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?