The children have spoken. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
I got this message from several windows as I walked along via Garibaldi. I don’t know what’s happening elsewhere in the city — I’m hoping that the calli and campielli are smothered in festoons of “It’s going to be all right” sheets and scarves and beach towels and boat tarpaulins and painters’ old dropcloths. Somebody’s father’s favorite shirt…. Mom’s once-a-year taffeta evening skirt… What we can see on the windows may just be the tiniest part of the creative volcano.
Meanwhile, with the waking-up of via Garibaldi the lines begin to form outside the shops of prima necessita’ (first necessity), the only type that’s allowed to be open. They are orderly and correctly spaced. At least for ten refreshing minutes in the morning I get to see people who are not on my computer screen. They’re amazing! In three dimensions!
What’s interesting about all these lines isn’t so much that people are forming them — though that certainly is noteworthy, being a sort of Nordic, Anglo-Saxon sort of practice that I’d never have thought to see here, where groups of people (I remember the banks) generally tend to arrange themselves as an amoeba. It’s astounding to recall that the same number of people going into stores in via Garibaldi, however many there may be, always used to just go into the store. Whatever store. You just walked in. It was like the vaporetto; if there was space for you, you took it. If there wasn’t space for you, you made some and took it. Even if there were 40 people where now they can allow only one, that was normal.
Now that we’re stuck at the other extreme of the living-together phenomenon, I am amazed that we lived like that. When all this is over, I’m also going to be amazed to see whether we will continue forming lines, or whether the amoeba instinct will re-assert itself. I’m putting my money on the amoeba.
Thanks for the update Erla. I agree. It will go back to the old normal. People adjust. This too shall pass. It will be a story we tell. A significant story. But not a new normal. Hang in there.
When the world has quite finished going completely mad, will those who remain sane please help the rest of us out of our confusion? This site keeps us sane, your perceptive posts are a lifeline to what is important. Thank you.
(And what is the story about the parish priest?)
Thanks, Erla, for transmitting a new vaccine – Andrà tutto bene! (in Australian – she’ll be right!). Let’s all spread this infection. The panic reminds me of the 1841 book, “Delusion and the madness of crowds”, I think it was called.
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Thanks for the update Erla. I agree. It will go back to the old normal. People adjust. This too shall pass. It will be a story we tell. A significant story. But not a new normal. Hang in there.
Beautiful. Thank you
When the world has quite finished going completely mad, will those who remain sane please help the rest of us out of our confusion? This site keeps us sane, your perceptive posts are a lifeline to what is important. Thank you.
(And what is the story about the parish priest?)
Thanks for the positive feedback! About the priest, the story’s next in line… Coming up…..stand by…..etc. etc.
Exceptional beautiful…. very moving…tears!!
ITALY YES!!!
🇮🇹
Thanks, Erla, for transmitting a new vaccine – Andrà tutto bene! (in Australian – she’ll be right!). Let’s all spread this infection. The panic reminds me of the 1841 book, “Delusion and the madness of crowds”, I think it was called.