also known as the night of the shooting stars, when you can make a wish. 

The temperature has dropped dramatically. I’ve lit the fire in my wood stove in this modern apartment in a 400 year old building. Listening to the chestnut logs' characteristic pop keeps me company. There were snow flurries this morning and there is light snow in the forecast. 

Lockdown Day 15

Escape from New York and all its horrifying sci-fi imagery of a future world, although set in 1997, isn’t even happening yet and wouldn’t be quite the same here, although these seemingly sci-fi draconian restrictions, which are getting stricter and stricter by the day, (and the woodsmen can not even go about their business as usual as there is now a moratorium on that) and are really in the community’s best interest but do give one pause, and do seem to be working as, with cautious optimism and the knowledge of noticeably improving statistics as predicted for this 15th day of lockdown, I could escape from Barga Vecchia this sparkling cold windy morning over empty winding roads without imagining coming back to that future world yet either, so far. 

The biggest challenge is finding things to do to pass the hours inside and, unfortunately without much exercise or intellectually challenging activity or even a good lively conversation or energizing argument, dissipate some of this existential angst, that sometimes means in the middle of the night too and as I wile away the hours watching the digital clock do its line dance through not insignificant others’ birth dates and other-life seeming house numbers; 12:45; 01:54; 03:15; 03:24; until 04:05 when the birds began their ascent into what would end in the cacophonous crescendo of the euphemistically called dawn chorus after which I might descend into sleep, not to be disturbed these days at 06:35 by my genial gentle giant of a neighbor’s otherwise adorable vintage cinquecento as it cranks over and over and over until it finally catches and rattles off out the piazza and echoes and reverberates between the centuries’ old stone buildings. Do I really miss that? The birds beginning their chorus so early must mean they’re as confused as I am about the upcoming daylight savings time change which will afford me the pretense of sleeping in, when the clocks spring ahead while we shelter in place, like treading water, and say it’s an hour later than my body knows it to be and I can have the illusion of luxuriating in bed and killing time, which is all I have to slay right now except painful memories, Elf knights, a la Lady Isabel, or imaginary enemies, and fabricating fiction and drawing out warrior women, ice princesses and Irish pirate queens as I wile away the long days indoors until the digital clock says it’s past bedtime but I’m not tired at all. 

Strunk & White are thrashing in their graves.

Lockdown Day 13

13 is not an unlucky number in Italy. That would be 17, so we have a little more time here, but hopefully this is all just superstition which, in combination with faith, there is still, hope and charity. 

There can be no actual funerals in this period, but there were funeral bells this morning. I don’t think they were virus related as we have very few cases here. That there can be no funerals is very disturbing in and of itself as it denies families here the opportunity to express with their sublime dignity their respects for ancestors, extended family or friends. Funerals are a catharsis and closure of which they are being denied. Rites and rituals can be of great comfort and have a stabilizing effect in difficult times. 

When I heard the bells this morning I was taking a leisurely bath appreciating the hot running water from the tap. 

There are a few things which I’m running out of that I cannot get at the local supermarket. Since I am of the demographic which should be extra cautious, i am, and I won’t journey to the larger store to get them. as much as I’d love the outing, even just to the store. How our needs and desires become relative. So, I’m being conservative, not to be confused with Conservative, in my use of certain supplies and carefully considering what is essential. 

I now understand why Pietro got nervous if we didn’t have 10 kilos of pasta on hand at all times. That really just represents 10 standard one kilo packages of pasta and whenever they were on sale, he would buy just a few. Slowly but surely stocking up.

Being conservative with that which I have on hand and, at the same time, using stuff I have had forever but never touched. Like books I’ve had for eons and never read, always waiting for a time like this, well, not exactly like this, but one in which I had nothing but time on my hands. 

This may change our collective behavior for at least a generation or two. Hopefully for the better. There are enough resources in the world to be shared equitably. Equitably does not necessarily mean equally, we’ve all seen the meme, but it means there is enough to go around with judicious planning.

