What a World

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 watch now is a country trying to forge its way back towards some kind of normality, while still paying attention to the continually updated decrees made by a government that has garnered respect (this, in a country where “respect” and “government” aren’t usually two words used in the same sentence unless there’s a big “NO” in there somewhere).

What I like to do with one of the jobs I’ve pivoted towards (due to Italian tourism’s COVID demise) is ask my English conversation students if they know that not wearing a mask is a political statement in the USA and then watch their faces contort in confusion, as they obviously assume that they haven’t understood the English.  When I tell them the same thing again, this time in Italian, and their faces don’t change expression, I tell them it’s true, that many people choose not to wear masks and scorn those that do, including the President of the United States. I then ask them why they have always worn - and continue to wear - masks since the onset of COVID.  “Because I want to protect my family, my parents, my grandparents, my friends,” they say. They don’t yet know the expression “Duh!” otherwise it would follow.

What I see when I go to the local market for a few provisions is that everyone is lawfully wearing a mask inside the store and works to keep appropriate distance from other shoppers. As I ride my bike back home I notice that almost everyone on the street is also wearing a mask, even though outside they are no longer required by law. 

It’s as if the mask has become the new measure of “bella figura,” the new way to make a good impression, show you are in step with the times, that you care, that you are anything but ignorante.

What I’d like to know is if today when the few non-masked tourists who were in the almost deserted historical center of Florence (obviously northern Europeans as suspected by their countenance and confirmed by my eavesdropping on their conversations) sit down at a restaurant, does the waiter take a name and contact info as (by law) they do ours, for potential contact tracing? Or do they just leave it, too afraid to possibly offend and lose that little bit of work that gives them a glimmer of hope of surviving economically?

What I am noticing in my normally cheerful neighbor’s face as he passes by my kitchen terrace on the way to his moped to go to work in his shop downtown is a worried brow, and that his usually sunny greetings are now more curt, formal salutations.  I know his mind is on the state of the economy, the 80% of hotels that are closed in Florence, the restaurants that have already gone out of business, the door to his own photo shop that only swings twice in a day - once when he enters and once when he leaves. 

What I hear sometimes in my head is one of the many Neapolitan phrases I learned during my long stints in southern Italy: “Make friends in times of peace because you will need them in times of sickness and war.”  It looks like the deep caring that is inherent in the Italian culture is allowing us to navigate this time of sickness.  What remains to be seen is how we will battle the economic pain that is on the horizon and how friendship will stand up to that test.

What I want is a map that shows us how to safely go ahead.  But what I know is that we are in unchartered territory and it will most likely be a long, hard, uphill climb. 

What I’m doing is all any of us can do.  Not wait for some big entity to pave the way, but take it one step at a time and keep looking for the light that can show us the best way forward.