Month: April 2020

I woke early. And – a minor miracle – I got up, got dressed, and was on a morning walk by 07:30! That has been a goal of mine for an embarrassingly long time, and somehow this morning – and I don’t know why – it happened almost on its own. After traveling in circles for fifteen or twenty minutes, I began to notice others bustling about, carrying shopping bags and dragging carrelli (carts). When one of the others was someone I knew, I inquired.

“Natasha, is there a market today?”

“Yes! Last week it started again on Thursday.”

“Like we can buy stuff and walk around?”

She laughed, “Exactly. Much smaller than normal, but we can buy stuff and walk around.”

I turned towards home, fetched my bag, and joined the flow towards Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Vivaria.

A friend had sent me a photo of what resembled a mini version of market towards the end of last week, with the caption, “it looks as if they’re experimenting with an open market.” It’s not that I disbelieved her, it’s that I checked on Saturday (the second market day), the squares were empty, and I put it out of mind as too much to wish for.

This morning, everyone moving in the direction of market behaved a little like they were going to check out an alien landing – all we needed was a score from a Spielberg film to back us up. And upon arrival, it was indeed a bit like that. There were maybe a third of the usual vendors. Barricades with signs were everywhere, and they were garlanded with police tape. Shoppers stood at three or four times the required distances. Pairs of police representing every level of law enforcement dotted the square. And of course, none of the vendors were in their usual spots.

My main interest in market is dried fruit and nuts, and my preferred frutte secche man is Fabrizio. So, I set off in a round to see if he was there. I found him rather easily, tucked into a corner of Piazza Vivaria near the pass-through beneath the stairs at Palazzo del Popolo.

“Fabrizio! Come va?”

“Ola! Davide! Va bene, tu?”

Fabrizio is always friendly, smiling, and cheerful, but I could tell these weeks on hiatus had not been easy. He’d gained a bit of weight, his face was ruddy, he looked uncharacteristically stressed.

“You’ll still be here in ten minutes, won’t you? I’m afraid you’ll disappear. I have to go to the bank machine.”

He grinned, “I’ll try not to disappear.”

“Good! I’ll be right back.”

Walking familiar routes, none of them with a hint of vehicular traffic, was a joy beyond expressing. The touch-screen for the ATM was splotched with hand sanitizer, but the thing worked, and I practically sprinted back to market.

As I approached Fabrizio’s table, Riccardo Cambri appeared, solidly masked and hefting three bags filled with goods.

“Bello, caro! My god, it’s good to see you!”

Riccardo is indomitably bright. It’s more than simply a positive view of life, he lives with great and genuine enthusiasm, and spreads it around to everyone he encounters. I asked him how it was going.

“Wonderful! I’m teaching all forty of my piano students online, and they are practicing much more than usual, improving by leaps and bounds, and we will have a wonderful student concert this spring, even if it has to be on Zoom.”

“Bravo, maestro!”

“I am so happy and excited!”

From Fabrizio I replenished peanuts (shelled, lightly salted), almonds (with skins), dried apricots (un-sulphured, no added sugar), and lentils (green). The bill came to twenty-nine and change. He always rounds down. I gave him thirty, he gave me a one euro coin. I stammered my very genuine gratitude.

It was only much later, while reviewing the joys of the morning, that I wanted to return that coin Fabrizio handed me. Times have been hard for guys like him; one euro would not have meant much in the greater scheme of what he is probably facing financially, but it would have been a good thing to do.

In my eagerness to rejoin reality more or less as we’ve known it, I must also form new habits to accommodate reality as it manifests itself going forward. Perhaps next week I’ll stock up on a few new items and order a few more in greater quantities than I really need. Just because.

The photo is of market on a non-lockdown morning in 2015.

You can feel the yearning.

The relaxation of some lockdown restrictions was announced on Monday by Italy’s prime minister, and the thought of a stroll through a park, a meal prepared away from home, or being able to be in the street on a family visit has taken hold of the collective imagination. 

My neighbor Marianna and I had a balcony chat this afternoon. I felt lousy, she looked tired for the first time I can remember, only her dog, Pongo, seemed himself.

“So how are things?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I think I’m a little nuts.”

“Yeah.”

“The promise of a slight relaxation of restrictions on Monday has stressed me out.”

“Yeah. I don’t know if there will be too much relaxation or not enough. It’s impossible to tell.”

I wanted to say that the anticipation of even a moderate form of street life has us feeling stir crazy all of a sudden, whereas when we had no idea how much longer restrictions would last it was easier to accept and make the best of it. But I didn’t know how, so I said, “Everyone feels anxious in a way that’s different from a few days ago. We so miss being connected.”

“Are you getting your walks in?”

I gestured to the courtyard.

“Well, if you need anything, just yell.”

“Thanks, but having to leave for groceries is the high point of my week!”

“Yeah, mine too. And thank God for Pongo.”