So, each trip to the store, I pick up only a couple of extra things, except cookies, those I stock up on, but I haven’t heard of any runs on the cookie aisle.  

We had a tradition of a nice Sunday lunch, nothing fancy, just a little something special. Though it’s just me, I’ve made a nice Sunday lunch. 

Lockdown Day 12

This is the 12th day of lockdown. I have not yet experienced an epiphany as to why the numbers are not getting any better. There were 5986 new cases yesterday. Cinquemillenovecentoottantasei it would be written here. In the last 5 days new cases have increased from 10% to 20%  per day. The only glimmer of hope is that, also for the last 5 days, each day, cases recovered have outpaced deaths.  That’s a good sign, but it’s all still harrowing. The incubation period is 2 to 14 days, we went into lockdown 11 days ago. Something’s gotta give and I hope it’s soon.  

The vast majority of cases are in the north. The powers that be are screaming that those areas are not sufficiently in compliance with the restrictions. Barga is like a ghost town. I hope it stays that way, figuratively.  Our lovely and effective Mayor is calling us out on being “furbetti,” for finding clever ways of sneaking around.  Now, even the parks are closed. If you want exercise, do it at home, inside, they decree. 

Spring has sprung and so have I. The grass is riz, and the birdies is, which is almost the only thing you hear on this otherwise, and other worldly, silent spring day. With appropriate documentation in hand, I drove out to the house. 

Clear blue sky, not a car on the road. At the house, I washed my car. I love a clean car. Clean cars go faster. Reduced drag coefficient. But really I’m just a firm proponent of, take care of your stuff. Love your stuff. I love my car. It’s 20 years old, the first car I got here. You’re an American you say, how can you do that? It happens. Some of you may also find it heartbreaking that I traded in a 1974 Alfa Romeo Spider, which I’d had shipped from San Francisco. It was worth it. We needed a family car. It’s still in very good condition. And now, it’s going to have to last. Like most things we have right now. 

When the virus is contained, we will need to focus on food, water, shelter, and medical care, not even clothing as most of us probably have enough clothes to see us through another season, at least.  Just the basics. We will need to summon and share all resources to bring everyone through this. The consumer economy, an oxymoron at best, will change. Back to the basics, and rebuild. 

When I finished washing my car, I took a long walk (not in fear of being caught out "a spazio" which I always imagine to mean, lost in space, but really just means out in the open) up to the church at Tiglio Alto, as I used to do when we lived at the house. I didn’t pass a soul, which was not unusual. It was both the beauty and problem with living out there. I’m also no stranger to solitude. 

This fairly simple church has comforted this small community for about 900 years. It has seen worse. A friend reminded me recently that the Black Death of 1348-50 may have killed more than 75% of the Italian population. 

As mentioned, this is a simple church, but it has one feature which leads the Priest to say it was a very important church, perhaps as a pilgrimage site as, sometime afterwards it acquired a pair of lovely, valuable and unusual 14th C. painted marble statues of the Annunciation. 

The Priest, Don Giuseppe Cola, whose motto is simplicity and prayer, and of which he is exemplary, has been the Priest there for 66 years. He carefully maintains several small churches in his parish, each with their own Mass or Feast Day, including, Renaio, Pegnana, Tiglio Basso, Seggiana, and at one time Montebono and Bacchionero. Among these is also a small one room chapel on our property built just after the war, which, when we bought the property had been deconsecrated but he came to see us and offered to help restore it. With the help of other local parishioners it was restored and reconsecrated in 2005. 

The church at Tiglio Alto was also a part of a fortress which was once there. In about 1352, the Lucchesi seized the fortress for its strategic position overlooking the valley. Since it was part Barga and therefore in the domain of Florence, the Florentines came to the rescue and, in the negotiations with Castruccio Castracani (dog castrator, this is such a beautiful and colorful language) and the Antelminelli family of Lucca, Florence regained the post but had to knock down the fortress. Don Cola can still show you its outline inside the bell tower. 

