This isn’t our window. Could be anybody’s — or everybody’s — at this point, now that “out” has become “in.”
We are at the beginning of Week 4 of detention, and we are holding up remarkably well, all things considered. The memory of the way life used to be has begun to fade slightly, like an old fax on thermal paper, if anyone remembers those.
Our exercise regimen is simple: An early-morning walk ten times over the bridge outside our house (five minutes), and the same around 5:00 PM. I go up the street to get the Gazzettino. After lunch, if there’s sunshine, we sit on the edge of the fondamenta at the end of our little calle for a half-hour — not exercise, I know, but real-world air — replenishing our vitamin D stores and seeing humans passing on the other side of the canal at a very safe distance. Yesterday, being Saturday, there was a continual procession of people with shopping trolleys, sometimes one person even had two — it was like the migration of the wildebeest all headed toward the Prix supermarket. We heard the thudding of the overloaded trolleys on the return descent of the bridge all afternoon.
Sitting outside is like vacation; I call it “going to the beach.” As soon as the weather really warms up I anticipate doing this in my bathing suit. (I made that up, though shorts and a tank top could work.) Meanwhile, I make do with workouts via YouTube, like everybody. If I don’t get sick, I may come out of this in the best shape of my life.
Yesterday morning around 9:00 AM I was making my way down via Garibaldi from the pharmacy — finally scored some masks; they seem a little sketchy, but they’re certainly better than nothing. It was the last pack they had.
I counted 31 people in line (more than one meter apart) waiting to enter the Coop supermarket. In the Old Days I would have predicted that some enterprising individuals would have begun to offer their services as stand-in-line-for-you-ers, for a small consideration. But now I realize that the longer the line, the happier people probably are: More legally permitted time outside. Who needs to be in a hurry anymore? Hurrying is becoming a quaint, old-timey custom, like carving butter molds. Have to wait an hour to get into the store? Great! Who the hell wants to be rushing home?
(If anyone cares, I personally haven’t reached that point, after a lifetime of honing my skills to avoid lines. I went to the Prix supermarket at 8:00 AM on Friday specifically to avoid standing in an eternal line on Saturday — supermarkets closed Sunday again — and I went right in. Now that I’ve written that, it will never happen again.)
Doctors and nurses are beginning to die. Appeals have brought in extra doctors from Russia, from Cuba, from Albania. Thank God these countries had some extras available, but when it’s their turn to begin running short I have no idea what they’ll do. Call these people back home, I guess.
The nursing homes are on super-lockdown. We have two elderly relatives in the same facility, and nobody is permitted to enter the front door, not even the closest relatives (think: only son). If he’s bringing clean clothes to his ailing mother, the staff will open the door just enough to let him pass the bag to them, without touching anyone.
If you want to talk to your ailing mother and she doesn’t have a cell phone (not made up), you have to have found somebody on her floor who has a phone. I wanted to talk to Lino’s phoneless 91-year-old cousin on the ground floor, and my only option was to call her friend from a few rooms down the hall. At least now she understands why we’re not coming to see her anymore; she deserves to know we haven’t abandoned her en masse.
Robberies are down. No surprise there — everybody’s at home. Also: Let’s imagine you’re a thief on his way to break into somebody’s house. The police stop you and ask where you’re going. What are you going to say? “To work”? Try that and they will, as required, call to verify this. But instead of calling your boss at Universal Tool and Die Co., or whatever, they’ll have to call who? Your victim? There’s a funny sketch in here somewhere, but I’m not the one to find it.
All you people, remember how much fun you had in Venice? Now you need to imagine it again, but put a donation where your oar would be.
The organizing committee of the Vogalonga, which has suspended (their word) the 46th Vogalonga scheduled for May 31, 2020, has joined a fund-raising drive to help the Ospedale Civile (city hospital) of Venice.
Specifically, the donations are for “acquiring protective devices for the medical personnel and for the support of the patients,” and it is directed to “everyone who rows.”
Here is how the press release from the committee puts it:
“We are all facing a moment of grave difficulty, but those who are fighting on the front lines and who are the first to face the waves and currents of this course (meaning like the route of the Vogalonga) need all of our support to reach calmer waters. This should be an imaginary Vogalonga and, as always, with many participants; a way to row together even if in a different way as we wait to take our oars once again in our beloved lagoon.”
The Committee has weighed in with a contribution of 5,000 euros from the money that was set aside for the expenses of this year’s event. There have been many more donations from people everywhere, it appears. The goal is 100,000 euros.