Pongo wiggled forward at the mention of his name, and stuck his nose through the drying laundry to sniff a confirmation of my identity. I have a crush on Pongo.

Antonny, owner of Blue Bar – way out on Via Garibaldi – sent me a WhatsApp message this morning. “I am always with the kids, but Romina is free, I go to the bar to do some work, it you’re okay when I go, I’ll try to stop at your door? Talking from a distance, obviously.” I didn’t see the message for an hour, and messages exchanged since, have been similarly uncoordinated, but just the promise of standing, masked, in the middle of the lane to chat with a friend at a distance of a meter or two, was enough to quicken me.

And yes, it was a month since I last went to the Studio Medico to pick up orders for pharmaceuticals, even though it seems a week ago. And two weeks have passed since I last wrestled the bed linens into submission. And I saw Luisa on the street who I’d not seen in two months. And this is the fifty-first journal entry. 

Time beyond the daily cycle seems as malleable as bread dough.

When I promised to write these posts, they were meant to update friends, mostly in the States, on what the Italian lockdown looked like from the inside of my little house and yard. Today, when I saw Luisa, the first thing she asked was, “How are things in the United States?”

“They seem pretty bad, I’m afraid.”

“You have friends in New York.”

“Yes, and I think of them all the time.”

“I don’t hear much, but what I do hear sounds crazy.”

“Yep,” and we thankfully switched to news of her mother, her kids, and her work – all fine.

The inside view of the lockdown in Orvieto is about the same as in New York or California, except that most people I know here share apartments smaller than a suburban California living room. And that’s why the first thing people here talk about as being difficult is the lack of walks. Home is a perch, where you sleep and eat most of your meals, but it was never intended as a place to hang out. That’s what the town is for. That’s where you see your friends, hear the news, keep track of growing children, and size up the latest fashions. A life without connection is hardly a life at all, and connections are continuous. Except during a lockdown. Then we turn to WhatsApp and do the best we can.

I posted an article yesterday about Vilnius opening its streets and squares, free of charge, so restaurants could spread their tables to safe distances this summer. It’s a great idea, and I began to imagine how it could be applied to Orvieto where most eateries already have tables in adjacent public space. Well, how about a traffic ban for the summer, on all thoroughfares with restaurants, and a temporary conversion of piazzas with parking into piazzas with dining? That might raise our spirits, attract visitors, and save our restaurants and bars, all together. Imagine.

I want to thank you for reading these posts. I never know what shape they will take when I sit to write (as I’m sure is often blatantly obvious) but writing them has given the days a focal point, and has helped to turn the bread dough of time into crispy loaves – perfect for an insalata caprese at a favorite trattoria for a June lunch, while sitting (at a healthy distance apart) in the middle of Corso Cavour.

There is a little man who lives across from Trattoria delli Poggi on an upper floor with his wife. I would guess him to be in his eighties. He is at most five feet (to him, 150 cm) tall, and has a smile that should have us all paying him for our enjoyment of it. His little dog is of exactly the opposite temperament. In pre-pandemic times, I saw them almost every day. Then for January and February, nothing. I became concerned. Finally, one afternoon in very early March he, his skittish dog, and a younger female relative appeared at the end of the street as I was setting out on a walk.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you! Have you been well?”

“A little influenza, nothing serious, but it took a long time to resolve,” and he smiled his kilowatt smile.

That I’ve not seen him since was not, in of itself, a cause for worry because none of us see each other more than once a month unless our domestic arrangements physically overlap, but I’d think of him from time to time and always wished him well.

Today, on the way home from my first round of shopping, he appeared at the end of the street. The dog was straining at his leash, something I’d never seen him do before, perhaps the result of too many curtailed walks. My friend gave the impression of being swaddled like a manger figurine of Baby Jesus; a generous mask, hat, scarf, two pairs of gloves, and a smock. He is rare cargo to his family, and they are protecting him. I was glad to see it. I recognized him immediately, even with the bundling and without his visible smile, but it took him a bit to recognize me.

“How are you! I’m glad to see you’re getting your exercise.”

“It’s good to be taking my exercise.”

“You’re well, I hope.”

“I am as well as we can be in this strange world we find ourselves in,” he said having to adjust his mask several times in order to deliver so many words all together.

“Strange world, indeed. Stay well, please.”

“And you.”

It was our longest, most complex exchange to date.

Earlier, as I entered the supermarket on Corso, I said hello to the checker with glasses. He’s a sweet, good-hearted fellow, and not especially outgoing. He nodded, issued a grunt, and flashed a brief grin. 

Now, here I want to note that I’m not particularly prone to loneliness. I was an only child and grew up in a neighborhood where all except my parents had seen their families off to marriage or college at least a year before I was born. With the exception of three or four who had grandparents in the area, my playmates were a complicated distance away. Keeping myself company was a skill I developed early. 