So, the 14th century was an important period there. The Black Death, elegant statuary, the fortress taken and regained. Life goes on. 

As I said goodbye and drove away from the house in my nice clean car, I saluted the hillside blanketed in the perennial periwinkle. Some things never change, and never will, and in that there is hope. 

Lockdown Day 11

Although I am getting a little discouraged by the data, which we have been warned, will get much worse before it gets better, sometimes you have to abandon yourself to the existential randomness and absurdity of it all. It could be the weather as our splendid recent days have turned overcast and glum today. Here’s a little something on a lighter note.

This is the most ingenious thing ever invented for the kitchen and they are standard here. It’s a drain rack incorporated into the cupboard directly above the sink. It also permanently houses a set of dishes for 8, glasses and cups included. The best thing since sliced bread. Well, that would be the dishwasher, but never mind. 

I am no stranger to isolation but compared to being stranded out at the house in a snowstorm or whatever, lockdown in a comfortable apartment in the middle of town isn’t as difficult, but it has its challenges. Time takes on a new dimension. It seems to pass much more slowly. One is constantly calibrating what will fill the time, not necessarily most efficiently but, most amply. The days have a same sameness about them and without the amusement of the Saturday morning market hubbub or the delight of the cacophony of the Sunday morning church bell’s call to worship, or Monday’s energizing jump start to a new week, to mark the days, they seem to blend into one another and I find myself needing to think of what day it is. 

Besides reading, writing, and not ‘rithmatic, as I am conscientiously trying not to obsess about the statistics, by exercising the self discipline not to look at them before the evening’s 6 PM report, a list of things to do is a must. A plan for at least part of the day is recommended. 

Lockdown or any other type of confinement requires a balance between self-discipline and reward. One advantage is, that since this will be a long lockdown period, I can have the satisfaction of putting tedious things, like house keeping, off. I really can do it tomorrow, the next day, or even next week.

However, so as not to find yourself snacking constantly or watching TikTok videos, it is necessary to establish some degree of self-discipline and/or self control. 

Routines can be helpful. Sticking to a timetable for some things is a way to mark time which seems to expand otherwise. Remember: the space-time continuum theory may apply even in a severely limited static space and Betty Friedan’s feminist admonition that housework seems to expand to fill the time available. However, ditching the timetable is sometimes necessary as well, so as not to drive yourself over the edge with OCD. Although, according to Hannah Arendt, to W. H Auden, all kinds of madness were lack of discipline, and who am I to argue.

My trips to the store, with their angst ridden wait-in-line and air of foreboding calm, find me wandering the aisles yearning for chocolate and other things to assuage this anxiety. The cookie aisle is particularly enticing as cookies are a thing here, for breakfast. Who doesn’t love a country that markets them as breakfast food. Seriously, the back of the package tallies: x number of cookies, (preferably dunked in) caffe latte and a container of fruit yogurt give you all the nutrients and calories necessary to start your day right. I kid you not.    

So, lockdown time management requires the judicious application of self-discipline and reward when it comes to food: meals and snacking. What else is there to overindulge when you’re on your own. As I mentioned on Day 5, and absolutely nothing has changed, I make a nice meal patiently and eat it slowly, never multi-tasking. Multitasking is arguably time saving and this is not what we need right now. So, no internet or reading while you’re eating. Save that for when you have nothing else to do, which is most of the time now. I usually make at least two portions and put the rest in a ceramic baking dish so I can just pop it into the oven on alternating days, so as not to have to cook every single day, even though I have nothing but time. I never said I wasn’t a lazy southern European, (see: Lockdown Day 8) although the laziest amongst us are your best Operations Officers and Efficiency Experts. We excel at the easiest and fastest methods of doing anything. 