If one (that would be anybody) would like to join in, the simplest way is via GoFundMe.
Everybody tends to think their situation is the worst, and I’m not going to start some competition. But even in the best of times (whenever those were), one tends not to think about prisons and their residents unless there is some special reason. There’s a reason now — it’s the virus, and I don’t mean only the risk of contagion in crowded quarters, which has already been recognized as a huge danger.
No, it was when I heard that quarantine in the prisons entailed cutting off family visits that I began to pay attention. Seen from the outside, of course it makes total sense. But that was pushing the prisoners just too far. There were violent revolts in prisons around the country, with some victims. Then a few prisoners started writing.
On Saturday, March 21 the Gazzettino published a long open letter that the inmates of three prisons — in Venice, Padova and Vicenza — sent to the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, and Pope Francis.
Slightly shortened and translated by me:
“Like everyone in the outside world, we are very worried about this Coronavirus now classified as a pandemic, that involves everybody without distinction and that is inevitably changing everybody’s life…..
As is natural, we who are among the “last” of society are feeling anguish about those outside these walls, just as they are feeling it about us.
The conditions in which we’re living are difficult, in some cases impossible (note: overcrowding is a national scandal). Someone could say that in the Veneto, all things considered, the situation isn’t the worst (but we can assure you that this would be a war between the poor), just as someone could say that we deserve prison.
For the great majority, that’s true, but we deserve punishment, not torture. Our liberty has to be removed, but not dignity, the right to health, the right to live. We respect the restrictions imposed on us, but we don’t accept all of them. For example, some measures that have been taken in light of the emergency, intended to contain the virus, such as the suspension of family visits, the activities of volunteers and their associations, the “reward” permissions and the activities of the officials (guards).
Prisoners during the Venetian Republic had time on their hands and heavy thoughts on their hearts. Many of them found some kind of tool that was perfect for gouging graffiti in the stone of their cells — the usual things: names, dates, imprecations, affirmations of innocence, pictures of martyred saints who looked like them (not made up, there’s an amazing Saint Sebastian graffito in the Doge’s Palace prison). But this lion deserves special mention, lying as he is on what was the sill of the barred window of somebody’s cell.
We are struggling, Mr. President and Your Holiness, to understand the goodness of these choices. We’d like for you to understand how dramatic these choices are for us. A visit, even if only one hour a week, a word of comfort from a volunteer, some activity even if only intermittent, are little things that keep us alive. Maybe so much distress wouldn’t have been so violently shown if the decisions had been communicated to the prisoners keeping in mind the pain that they would have caused and immediately giving, at the same time, the possibility to telephone every day, and to talk via Skype more often…..
We are making this appeal for all incarcerated people in Italy (and soon this problem will be experienced in other European countries and the world), but we permit ourselves to make it also for the personnel of the prison administration, first of all the agents. Today we all have to be united to fight the same thing, not between ourselves. The game of cops and robbers doesn’t matter anymore, here we are playing with each person’s life.
The “merit” that this “damned virus” might have is, on one hand, whether we want to or not, it puts us all on the same level because we all need each other, and of collaboration…The other is that it imposes on us a serious reflection, a real question on the meaning of life, of the life of each one of us, even the most derelict.
This is why it was needed immediately, though it’s never too late, a more human attention to we 61,000 prisoners and our families, and also for the nearly 45,000 persons and their families who are involved in the management of the 189 prisons….
With this letter we want to express our closeness to all the categories that despite everything and with all the difficulties of the case continue to guarantee assistance, medical care, security and control. We want to thank all the volunteers, their absence has made us understand how precious they are and how badly we treat them sometimes.
St. Theodore (“Todaro”) with his spear, shield and dragon surmount the column in the Piazza San Marco, but what we see there is a reproduction; the original saint and his lizardy victim are here, safe in the courtyard of the Doge’s Palace. I’m supposed to cheer for the saint, but ever since I saw the dragon up close here, all downcast and disheartened, I changed my mind. I’m part of Team Dragon now.
We want to thank especially our angels of health: to doctors and nurses goes a symbolic but sincere hug and praise for their professionalism and humanity. We look at their actions with profound emotion.
We also feel the need to be close to all the families who have lost someone dear, we here in prison know too well what it means to lose a loved one (mother, father, wife, sons, brothers…) without being able to be near them and for many of us without even being able to attend their funeral.