This morning I was lonely. I woke feeling great, but by noon was tight and tentative. It was raining, so even a courtyard shuffle was not an option to relieve my mood. So, when the sun flashed forth, I was out the door in an instant; nothing was more important than free movement and fresh air.

And when the checker with the glasses grunted, it was as if Andrea Boccelli had just greeted me with a fully produced performance of Nessun Dorma; I had to choke back a spontaneous sob. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” was at that moment the biggest understatement of all time.

I hear and see and experience something similar in others whenever I’m out, which is to say, nearly once a week. But in part because the chances to connect for most of us are so infrequent, when we do, there is a tone of such deep appreciation. The melody of voices is gentler, sweeter, more unhurried, and inviting. Body language is of a type usually reserved for greeting friendly dogs. Eyes light up. Our hearts say “this moment we have together is precious, I recognize it and am unashamed to express my joy,” though we might never dream of saying it in so many actual words.

I hear and read much discussion of how this global experience – however ragged and unequal – may change us, how it will effect society, economies, relationships, and in how we treat each other and the creatures with whom we share the planet. None of us know, of course. it’s all speculation. We will move into the future without having to show a masterplan at its temporal gate. 

But I entertain the hope that we can keep those sweet melodies of greeting and those open stances of mutual and unashamed affection just long enough for them to become something akin to a “new normal” – an expression I find irritating, but for now also quite apt. For a gentler face, a lingering greeting, a heightened awareness of how our positions in space affect those around us, and a stronger sense of responsibility for our own comportment regards others, will – without guidelines for, or blueprints of, the future – change and improve everything. 

We only need to remember the kilowatt smiles, the operatic moments, and how no mood is more potent than free movement and fresh air. Can we?

The headlines announce the big news of the day as “Phase Two of the Quarantine”. That seems to me to be good marketing. Don’t get our hopes up just two days after Liberation Day that another kind of liberation is due next week. Just a spot of light. Restaurants can serve takeout, we can walk in parks again, and people can visit family (and only family), but it’s still a lockdown. I’m fielding requests, by the way, for becoming a sibling from whomever is interested. Or an uncle, if that makes more biological sense.

The bad news is that barbers and hairdressers won’t reopen until June. I foresee a run on hair-dye and elastic ties. At least those are less essential than hand sanitizer and masks if they become scarce. I dug out a few photos to see how long locks served my image in hippy days. Not so bad. Of course, a few other things have changed since then, so I don’t really expect a return of the brown-haired, crazy kid of my youth. But shaggy locks might be fun. I mean the only people who will see them are survivors of homemade buzz-cuts and others with spontaneous hair-dos.

Today was a bright and sunny day. My neighbor Marianna and her daughter have been scrubbing everything in sight all weekend. On my way down the outside stairs, we greeted as I became level with her balcony, which was her scrubbing project for today.

“You’ve been cleaning a lot, lately. Is that spring cleaning or because of the pestilence?”

“It’s because we’ve been locked inside for weeks and can’t stand it anymore!”

Her beautiful, little black Labrador, Pongo, came out to check on the conversation.

“I know what you mean. If I felt up to it, I’d have this yard weeded and trimmed by now good enough to win awards in some garden magazine.”

Not really. Instead I complained about having taken too large a morning dose of natural medicine, but the subtext was clear enough. Lovely to be home, wonderful to cook and share time with family (if you live with one) and neighbors (on their balconies), but all this good old-fashioned homeyness is getting on our nerves.

“Move a chair into the sun and take a nap,” she suggested.

“Exactly what I came down to do.”

The sun was roasting hot. It felt great, but I didn’t sleep. Instead, I thought of what to shop for when it was the slow time at the supermarket.

By and by that time arrived. I felt goofy as hell, my right foot hurt, but I’d been looking forward to this since Saturday and nothing was going to delay it further. I hobbled into the street, masked, and carrying a golden shopping bag.

I have a calcification on my right foot at the site of a long-ago fracture. Finding footwear soft enough to accommodate it is tricky, so when I saw a friend wearing shoes whose uppers were essentially a leather mesh, it impressed me. As warmer weather approached I found them online and ordered a pair. Thing is, even though they are neutral in style, they are made for women, and the largest size available was one (metric) notch down from what I wear. But my friend had encouraged me to order one size too small anyway, because they stretch to fit your foot, lumps and all, rather quickly. So I did.

I started wearing them around the house sometime last week. They were perfect; comfortable and noncompetitive with the misshapen aspects of my feet. When I went out on Saturday, intending to go no further than Metà, I wore them onto the street. Then I slowly discovered Liberation Day, which took me all over town. The shoes seemed fine. But when I changed into walking shoes for my nighttime skulk, I could barely move for the pain under my right toe. I figured it would stretch out, but all it did was hurt a tiny bit less.

I’ve since found trigger points to alleviate the problem, but it will take days of massage and patience before I can walk up to standard. So, today, sick of my own cooking, tired of looking at weeds but not yet in good enough form to do anything about them, and having the thing I look most forward to, a walk, turn into a small exercise in self torture, it was a mighty effort not to fall into a sump of self-pity.