I am even keeping up with the laundry. In addition to making me feel moderately virtuous, it’s because there is a large window enclosed porch upstairs, with a beautiful view (reward) of the Apuan Alps, which serves as what I call, the Italian national birthright to have somewhere to hang your washing, as this is all it’s used for. There are few tumble dryers here. I’ll take any excuse these days to go up there, even laundry hanging. I have set up a reading corner which I use as a real get-away, but no one else in the building goes there for anything but hanging laundry. They are busy compassionately caring for their extended families, and their luxurious plants, keeping their homes spotless, and cooking those scrumptious meals we all know and love. Which is also, in theory (mine) why they eat cookies for breakfast, who wants to bother with anything else when you’ll have some fabulous meal later in the day, and/or have to spend a lot of time cooking up that fabulous meal.

Performing tedious tasks like dishes, not to be put off until tomorrow, requires the recommended self discipline and reward system. Doing the lunch dishes (see illustration above) takes exactly as much time as is required to make a cup of tea. So, the tedious task is rewarded with tea and dessert, cakes, cookies and/or ice cream. Desperate times call for desperate measures. 

I washed the floors today. Or, maybe, yesterday; i can’t be sure. I hate to wash floors. It’s the absolute most odious housekeeping chore that exists. But the self-discipline of not abandoning myself to total shameless self-indulgence, also imparted a modicum of gratification of the satisfaction of having chosen to do the right thing. Bring on the cookies and maybe some Vin Santo. I hedge my bets. Cookies for breakfast, cookies with wine, what’s not to love. 

Lockdown Day 9

My questions were my contemplation and their answer was [not] in their beauty.  Confessions, St. Augustine, paraphrased.

We will be given freedom and healing, but not yet. It seemed like there was the hope of having hit a peak, as infectious cases and deaths almost leveled off or dropped and those recovered rose, but that data was short lived. We’re not out of the woods yet and this is to be taken very seriously. The health care workers are making herculean efforts and the system’s infrastructure is stretched to the max. 

We are incredibly fortunate where we live as there are few cases in this area. However, attention must be paid to the catastrophic situation elsewhere. 

Armed with my affidavits, and a legitimate reason to be out, I drove to the house to feed the cats and mow the grass. It’s unseasonably warm and nature is going forth even as we are not. One of the beauties of this situation is that there is absolutely no rush to anything. You can dally as long as you wish in contemplation. I took full advantage of this to mow the grass, letting my mind wander as I mowed over vast areas several times. The peace and solitude out in nature was my reward. The down side is that it is like driving on a bumpy dirt road for two hours, but then when I got back into my car, on the drive home, it felt like a cruising in some Cadillac.  It’s a long and winding road and, even though it’s through the mountains, somehow the image of driving down Highway i through Big Sur came to mind. I can only go far in my mind these days.  

The questions of how long this will last and what the impact will be long term are not to be considered at this time. We’re all in this together.  

Back at the apartment the space-time continuum theory may apply even in a severely limited static space and Betty Friedan’s feminist admonition that housework seems to expand to fill the time available may also be true and useful right now but literature, artwork  and music are much more fulfilling, and in these uncertain times, I’d really rather curl up with a good book or something equally comforting.  

Lockdown Day 8

To help pass these long hours, I take walks whenever I can, even though they are proibite. This morning, under a softly veiled sky I snuck out, glancing furtively, like some Irish lover on the way to a tryst this St Patricks day, (although that’s forbidden too, including holding hands outdoors if you are not cohabiting) winding down through the stone alleys of the old town the back way, so as not to risk being stopped by the local police downtown. The choice was, go out the back way and tackle a very steep hill, which I usually avoid, or face having to present two affidavits, coming and going, even if I’m just going to the store. The hill won. The police are apparently being very nice right now, but this was just another anxiety I could avoid in this insidiously anxious moment.

