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.

Lockdown Day 5

Today is Saturday, March 14, 2020. On Saturday mornings in Barga you

usually find throngs of genial outdoor market goers, and the

supermarket full of happy shoppers laughing and chatting away to

friends, relatives, strangers, and possibly even enemies, alike. It's

a day at the Fair.

Today, on this cool, overcast but bright spring morning, as I headed 

for the supermarket, the streets were almost empty.

A few utility and service vehicles rattled by. When I approached the

store and blinked away the glare my heart sank to see that there was 

indeed a line to enter. It wasn't long, maybe a dozen people, 10 to 15 

minutes wait. It was too demoralizing to take a photo. 

The people were unusually calm and quiet but, as always, 

pleasant and polite. We smiled and shrugged to 

one another. What else is there to do? We said silently. The

supermarket was in its normal orderly state except for taped lines of

demarcation, stand here, maintain the distance, they read, the clerks,

even more of their usual pleasant, patient selves. I returned through

still almost empty streets.

For the last few days I've been mostly inside reading, drawing,

staring out the window at my beautiful view and feeling fortunate but

a little sad. Although accustomed to a solitary existence, this is

different, but it also has the heartening effect that at least I know

I'm not missing anything out there.

Everything is in slomo. I make nice meals patiently, and enjoy them

slowly. There's absolutely no rush to do anything. Now would be a good

time to tackle spring cleaning. But even that can wait a little as

this is going to be the situation for at least a couple of weeks and I

can put that on the list of things to do and work through it slowly

and thoroughly. I cut and put together a wedding dress commission

which will not happen as scheduled but will happen eventually.

I'm enjoying my usual habit of taking what I call wild romps through

the internet, clicking from link to link in an effort to follow a

research thread. The latest was the word shrive, which came up in my

now third reading of Ulysses. Why not, I have nothing but time.

Baths are my favorite indulgence and I can enjoy them with abandon and

add to that going braless and wearing sweat pants with impunity. I

ain't goin nowhere, and no one’s coming to visit.  In considering some 

online purchases I thought of a choice between buying books or 

a vibrator. Books won.

Keeping to an orderly schedule, going for a solitary walk, thinking

long and hard. The weather is helping, trees are blooming pink, 

as spring has crept up on us almost imperceptibly because we had 

no winter to speak of and we weren't anxiously looking around every

corner for its arrival.

There is none of the usual clatter of cars passing or buses honking 

down on the main road or delightful chatter going on below outside 

my window. All I hear are the birds.