My second outing was after shops reopened. I went to the herbalist who had found herself a spot of sun and sat on a curb reading.

“Good book?”

She took awhile to recognize me behind my mask.

“I don’t know, I just started, but these days who cares? I’ll read anything.”

Further on I passed a man jockeying his place in line to better take advantage of the sun. The ladies waiting to enter Casalinda where all spaced to wait in sunlight, and so were the several waiting at Metà on Signorelli. Too many of each, in fact. I decided to take my sore foot home and try again tomorrow. On the way I passed two fellows on different parts of the street who had found tiny circles of sunlight in which to bask their faces.

“What’s a glass can?” I asked my mother.

“I don’t know, what’s a glass can?”

“It’s not a riddle, it’s on that billboard we just passed. We pass it all the time and every time I wonder. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Next time you see it, remind me, I’ll see if I can figure it out.”

I was about ten, and on the verge of my earliest recalled experience of environmental outrage.

In California of the fifties and sixties – and likely in many other places, too – paper, metal, and bottle drives were common means for churches and charities to raise cash. Word would go out to membership to bring those stacks of newspapers and magazines building up in your garage to the parish hall’s parking lot on the fifth Sunday of Pentecost where a large dumpster would be waiting. Volunteers with ladders took the paper, threw it in the bin, then in the next few days it would be weighed and sold to a paper mill to be resurrected as new newsprint. That same principle applied to cans and non-deposit bottles. Trained to do so during the War, all the families I knew still squashed cans and placed them in a separate bin, well into the sixties. For soda bottles, of course, a deposit was made at purchase that could be redeemed, by anyone, at any grocery selling the bottler’s wares. A number of kids I knew circulated their neighborhoods with red wagons, collecting bottles to augment allowances.

In January 2016, Umbria – and perhaps all of Italy, I’m not sure – switched from using large, bell-shaped, community recycling containers to individual bins. A larger apartment building is assigned standard trashcan-sized bins that all residents use, but independent households, or those in small buildings, are issued a set of five, color-coded, little bins, certain types to be placed on the street for pick up on certain mornings.

Among the under-sung heroes of the pandemic, by the way, are the sanitation workers of the world. Huzzah!

My fear was that all the organization of recyclables done by each of us with a front door key was rendered neutral by those contracted to recycle who found it more convenient to dump the collected trash into the nearest swamp. My fears were assuaged somewhat by a friend whose wife works at a recycling facility nearby, and who told me about the machines that separate materials into types, and melt or compact them into bales which are sold to packaging companies to make new packaging.

Somewhat assuaged.

As much as I love the people who run the local supermarkets, I do not love the packaging. Pasta that as recently as a year ago was sold in a cardboard box is now offered in a plastic sleeve. A label made from paper that sufficed to identify a product for generations, now must have the slick, sophisticated look of a polymer. Even my favorite deli-counters serve takeout in plastic clamshells when waxed cardboard would, and used to, do as well. And this explosion of single-use plastic is happening coincident with a growing awareness worldwide of what a horror has been created by its overuse. Given a choice, I choose non-plastic delivery methods, but the choice is not often offered; even at outdoor markets. Inroads have been made – for instance, plastic bags here must now be degradable – but compared to the enormity of the problem, they seem pathetically inadequate. 

I pointed to the billboard next time we passed, and my mother couldn’t make sense of it either. So on subsequent drive-by’s, I read more carefully. And I got it.

“It says the root beer comes in a no-deposit, no-return bottle! That instead of taking it back to the store to be reused, you just throw it away!”

“No, that couldn’t be right.”

“That’s what it means by ‘disposable’. A bottle isn’t disposable! And neither is a can!” and I remember going off on a rant that is still going on, at least internally, even today.

But what, besides being a devoted recycler since before it was called recycling, have I done about it? A lifetime of outrage seems not to have accomplished much. 

On a separate but related issue, I remember a film we were shown in 10^th grade science about fossil fuels. “At current rates of consumption we will have used up all known reserves of carbon-based fuel by 2020,” it said, illustrating that prediction with charts and graphs. “And as a bi-product of its use, we may have irreversibly destroyed the delicate equilibrium of the global climate.” The teacher followed up with questions and answers, we finished the day, and many of us were then picked up by parents driving v8 engines to be taken five blocks to air-conditioned homes. That was 1965.

I was proud then of having walked to school – two miles and even in the driving drizzle – and still am.

I bring this up today because it is always on my mind, and maybe too, because I dearly hope that more than a few of us environmentalists – practicing or merely opinionated, ancient and youthful alike – are pondering the state we find ourselves in. Once public health is on a secure footing, hands and minds will need to return to rebuilding an economy – that is, a means by which goods and services are traded. It doesn’t seem likely from this vantage that there’s any real going back to what was in place two months ago. Rebuilding will take time, and needs to be bottom-up creative. So, as we’re at it, can we please build an economy that makes more sense than a “glass can”? 

