Last week I left one lockdown in Florence, spent the night in another in Amsterdam, and am now in another in Los Angeles.

The feeling of traveling to be with family for Christmas is usually a familiar one.

This time?

There was little that was familiar about it.

Living alone and dealing with addiction during a pandemic isn’t easy.  I heard a guy was stopped by the vigili (municipal police) during lockdown and asked to hand over his autocertificazione, the slip of paper he needed to have filled out before leaving home that stated who he was and where he was going.  Presumably he would have declared to be heading for the pharmacy, to a doctor’s appointment, or to buy food, or another one of the essential reasons for not staying home.  Instead, what was written on the slip was “looking for drugs.” I’m hoping they let him off with a warning… for being honest?

I can so relate with that guy.  I’ve had to invent ways to manage my own addiction.  Since I live alone, I’ve had to get creative, and a bit sneaky. 

…Once my clients saw their name on the sign I was holding, introductions were made and I, showing my best smile and Italian hospitality, quickly got them seated in the van in hopes of getting ahead of the traffic that would soon clog the windy Amalfi Coast drive. Before we were even able to exit the port, before I could start what I would eventually call my “theater on wheels,” I heard one of the younger 30-somethings of this group from New Orleans say with her southern drawl:

“Well, I guess we gotta fuckin’ n**** for a president.”

I imagine if you’d have been sitting in the passenger seat, you’d have seen me turn pale as a ghost, gripping the steering wheel for dear life, still as a stone, staring straight at the road, speechless. Like what happens to someone in the movies when they see a monster but have nowhere to run.

A doctor mentioned that on the island of Sardegna they have identified a plant that might help with the treatment of diabetes. And that this plant grows in a specific area where the population has a high incidence of the disease.

Coincidence?

Maybe.

To me, it made perfect sense that nature - to which the human species does belong - would sense an imbalance and then move to correct it, offer up some kind of antidote right where it’s needed.

Mostly… I like to think of things working this way.

…I’d had a run in with her elderly father a few years back.  He kept parking in my spot.  I’d have parked in his, but given the limited parking space available to the building, the big van I used for work would only fit in MY space.  When I pleaded with him, saying “Mi scusi, ma… I’m sorry, but I have this big vehicle because it’s how I make a living as a single mom of three kids” he didn’t miss a beat, retorting 

“Well, I’m sorry but I’m a retired 91 year old surgeon and I have to enjoy my life.” 

What does one say to that?

It caught my eye because it was out of place: a big, speckled gray mass on the ground across the back of a bench at a Los Angeles public bus stop. It only took a few seconds for me to then realize there had to be a person there, completely wrapped up in blankets, sleeping - or at least hiding - even though it was late morning. 

Homelessness isn’t as much of a thing in Italy as it is in Los Angeles, where in normal-non-Covid times, I’d go to visit both my mom and my transplanted kids who have - for now - forsaken their Italian upbringing and a pre-Covid 24% Italian unemployment rate for potentially brighter - at least financially? - futures in the USA. 

Like everyone else that morning I walked right by that gray blob.  I had coffee to get and a granddoggy to walk.  But then I detoured…

What I saw is that when the Italians were told to stay at home and to only go out for medical reasons, for food, to walk the dog, or to take care of the elderly (oh, and for cigarettes… the Italian gov’t having the monopoly on tobacco), they said “Va bene” (Ok), and kept saying “Va bene” for a good 2 months.

What I know is that these people are generally not the type to blindly obey, given they are known to consider many rules - like speed limits, stop signs, paying taxes, matrimonial fidelity - as suggestions and tend to follow them only when it is convenient to do so.

What I ask people - given that the numbers of new COVID cases continue to diminish - is “are you surprised that we managed to do this?” They almost always answer with a wide-eyed, emphatic “si” often accompanied by the hand gesture of palms together, hands bouncing up and down, signaling “come on… no one would have thought we could do this.”

