L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 10 THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2020 L'Italo-Americano well-thought advice. We also shared some "lighter" passions, that for Star Wars and that for soccer (he was really good at it!) and for A.C. Milan, a team for which, in the last few years, we often suffered together in front of the TV screen. His loss, that came so soon and so sudden (he left us in 5 days: after being hospita- lized for possible Covid-19, from which he had been recovering— he died from a sudden case of encephali- tis), is hard to accept. But, if he were still here, he'd encourage me to go on, finding comfort in the Lord's plans which, even when they seem incom- prehensible, always have a meaning." The Centre — the situa- tion improves constantly. Tuscany has 6.000 cases (3.000 less in the last week), while Lazio and Marche have 4.000 each. Nicoletta tells us about a deserted Florence: " The situation where I found myself all of a sudden was entirely surreal. Beside supermarkets, all activities, stores, schools closed down until a date to be determined. So I had to adapt to an unknown rea- lity and change my habits radically. My Firenze, for decades sieged by thou- sands and thousands touri- sts, turned into a desolate, sorrowful place. Silence reigns all day and all night long. Every now and then, we hear an ambulance and the reason for those we learn it from newspapers and medical bulletins: many people are hospitali- zed because of this virus, and many don't survive it. This is why we must fol- low the rules, even if it's a sacrifice. "Thinking about it, it's not all negative: finally, we can hear birds sing, the air is cleaner and we have more time to meditate and reflect. No more "aperitivi" with our friends, but a good book or an old movie to spend our evenings at home. No more exhibitions and museums, unless we do it online, but more time to dedicate to our passions. I found again an old poetic vein I thought exhausted and I wrote a couple of new poems." The South — Campania and Puglia have 3 to 4.000 cases each, Sicily has 1.000 less. Numbers are extre- mely low in Basilicata and Molise. Teresa is finding it hard to recognize her "Palermo, a noisy, sunny, hectic city, but free. And then, one day, a catastrophe with a name that sounds like nobility, coronavirus, arrived. But it's no noble- man, it's an assassin that can kill if it catches us by surprise, if we don't keep it away, locked and protected in our own homes, cocoo- ned by the warmth of our domestic walls. And so we realize that our freedom, in the end, continues even if we are locked in at home. Yes, locked in at home, which seems the opposite of freedom. Who would have thought that to feel free I had to be a prisoner of my own home! "And then I wonder, is staying in really such sad thing? In the end, didn't we always long for a time when we could take better care of our place, read those books waiting for us on the bedside table? Didn't we want to have enough time to care for our house plants? Wasn't liste- ning to the silence and to the light chirping of birds, both drowned by the noise of the city, one of our dreams? "During the lockdown's first days, tiredness and irritation prevailed; balco- nies filled with people who sang, read poems, chatted from a side to the other of the street. We could listen to the Inno di Mameli, Toto Cutugno's songs, Verdi's Va'Pensiero, you could see tricolori and rainbows flying in the wind. Now that we are more aware of the immense tragedy that hit us, we no longer have words, or smiles or poems to explain this tragedy to one another. TV tells us about dead and survivors, about the lack of masks and about the new poor. We try to take stock of the human and economic disaster that Covid-19 created. "Of one thing, however, I am certain. I won't forget the solidarity many coun- tries, close and far, showed to my beautiful Italy. I hope this will be what we'll carry with us after it all ends, along with the images of Pope Francis praying alone in Saint Peter's Square. A Saint Peter 's Square that was empty as we've never seen it, yet filled with the voices and prayers of those who were glued to their TV and got deeply moved by every one of Francis' prayers, words, gestures. "In this deafening silen- ce, amazed as we are by such a surreal, otherworldly quiet, we all want noise to return and reign king, we all want to go back to live in the streets of our Palermo, a city that today seems home to ghosts too afraid to show themselves." A beautiful view of Florence (Photo: Dreamstime) A traditional fish market in Palermo, with fried fish dishes on display (Photo: Dreamstime) Continued from pg 8

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