Liberation Day. Seventy-five years ago the National Liberation Committee of Upper Italy declared the Fascist state dissolved and proclaimed the death sentence for all Fascist leaders. By May 1, the declarations had been made real, but it is on April 25 that the liberation of Italy is observed. Observation of the holiday would normally include parades, laying of wreathes at war memorials, and a day off for most businesses.

Who knew that in the middle of a lockdown, the few businesses that remain open would observe Liberation Day? Not I.

For me, today was to be Shopping Day. I woke with lists dancing in my head; what I would buy at the supermarkets, what at Casalinda where they vend soap and the like, what at the herbalist, what at the produce store, the cheese shop. Supplies were running low, the sun was out, I was feeling pretty good, it promised to be a day filled with familiar faces and bits of conversation, and I was in the mood for it all.

The city is beautifully empty on this spring day. I know this because I walked a great deal of it before I understood what was going on. First stop, Metà (PAM). Doors closed. Sign – “Dear Clients, this business will remain closed for all of Saturday, April 25 and Sunday, April 26.” When this happens, there is usually a coda directing us to the store on Signorelli, but nothing. I walked to the other store, passing a gated Casalinda on the way. The other supermarket was shut, too – no sign.

I performed a quick mental inventory of food supplies at home, and determined it would be worth the effort to check a deli or two, as it was only just past noon and they should be open. I hiked all the way to Via Malabranca. All closed. I checked headlines at the one edicola I passed that was open (in fact, the only thing I passed of any variety that was not shuttered) to see if there had been an extraordinary declaration of emergency. Nope.

I reviewed and revised meal plans for the weekend. Onion soup?

Once home I went online to OrvietoNews. There are a number of articles about covid19 and the quarantine, all remarkably upbeat given the subject they covered, and another series on Liberation Day. Ah-hah! I get it.

Even during the early days of lockdown, I never witnessed such empty streets. There may have been other days equally deserted, but they weren’t personal shopping days, so I never actually saw them. Today… what seemed suspended before was a festival by comparison, which, given that today is in fact a festival, is a tad ironic. And while the beauty of the town survives on this perfect spring day, it also calls forth a simple truth; without people and dogs and cats, its loveliness quickly fades. At least it does for me. It becomes a beautiful ruin, even in its relatively good repair. The physical town is in service of its inhabitants and guests. Closed gates and locked doors facing empty streets and squares hold their novelty only briefly before they feel like abandoned relics.

Of course, above and behind, this town is as well-inhabited as it ever is – allowing for a zero population of guests. Maybe people are watching live-streamed ceremonies with masked men in uniform honoring the heroism of a liberation long past, and feeling a stronger-than-usual kinship with those of a previous generation. More are likely tuned to movies – classics and recent hits – or game show reruns that feed the illusion that were you to open the shutters, the streets would be filled with color, as would be expected on any April 25. Except for this one.

People who knew there would be no shopping on Liberation Day are perhaps replicating recipes from mamma, nonna, nonno, or of their favorite trattorie. Then families who have seen more of one another since the ninth of March than they had during the previous 12 months combined, will lift a glass to Italia – so beautiful on this perfect spring day – and salute all liberations, national and personal, past and future. And perhaps unsaid, but not unfelt, we will acknowledge our current liberation, too, one we cannot yet describe or explain, but which overcomes us all from time to time while it waits for definition.

I got weepy today. The causes were various. Sometimes, I found myself sobbing at a story (heard on a podcast) of remarkable courage. Other times, I sobbed from the sheer magnitude of sadness we are experiencing as a species. There was more weeping in response to joy or inspiration than to gloom, so that it wouldn’t stop all morning was not intolerable, but so many things set me off that it must somehow be connected with grief. We’ve lost so much in these past two months, not the least of which is our ability to pretend that “we can go on as we have done, just let us get past a certain marker,” with anything.

Every now and then my mother would suddenly say, “Why do things have to change? Why can’t everything just stay the same?” I preferred to accept the absurdity of the wish to letting it disturb me. Nothing exists apart from time, and human time is measured by change. But lately, I have come to recognize where that complaint came from. It’s a deeply human place, no matter that it lacks logic. Change may be the most pervasive aspect of living, but when there is too much, it’s natural to feel around for the brakes – even when we know there are none.

I, on the other hand, am wired to seek change, to like it. That’s one reason I was so drawn to theatre, where everything is in a constant state of fascinating flux. Rehearsals are a process that the artist may, at best, be able to guide, but the end result is always a surprise to me, even when I pretend it’s exactly what I was aiming for. I remember in my twenties hearing another young director complain rather cynically that if you achieved ten percent of your vision for a play, you were lucky. My reaction – and I don’t recall if it was ever expressed – was “Ten percent would be awesome! I never see anything turn out the way I expect. And that’s why I do this!”