What I see now is…

It’s Memorial Day today in the states, but here in Italy it is just a normal Monday, except not really because, well, things haven’t been normal for a while with the pandemic and all. In pre-covid years, even though Memorial Day has never been an Italian holiday, it has always been recognized by official ceremonies held at the Florence American Cemetery where Americans and Italians gather together in honor of the 4,399 American military buried there and the plaque commemorating another 1,409 who went missing during WWII, fighting for our liberty and freedom. This year, with the cemetery closed due to the coronavirus, we are left to creating our own personal remembrance ceremonies to honor those of the Greatest Generation who fought not for fame or fortune but because it was the “right thing to do.”

So today, my ceremony will be held here in the form of a story that revolves around one of those ceremonies held at the Florence American Cemetery and an Italian woman named Miriam who knows how to weave memories into poetry and prose.

It’s not about the bike crash, how I clipped the curb and went flying, landing splat on the sidewalk of a virtually deserted downtown Florence on my first foray out after two months of lockdown.

It’s about the couple who stopped to help me, just as if it were the old days when we knew we didn’t have to fear being in close proximity to strangers.

~~~~~~~~~

It’s not about how I told them not to call the ambulance because I was afraid to go to a hospital in these COVIDian times.

It’s about the volunteer paramedic who had to take my temperature before getting my wracked body into the ambulance, how he exclaimed in frustration “Eccoci!” (Oh Great!) when reading the thermometer, not - as I sat there fearing in that moment - because it showed I had a fever, but because it was a new electronic thermometer configured in Fahrenheit when here in Italy we use Celsius, and how he was relieved that I could tell him the reading of 96.8 was below normal.

~~~~~~~~~

It’s not about how they assured me there were no more COVID patients at the hospital they were taking me to.

It’s about how the paramedic walked me into the ER of the frescoed hospital founded in 1288, the oldest still active in Florence, gingerly holding my arm just as my Dad had done when he walked me down the aisle.

….

I passed by blackberry bushes and thought of how they will bear fruit later in the summer if we’re lucky enough to get rain. And I wondered what our world will look like then, just one season away. Will things be better then? Or so bad that many of us will scamper into these hills to gather what food we can from the wild? The mind does go to these extreme places sometimes. It’s as if it sends up a little test flare and distress call: mayday mayday mayday.

Today, the 25th of April, is a national holiday in Italy that commemorates the end of the Nazi occupation during WWII and the victory of the Resistance in Italy. Liberation Day. It’s a day to remember those who gave up their lives, their dreams, hopes and chances to love to allow us today to live, dream, hope and love. I know that history is written by the victors, but I do still believe that good won out here and that we live in a better world for it. I grew up thinking we all believed that, everywhere.

Of course, time would prove me wrong on that front.

My son used to work for a restaurant. He lives pretty much hand to mouth. And thanks to Covered California, can even pay for his own health insurance. He also pays his fair share of taxes. Most PEOPLE working in America do. Except, I hear, for most corporations (who are considered “people”? WTF) and well, rich folk. At least not proportionally so.

My son received a direct deposit into his bank account from the government today. A stimulus “check.” This will help him stay afloat given his place of work has closed due to the pandemic and he is no longer able to earn a wage that allows him to affront his (thankfully low) expenses.

This money, this aid in a time of need? It didn’t come out of thin air, grow on trees or come from some rich man’s pocket. It comes from a collective group of PEOPLE who paid (or will pay, given that, yeah… it’s actually kind of a loan from the future) into the system.

PEOPLE helping PEOPLE. That is what is happening.

Uh, do you know people who aren’t understanding what’s going on in the world?

Not those backpackers who have been in the back country or people isolated on vacation in the Bahamas. I’m talking about people who are living in their regular homes with access to news.

I’m talking about the ones who know there’s a deadly, very contagious virus roaming the planet that has governments worldwide asking people to stay home because it is the only way to try to thwart contagion because we’re still trying to figure out how this virus works and without comprehensive testing, isolation is our only viable strategy of coming out of this physically alive.

I’m talking about the ones who, despite knowing this, despite living where lockdown has been the law of the land for over a month now, still choose not to stay home. Who choose to gather for a 29th birthday. Who go for walks together just to get out of the house. Who think, yeah well, we’re young, we’re healthy, so we’re ok, never thinking that their choices may impact people they don’t even know…

Are these people just stupid or just extremely selfish without any sense of moral responsibility?