On the back road, known as the Tiglio Road, tractors full of firewood, manure, and hay rumbled by, the farmers and woodsmen going about business as usual. People were in their gardens pruning vines and fruit and olive trees. They know it’s too early to plant their kitchen gardens, as April, and even May, as we experienced last year, can be too rainy and cold to grow effectively. There is an inviolable rule of thumb that you never plant tomatoes before May 15th in these mountains. These guidelines may be changing as our climate is noticeably warming, but it’s too soon for the people here to trust that and change their generations old tried and true methods. 

Each person I passed, always pleasant, but often somewhat reticent in these hills, saluted me slightly more openly than usual. A woman, with whom I have crossed paths many times in the last 18 years, but never spoken to, stopped me and asked me if I was Gianni Messina’s mother. She told me she had been one of the teachers in his nursery school and said, although she wasn’t his teacher, she still remembered him fondly and would I please give him her regards.  

Years ago I submitted this letter to the Editor referring to an article on another, long ago now, looming threat of fiscal crisis. It was a period in which Europe was accusing Italy, Spain and Greece of fiscal irresponsibility for not toeing the line on austerity measures, labeling them Lazy Southern Europeans. Those same austerity measures are a matter of great debate today as they substantially undermined the national infrastructure and health care systems which are struggling to respond to this crisis. 

This letter is especially apt today. I’ll post something on a lighter note tomorrow. 

Industrious southern Europeans

“Europe’s money trap” (Nov. 16) by Paul Krugman makes reference to the German public’s stereotyping of “lazy southern Europeans.” While I recognize that this article wasn’t about national character but about fiscal policy, nevertheless I’d like to convey my experience living in an Apennine mountain city of 10,000.

We reside in a community of family-oriented, church-going farmers, industrial workers, business people, hospital employees and shop owners of all ages. Every family has an extensive kitchen garden, fruit trees, and many have olive groves and vineyards. They are all cultivated, tended, harvested and processed by hand, in their spare time, before work, after work, on weekends, which in many cases are only Saturday afternoon and Sunday as many shop owners, manual workers and business people work five and a half days a week here. Like them our son leaves for school each day at 6:30 a.m., six days a week.

We live in a forested area, and in addition to their gardens people often spend several months of the winter, in their spare time, cutting, chopping, splitting and transporting firewood for their low-emission wood burning furnaces. Social events revolve around church and family. Neighbors help neighbors. Every one has a smile and a joke to tell. Layabouts are few and far between.

It is not paradise, and we have our share of problems. Youth unemployment is high, but the children live at home and often help out with chores, child care and transportation.

So while northern Europeans may be more productive, my experience with the southern Europeans is that they are industrious, more self- sufficient and grounded — and this may just see them through the crisis.

Kerry Bell, Barga, Italy

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/opinion/germany-france-and-trade.html 2/3

Germany, France and Trade - The New York Times

Lockdown Day 7

Our property in the countryside is somewhat isolated but reasonably easily accessible . It’s perched on the side of a mountain in the Apennines over a river valley with steep mountains in front and behind it. There are many other farms in those mountains whose access is extremely difficult even treacherous as the river becomes an untraversable torrent. The area is covered with isolated farms ingeniously terraced to make the most of the steep mountainsides. 

There were farm fields on a ridge far up in the mountains that I could see from our kitchen window and I always wondered why they went so high into the countryside to cultivate that property, until one morning, I realized that the sun, rising directly behind it, hit that field first thing in the morning and, of course, I had always enjoyed watching its reflection set on that very hillside. It got at least 12 hours of sunlight in the growing season. They had to be totally self sufficient, isolated as they were.    

When we lived exclusively out at the house, 9 kilometers from town, there were forced periods of isolation and confinement like snow storms or landslides. There were also challenges like power and phone outages that lasted for days or, in the case of the phone and internet access, sometimes weeks. Each required its coping strategy.

With a small child to entertain the strategies could be quite challenging. Seemingly endless games of Monopoly, puzzles, and Scopa, and Briscola, with the beautiful 40 card Neapolitan decks, were the antidote to television or computer and sometimes imperative, as in the case of power outages. It was unnerving and frustrating feeling trapped inside. You developed patience and fortitude. It was all character building. 