The challenge I have always faced is how to take that same creative freedom and apply it to other aspects of life.

If you’re expecting me to answer that, you have a long wait ahead of you. 

The first year or two that I lived in Orvieto, personal change was exhilarating. There was the language, the culture, there was not getting lost. And there was plenty to brag about to folks back home. No snow to speak of, a walking city that is also affordable, a vivid cultural life. And while all of that is still true, the suspension we now find it in is strikingly similar in feel to the week during rehearsal when the staging has been worked out, interpretation is beginning to reveal itself, and now it’s time for the actors to go off book – that is, to begin to work with lines memorized. Those four or five rehearsals are full of surprises, too, but most of them are terrifying.

I wish I could draw a more exact parallel between being in lockdown and those getting off book rehearsals, but there probably isn’t one. However, because I’m a director, I will try, anyway.

Both are about striving for what, at the time, seems an unknowable outcome.

Up to the point of the actor’s leaving the script in a backpack and going onstage without the happy crutch of the written word, marvelous work has been done. There are moments of transcendence, perfection, and astonishing emotional courage. There are seeds of camaraderie and ensemble effort that send the spine into flourishes of ecstasy and melt the heart. There is great promise and hope. Then for the next twenty or so rehearsal hours, almost all of that disappears while everyone tries to be patient with an unpleasant mechanical process. 

Until recently, I thought that with prudence, we would slowly make life safer during the lockdown until a tipping point is reached when all the pieces begin to find their places, and we rapidly move towards a new equilibrium. Right now, today, I’m not so sure. It seems impossible that this experiment we are a part of will ever resolve at all, let alone favorably.

And that is when my theatrical experience proves useful, because that’s exactly the way I usually feel after a first run-thru off book; hopeless, while still trying my best to put on a favorable face for my dear actors, for without hope they will never get through technical rehearsals when once again everything will fall apart – only more severely than before.

But in the end, live theatre has the best on-time record of any human effort. Come what may (and with notable exceptions) the show always opens as announced. Of course, it is wrong to suggest that a pandemic can be explained away by a metaphor, especially a theatrical one, and all successful openings are backed up by months of careful planning, wise casting, solid staffing, deep analysis, and selfless teamwork. (Creative freedom is wonderful, but it doesn’t come cheap.) But if we relinquish the notion of a logical march towards a foreseeable resolution, what happens might just be, as so many plays end up being, far better than anything we anticipated.

Early this afternoon, I sent a WhatsApp message to my friends Todd and Beth who live outside of New Orleans. That area was a hotspot at some point recently, so I check in whenever I think of it. If things are bad, there’s not much I can do from Orvieto, but knowing they’re okay is a comfort, and we need all the comforts we can get.

Todd wrote back immediately, even though it was quite early in their part of the world; “Doing okay. Staying Grateful. How you?”

I was washing hands, scrubbing something down, or other such that would have qualified as obsessive behavior two months ago and which is now hyper normal, so it took me awhile to answer. 

“Glad to hear. I’m missing gelato. Specifically, chocolate rum.”

During the gap, perhaps they fell back to sleep, or perhaps my repost struck a chord and they were gorging ice cream, but I haven’t heard from them again; no offers to ship gelato, no sympathy, empathy, or entropy. But I began to think, and it’s true. I do miss gelato. Though to be honest, any flavor would do, so long as I can order at a counter, carry it to my favorite eating-gelato bench, and savor it while kids (and an occasional adult) play on the wooden horses the Michelangeli family provides the public. Truly good gelato (or ice cream) is as much about context as anything. 

When I was a kid in Sunnyvale, California, once a week or so my mother would declare that she hadn’t felt like cooking and why doesn’t my father drive his 1935 Ford pickup down to Foster Freeze and pick up burgers and fries, maybe a couple of milkshakes (none for her, she was trying to lose a few pounds). I would have been happy if she’d tired of cooking almost every night of the week. At Foster Freeze you could buy a deluxe cheeseburger for twenty cents more than a regular and get tomato, lettuce, and pickle relish in addition to the standard ketchup and mustard. Dad and I would order three bags of fries, start eating them while we waited for the burgers, put them between us on the front seat, and have polished them off by the time we drifted into the driveway. Mom wanted to lose weight, right? We were doing her a favor.

But if it were a Sunday when my mother declared herself tired of cooking, it was even better because we’d all go down together, sit at a blue painted picnic table, and everyone got fries and milkshakes. Then, if I played my cards right, I could also get a softy ice cream on a cone, maybe dipped in chocolate. Dad was always okay with that because that meant he could have one too. Mom was trying to lose a few pounds.

But the soft-swirled cone out of a machine paled to the real thing, and the real thing was the handmade ice cream of Clint’s Creamery in Los Altos. Every so often Dad would come home early from his auto garage and announce that we were going to Clint’s. Mom liked that, too, because Clint’s was somehow outside of the diet zone.