In all the prisons in different ways we all are trying to help however we can. Two examples: From the prison in Venice the inmates held a meeting and wrote a letter to make their voice heard in sign of solidarity, communicating that they have collected 1 euro per prisoner for the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital dell’Angelo in Mestre (70 contributions totaled 110 euros/$119.08).
At the prison “Due Palazzi” of Padova among many activities one in particular has to do with the world of health. The work group, despite the difficulties, fear and worry, continue to make their small contribution furnishing the CUP service (appointment reservations for the hospital in Padova and Mestre). You can’t imagine what it means to be able to make our contribution in a moment like this — it makes us feel alive!
We’re not looking for praise or thanks, we’re proud of our little contribution that we make with patience and dedication to people who are vulnerable in this moment as never before.
Our families are very worried about us, just as we are worried about them. The prisons aren’t immune from danger, on the contrary, they’re particularly vulnerable considering the condition they’re in. In this regard we ask how the contagion is going to be dealt with, considering the overcrowding and the same structures that don’t permit the essential standards of security.
We’re not a little worried about the circular put out by the chief of DAP (Department of Prisons): The personnel of the Penitentiary Police who are working in prisons must continue to work even if they’ve had contact with infected persons, because they are “essential public workers,” and so must “guarantee…the operation of the activities of the penal institutions” and therefore “safeguard the order and security of the public collective.” It seems to us like a provocation in bad taste!
We have among us people with grave pathologies such as diabetics, people with heart disease, invalids, people with respiratory problems, especially the elderly, and many, many drug addicts, persons with serious depression and psychiatric pathologies — if you’ll permit us to say so, it’s a human dump.
All of us….want to launch a call for help but also an invitation to provide for containing the virus within the prisons and the problem of overcrowding, because the two are connected….
We’d like to remind you, Mr. President of the Republic, that all the institutions have the responsibility and duty to care also for the weakest and defenseless of society.
To “our” Pope Francis, we say thank you, and don’t worry if the powerful don’t listen to you, or listen very little, we love you.
In this very particular moment, in which we are all a little more equal, we are very trusting that our cry for help will not fall on deaf ears.
Signed: The inmates of the Casa di Reclusione Due Palazzi di Padova, Casa di Reclusione della Giudecca di Venezia, Casa Circondariale di Vicenza
Sign on the facade of the prison in Ravenna, placed by prisoners and guards. (Photo: ravennatoday.it)
(As of today, the President and the Premier have responded via the newspaper, with many thanks and expressions of appreciation, etc. Actions remain to be seen, but no deaf ears, in any case.)
I need to take a deep breath at least once a week. Let’s all do that.
“I thought it was love, but instead it was Saturday.”Cats are always cool with “sheltering in place.” As for self-isolating, they invented it.Our neighborhood boating/fishing supply store manages to cram everything anyone could ever rationally need into a fairly small space. Among everything else, this display contains one exceptionally important piece of nautical equipment.A corkscrew. “You’d be amazed how many people ask me if we’ve got one,” Mattia told me. I doubt that they ask for “Red Wine Opener,” as it says on the label; I understand specialization, but if by some wild chance I were to want to drink some Soave, or Bianco di Custoza, or Verduzzo or Malvasia, would I be forced to buy a corkscrew somewhere else? “Red Wine Opener” — what the heck kind of category is that?Via Garibaldi at 7:30 this morning. There is NOBODY, and yet: A dog has pooped, and somebody has rolled right through it. (My brilliant powers of deduction lead me to suppose this is a relic from yesterday afternoon — the width of the wheels implies a shopping trolley, as does the direction of the tracks, toward the Coop supermarket. But that still means that with scarcely anybody on the street, the person still went straight through it.) It’s enough to make you believe in fate.Henry James said that the two most beautiful words in the English language are “summer afternoon,” but I’m going with “morning sunshine.”The only thing that could make these pansies more wonderful is the thing they’re hanging from: The old bell-pull attachment (see the handle amid the petals) that once served some upstairs apartment. You still see some of these bits around, and very occasionally one that still works, like this one in our neighborhood.I have actually heard little old ladies complain about this cat; they say it’s dirty and shouldn’t be permitted to do this. All I know is that the cat is obviously the owner — as all cats are — so you can see that there would be no point in lodging a complaint.Mariska and Luca had just re-affirmed their wedding vows and half the neighborhood showed up to surprise them when they came out.The streets may be empty, but we’re still here.