Europe has lived through two devastating wars in the last 100 years. WW II ended for Italy 75 years ago next month, the 25th of April.  The city I live in took devastating bombing in April of 1945, the last battles of the war were fought here just above the gothic line.  The parents, grandparents, and great grandparents here are children of the war years. The people of this area know the hardships and impoverishment of living in isolation. 

Italians are gregarious, demonstrative and affectionate. It is a real sacrifice to be forced not to socialize and they’re being totally compliant. There have been a couple of blips. The city of Lucca has just had to cordon off the promenade on the top of its famous wall, as did the seaside city of Viareggio for their promenade after last weekend, when it was crowded with people seeking companionship, even at a distance, in the sunshine. Otherwise people are only leaving their homes to go grocery shopping, standing in calm lines at a distance of one meter apart, or run other essential errands. There has been no panic shopping.

Two wars and periods of extreme economic hardship and isolation have strengthened this small community’s character. They are pragmatic, responsible, resourceful and family oriented which encourages a compassionate respect for others. During this period there is a “we’re all in the same boat” solidarity, using the same metaphor in Italian. Reading any of the literature or poetry from the early 20th century here, one gets a sense of the strength and seriousness of this community having lived through this before.

For me, the snow days and power outages at the house, entertaining a young child and the rewards and challenges of family life, are over. Our son’s character and resourcefulness is well established in its way too. 

The sacrifices made in this short term will pay off. We all find ways of coping in this isolation knowing it could be worse, in its own way. 

Lockdown Day 6

On my way to the car I come out into the silent empty medieval city and walk up a hundred or so stone steps to the Duomo, the doors of which are now sadly shut, masses cancelled and the bells, which kept us all company and marked the rhythm of our days, silenced. The spectacular view looking west over the gently rounded Apuan Alps is unchanged. The sky is a deep cerulean. The air is crisp on this clear spring morning, Sunday, the !5th of March.

I’m evading lockdown by escaping to our property in the country. Under the circumstances this is strictly forbidden as the State doesn’t want people traveling beyond their communities and/or risking spreading the virus through rest stops on highways, for instance, if they were traveling to their holiday properties. My heart jumped as I rounded the corner to see the police checking documents, you’re required to have an official self-certified affidavit as to why you are out in the car and where you are going. Fortunately, I could turn off before them and In this case zip out the back road with no one the wiser. 

As I drive I pass the beautiful light pink magnolia’s and the coral pink pesco bushes in early bloom, the rose pink camellia’s in full bloom. 

It’s our son’s 22nd birthday. This is the vast mountainside property he grew up on in the contrast of freedom and confinement. Freedom, in that he was free to go anywhere in the area, into the woods, down to the river, no traffic, no nosey neighbors, only the spectacular countryside. Confinement, because if and when he needed or wanted to leave to go to school, guitar lessons, soccer, gym practice or, most importantly, see his friends he needed someone to drive him, which was eventually the impetus for getting a place closer to town, It had its limitations but he had an idyllic childhood, I hope.  

I drive out here every few days to feed the barn cats we had to leave behind and do whatever maintenance is needed. It evokes mixed feelings of pride, joy and profound loss. 

Today I wonder what Pietro would think of this health crisis and lockdown. He would probably be very disturbed and anxious, as he always was in challenging times. He showed up at the door shaken and in tears to tell me about 9/11. It must have been the vestige of his difficult childhood in a large impoverished family immediately following the war. The existential threat of uncertainty.  He would also be of the gender and generation which is under the greatest threat from the virus. 

I’ve fed the cats. With guarded optimism, the extreme statistics seem to be leveling off, I pruned the wisteria and will sneak back, driving through the old town, to unload the firewood that I’ve bagged from the cords that Pietro cut, and we gathered and stacked over the years, and that I am still using in the small cast-iron wood stove my apartment, which murmurs and cackles to keep me company on these long evenings.