The creamery was at the junction of First and Lyell, and above their corner entrance – so it was clear that “creamery” didn’t mean just milk and cheese – was a giant concrete ice cream cone. Okay, it was a cone of grey vanilla that looked like it had been licked on for at least ten minutes by a giant child, but everyone who frequented the place knew the difference between the cone above the door and what they could get inside.

Dad always ordered peppermint chocolate chip, double dip, then for good measure a hand-packed half-gallon to take home. Mom tended towards strawberry. I worked my way through the menu — though I never had the heart to try the bubble gum or black licorice.

The day my father heard that Clint’s had closed was among the saddest of his life. Among the saddest of all our lives. We gave the Baskin-Robbins that opened up in some shopping center or the other a try, but it didn’t inspire any of us to return. Mom brought home mint chocolate chip from Lucky’s supermarket, but that it had obviously been poured into its box left my father cold. I don’t remember ever regularly going for ice cream again, not after Clint’s.

In 1975, I spent several months in Firenze. Early on, my American friend took me to Vivoli near Piazza Santa Croce. I ordered a cup of apricot gelato and was transported. I returned as often as I could, thereafter, and worked my way through their menu. I tried to describe the place to my father, but he was still grieving, and his enthusiasm for my distant discovery was forced.

There are several gelaterie in Orvieto, and my favorite is Officina del Gelato. The recipes are Neapolitan, they use less sugar, the portions are smaller, and I can get a child’s cup at about the size I always asked for at Vivoli for a euro. Tomasso rotates in new flavors periodically, the last I recall being fig. It’s true, I do love the chocolate rum, but I’m equally fond of walnut, hazelnut, wild cherry, pine nut – and whatever else they happen to be serving. 

Alas, their mint chocolate chip is tart in a way that Dad would not have appreciated. I’ve offered a taste to him across the Great Divide, but his enthusiasm for it was also forced. Once a memory of perfection is etched in the soul, there’s no displacing it.

It’s a drizzly day during a lockdown. Oh, my.

Last October, I wanted a light, hooded windbreaker just for this sort of weather. I am a terrible shopper, so ended up with a waterproof, synthetic-fill, hooded jacket, ideal for a more-than-usually-severe Swedish winter.

Two months ago I developed a crush on a sweater in a window. It was a thigh-length cable-knit cardigan, reminiscent of one I’d recently seen in Vienna, and was only thirty-nine euro. It still took me two weeks and the purchase of three turtlenecks to work up the courage to ask about it. What didn’t show in the window was its zipper and hood, neither of which I really wanted. But I bought it anyway – because I’m a terrible shopper.

Today, I really, really needed a walk. I toughed it through the morning and napped after lunch, but by 16:30 was uncomfortable enough that I had to either do something about it, or scream myself crazy. I don’t mind carrying an umbrella if I’m actually going somewhere, but hefting one while walking in circles around the neighborhood, however large they might be, I find burdensome. So, I stepped outside to assess weather conditions more fully than “it seems to be raining out” and to see what solution may be arrived at.

It was colder than it looked. So, I dug through my jackets and pulled out the waterproof with the hood, donned a mask, and slipped through the gate onto our lovely lane, made lovelier still by the rain.

Let me get this off my chest; I Hate Wearing a Mask! Okay, I understand the necessity (even though the rationale has changed a half dozen times in as many weeks), and whether it is for my own safety or the safety of others is of equal weight as far as I’m concerned. And it won’t be forever. But my nose drips when I walk (or sit, or eat, or… you get the idea), and behind a mask, it drips more frequently. The masks I have are very well-designed, they fit the face – a good thing in a mask. But that creates a micro-climate between chin and bridge-of-nose, one that tends towards the tropical. And breathing in my own warm air makes me flushed. Add to that, that I was dressed for midnight in Antarctica, and after a single circuit of streets and alleys, I was more soaked than had I gone into the rain in regular house clothes.

So, I nixed the hooded jacket, and tried the hooded sweater. Now, instead of growing moist from the inside out, it was from both directions at once. Rain penetrated the sweater, which acted like a sponge, and yet it was heavy enough to spread my flushing face all the way to mid-thigh. That lasted two circuits. At this point, I could have surrendered, but the walking made such a difference in how I felt! I understood that if I didn’t find a way to walk in this weather, the rest of the day – and all days like it – would be wasted.

So, I went back to the armadio, mask still in place, pulled out my white cotton blazer and my black, wide-brimmed felt hat, adjusted it at a rakish angle, and tried again. That worked… at least for about twenty minutes until everything was damp enough to begin to be clammy against the skin. But I got my walk, and the day again felt like it could have purpose. I’d surmounted the challenge of an afternoon pioggerellina (as Maria called a similar meteorological event of a couple of weeks ago) during a lockdown. 