Few things in this world can fill my heart - and make me teary - in the way that insight coming from my children does.

This, just in from my daughter, Sierra…

A couple of months ago when my mom was visiting, we went to Ojai for the weekend and ended up at the farmer’s market in town. In classic Ojai-fashion, among all of the organic fruit stands and homemade baked good stands, there was a man offering his unique service, the gift of a free hug. My boyfriend, my sister and I, laughed and dared each other to go hug the man, who was just standing there smiling. My mom brushed off our silly giggles and walked over to the man and asked for a hug. He grabbed his stool and got on it (he was shorter) and they hugged for a couple of minutes, until my mom got teary eyed. Right now, looking back, I really wish I had also gone in for that free hug.

What I’ve come to understand is that though virtually everyone in the world is paying attention - to one degree or another - to what this virus is doing, we’re not all on the same timeline or working from the same place of understanding.

Perspective is everything.

Some of us are experiencing lockdown - or Shelter in Place - from a lovely countryside second home where there is lots of room to be outside and inside. Lucky you.

Because there are those of us who are alone, in our city apartments, who don’t really want to hear about how this isn’t so hard, we don’t want to see your photos on social media of lovely views from your solitary walks and exquisitely set rustic table set for the whole family who has just spent the day cooking together with vegetables gathered from the winter garden.

Some of us are feeling that the stopping of Life as We Knew It is giving us a chance to breathe, to reconnect with ourselves, to understand that Life can be lived with a different kind of rhythm. Luck you.

I think lockdown gets to you after a while, that the novelty of getting to work from home and the get togethers on Zoom wears thin pretty quickly.

I think that the time of racing around the internet for news that doesn’t really answer any of my questions is about over.

I think only being able to go to the supermarket every 10 days, though a necessary restriction, is REALLY hard. Until I think about the people in the world who are trying to buy food and there is none.

I think the good wishes coming to me and Italy from across the world have truly kept my spirits up and I am so grateful. But I also think that soon I will have to be sending those same good wishes right back.

I think my friend in California is letting me win at Words With Friends.

I’m getting a divorce. Wasn’t my choice. There were warnings, but I mostly chose to turn a blind eye. Then there was the knock on the door I couldn’t ignore. The papers were served. Not by my spouse (that divorce happened long ago)

But by Life itself.

“One of the staff tested positive,” she said. “We were all together last Tuesday before we closed down the restaurant.”

Silence.

“OK,” I said. “Are you afraid?”

More silence.

“OK….. let’s go there,” I said, and we started to unpack it.

Hey Florida Spring Breakers, a little note for you from Italy:

I saw a bunch of photos and videos and news coverage of you all on spring break in Florida. Many of you when interviewed had things to say like “This virus isn’t gonna stop me from partying !” You are young, at that age when you are sure you’re invincible. It’s probable that most of you haven’t lived long enough yet to have had Death be part of your life experience in any big way, with friends, parents and even grandparents probably all still alive and kicking. “The virus kills the elderly,” you figured, “so I’m good, even if I get it.” And I’m guessing that you didn’t receive or simply didn’t digest the information - or maybe didn’t care (but I truly hope not) - that yeah, it could be you who is spreading the virus, you who might technically be responsible for some of the deaths that could be now on their way to your home town, your community, your friends, and your families, wherever that may be.

The latest version of lockdown in Italy requires that no one leave their home except to go to work, to the doctor, to the pharmacy, to the market for food, or to get back to their primary residence if they were away when the lockdown directives were declared. Oh and you can go out to walk your dog and you can get to family/friends who are in need of assistance and to buy cigarettes. If you are out and get stopped by the police making patrols, you have to show a certificate that you filled out before leaving home that says who you are, where you live, and where you are going, why you are out. They will call your work or your doctor - investigate what they can to make sure you aren’t lying. If you aren’t out for a valid reason you get fined up to €206 (around $220) and risk a 3 month jail sentence.