(Pioggerellina is a word I want always to remember because it captures what it describes so perfectly. Say it out loud, you’ll see what I mean.)

As I passed my mailbox at the end of the final loop, I noticed something blue inside. There were two masks, not structured like the one I was wearing, but of a good quality. I went up and down the lane, each mailbox contained them. As with almost everything of late, I have no idea where they’re from: the comune, the region, national health, a concerned not-for-profit. But thank you, and if anyone needs mine, let me know, I already had several.

Just before I decided my hat was sufficiently wet and my muscles sufficiently exercised, the lovely brown boxer came onto the lane with her mistress. I waved, she jumped up on her hind legs, the woman holding the leash restrained her and seemed justifiably annoyed at me for provoking her dog. They went on towards the Vicolo, the dog looking back in my direction every three paces. I waved each time. I want her to know that despite my not returning her enthusiastic greetings, I think of her as a friend, and that we will resume normal play when this is over. She seems to understand. I’ll try to explain it to her owners some day, too. My Dog tends to be stronger than my Italian.

Water is heavy.

Typically my shopping bag contains a couple liters of juice and a liter of milk, plus other non-liquid items. Trying to heft all that plus a liter of water onto my shoulder is a challenge. So a couple of weeks ago, I chose a water delivery option. Right around noon, one of the guys from the supermarket drove up in their little Ape (three-wheeled pickup) and handed me a six-liter pack that lasted until this morning. On my last shopping day, I ordered another to arrive today.

I’ve been trying to get out for a walk earlier than has been my habit. Today I moved the needle up a notch and was out by 10:15. I went to the little piazza with the trees for a photo, circled around to Via delle Pertiche No. 2 on Via Angelo da Orvieto, and from there straight towards the sky-bridge so I could get of shot of that as well. On the way, I passed Gabriele from Metà in his Ape. We waved.

My first memory of Gabriele probably dates to two or three weeks after I moved here. I was in need of a light bulb. American training suggested the supermarket, so that’s where I went. I couldn’t find one. It was almost closing time and three of the guys were hanging out behind the counter. As I needed only a lightbulb at the moment, I felt I should announce that I wasn’t able to find what I was looking for so they didn’t think I was trying to sneak something.

“Well, what are you looking for?” asked Gabriele.

I told him.

“Oh, no, we don’t have those. But there’s a store on Piazza della Repubblica…”

I knew which one he meant. The – duh – light bulb store.

“I know where you mean! You think they’re open?”

“Until eight, so if you hurry!”

“Great! The light bulb store!”

“Obviously!” 

And that was it. But somehow he’d made me feel welcome here in a way that I hadn’t yet experienced. And in doing that, he involved his two workmates in welcoming me, too. From then on, I always thought of him as the spiritual head of the supermarket.

At the time, the people associated with Metà optionally wore red smocks over their street clothes. He always wore one, striding around town taking orders, delivering small parcels, bowing to people he knew. He reminded me of a princely figure from a renaissance fresco. And in the store, he kept his co-workers in good spirits. Over the next few months, I grew enormously fond of the whole lot of them, to the point of rationing my visits the way you might sips from a bottle of rare liqueur. The products they offered were – and still are – standard supermarket fare, but the atmosphere they maintained was, to this old man of the theatre, like walking into a really high-spirited rehearsal. It became a kind of emotional home.

Two years later, I ran into Gabriele in Piazza Ranieri and we had our only real conversation to date. He had just turned 29, was from Calabria – as at the time were several of his workers – he lived in Allerona Alta, a beautiful medieval village about twenty minutes out of town. I tend to make celebrities of people I admire, so the encounter sealed itself in my mind; I was now owner of special information.

This morning when I passed Gabriele in his Ape, it never occurred to me that he might be out on a water delivery. Someone else had delivered water last time, and I’d been told to expect it closer to noon. So, I continued looping around the via’s and vicolo’s. A few minutes later, as I turned onto my street, the Ape was sputtering along at the far end, about to turn onto Corso Cavour.

Right! That was probably my water delivery! He had my last name and address, but I doubt he knows my first name, much less my last. I began practicing excuses in Italian, and resigned myself to having to carry the pack of bottles home myself. 

I always leave the gate a little ajar when I go for a walk. First, there’s no real reason to lock it. Second, I like returning to push the gate open without using a key, it puts me in a pleasant mood (I have a life-long history of hating locked doors, but perhaps that’s for another time). As I approached, I saw clearly that the fact of the gate’s being ajar would escape anyone not expecting it, so again I rehearsed the phrases of apology. I pushed the gate. The paper recycling bin waited where I’d put it, and no, there was no sign of water.

I picked up the bin, shut the gate, and went towards the front door. There, on the bottom step of the exterior stairs was the six-pack of water. It displayed an unmistakable air of patient waiting.

There are several people I would choose to have as children, if such a thing were possible. One of them lives in Allerona.