Author: dallanz

There were quite a number of people out during my morning walk, fewer than I was prepared for, but many more than has been usual at any time of day since March 10. Social distancing was generally observed, mask-wearing was spottier. I veered off Corso and kept to the side streets.

I walked to San Giovenale – Orvieto’s oldest church, the current structure dating from 1004 – to check out everyone’s favorite view. It did not disappoint. 

In a letter from friends, they described their view of the valley from their home in Porano (a village about fifteen minutes drive outside of Orvieto) as “a thousand shades of green”. The description is also apt in the other direction. Some trees are still in blossom, rain has encouraged new grasses, the spring is gorgeous this year. I’m sure I’m not alone in being relieved that we are able to be out and about to witness its final few arias.

From there, I went left over Porta Maggiore, and uphill past the Colonacci – the panorama following me all the while – and away from cliffside at Vicolo dei Medici. The sun was strong, the hill was as steep as ever, and everything about it was more intense than ever could be in my courtyard at home.

I passed Umbria Top where Svjetlana has a wine shop. It’s open while others are still closed. There must be nuances at play beyond the broad dictates of the national announcement.

“Bentornata, cara!”

“Grazie. Returning to regular sales, but I’ve been shipping online orders the whole time, so it hasn’t been too bad.”

“Good for you!”

“You know,” she said with a look of motherly concern, “when you’re on a quiet street, and no one else is around, it would be a good idea to lower the mask.”

“I’ve been wondering if I should.”

“You should! It’s healthier that way. Breathing in your own damp exhalations is not good for you.”

A bit further on, Antonny was in Blue Bar freshening up. A number of places have decided to use the time off to improve and repair. Something happens when you take away all the people; the rotten wood and mildewed awnings are suddenly and starkly apparent. A policewoman stood in his doorway. She seemed to be explaining Phase Two to Antonny, what he could do and when. But I’m just speculating.

Back on Corso, more were out than before. The pizzeria/pasticceria has moved its counter to open directly onto the street. Montanucci, still dark. Some activity in various shops, but only by their proprietors – maybe relieving horizontal surfaces of an almost two months’ collection of dust.

I saw Kamal, the pizzaiolo, last night during my walk.

“I’m opening tomorrow!”

“You are? The other day you said the 18^th.”

“Umbria is doing okay, and details are being sorted out by region, even by comune. Anyway, only for takeout, but I don’t have much eat-in business anyhow, so no difference really.”

“Great! I’ll see you tomorrow.”

So, for lunch I steamed some broccoli then went around the corner for a few slices. Kamal had laid out his counter as if the entire town were expected for lunch. From the look of things, I may have been his first customer. Given that foot traffic is still light that far down on Corso, and there is no way for word-of-mouth to spread, he may have been lucky to have had even my patronage.

After eating, I ventured out again. No one. I began to wonder if permission to walk had been rescinded. No, it was just lunchtime when everyone eats at home, because there is no other choice. The pizzerias were closed, too. Their clientele had taken out all they needed.

I wandered towards the Duomo. The family of cats near Al Mercato was lounging anywhere they damn pleased, and seemed very happy indeed to be doing so. As they normally glean much of their fare from falling scraps at the cafes in the area, I wondered who has been feeding them. They all look healthy, so someone has.

Later, just because I could, I went to Metà for a few things.

Now, something remarkable I’ve noticed living here is how seldom you see a local kid throw a tantrum or raise a fuss. Kids here are in society from their first or second week of life, they are brought up by dozens of affectionate friends and relatives, and seem like a remarkably secure lot.

Well, given that no one can leave their region, it’s pretty safe that the four-year-old boy having a meltdown on Via delle Donne was local. He was not happy about wherever he and his parents were going. He dug in his heels every third step, and yelled his dear head off. His parents were trying to strike a balance between firm and understanding, and were doing well, but it was not buying cooperation.

He broke my heart, this little guy. How can a kid whose family is a host of people he sees every day possibly understand why they have all, save his parents, gone into hiding? Then suddenly, he’s on the street again, only they’re empty; empty of his friends, his innumerable aunts and uncles, his favorite dogs and cats.  What is going on? “I don’t know,” he seemed to be saying, “but I don’t want to go any further. And I won’t.”

His parents, the few others watching, and myself included, know exactly how the boy feels, and wish we had a quick answer. We don’t. But we have a lot of the same questions.

I passed an edicola and checked out the headlines: “Umbria without recent new cases.” Not overly precise, that announcement, but who can argue with the spirit?

The photo is of the valley as viewed from the wall above Porta Romana.

I was circling my courtyard listening to On The Media when a small twig arrived, bouncing at my feet. I looked towards Marianna who was on her balcony with the ever-adorable Pongo, talking on her phone. She pointed up. I followed her finger to the next balcony to find Renzo.

“I couldn’t get your attention by shouting, so I threw something.”

“It worked. How’re you both?”

“We’re making gnocchi. Want some?”

“That would be incredible!” My enthusiasm drew a laugh from Marianna and a wag from Pongo.

“We’re not sure how they’ll come out, but so far it looks good.”

“Yeah, gnocchi are tricky,” I said, having myself only ever bought them in a package.

“Very tricky. I’ll bring some down in an hour or so.”

“Fantastic!”

When I first moved to this little house on Via delle Pertiche Prima, I wasn’t so sure about the balconies. Having neighbors able to peer into my yard from a short distance at any time of day or night, whenever they felt like it, made me a bit uncomfortable. Growing up in California, back yards were fenced, lots were large, neighbors had to cross driveways and other barriers to have access to our domain. Even in Manhattan, the closest thing we ever had to a balcony was a fire escape, and no one in our neighborhood used them like the Cramden’s did on The Honeymooners. I was used to privacy. I didn’t consciously consider privacy terribly important, but it was.

Sometime early in my residency here, an American friend came over to see my place. Marianna had hung bedspreads out to dry, low into the courtyard, almost to where I had to swat them away to enter my house.

“You gonna say anything to her about that?”

“No. She has a right to her airspace,” but it actually did bother me. Even though I had been here for more than a year at that point, there was still a large part of me that thought of myself on permanent vacation. My surroundings needed to be picture-perfect representations of Italian Life with as few messy daily realities intruding as possible.

But month by month, year by year my balcony neighbors have become balcony friends. Marianna drops clothes pins at a champion rate. I throw them back. When balcony herb plants are watered, my pavement gets wet. Pongo, the ever adorable, sheds all over the end of my courtyard, I sweep it up. Conversations are held between balconies and kitchens, with friends passing on the street, with neighbors in adjoining properties. That, is Italian life. That, is why I wanted to live here, even if the desire used to be more idealized than real.

One evening I was dining with Renzo and Patrizia at their table. Renzo invited me out to the balcony, stood at the rail, and gazed downward. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. He swept his hand across the view. I stepped up to the rail and looked over. My garden, imperfect and full of holes compared to the undulating mass of vegetation I aspired to, looked terrific from there. Renzo chuckled and nodded and let me have the balcony to myself. Until that moment I had viewed the garden as my project for my selfish enjoyment, and occasionally for that of a few guests. With his gesture, Renzo pointed to its function in the neighborhood. To have it tended and blooming was a pleasure for a dozen people in residences all around the property. It lifted spirits, provided color, attracted birds and the buzzings of pollinators.

I grew sleepy while waiting for today’s gnocchi and dozed on the sofa downstairs, having left the gate open for ease of delivery. Renzo cleared his throat. The covered dish waited on the table.

“You were sleeping, but you don’t want the gnocchi to get cold. They have to be eaten hot.”

“A thousand thanks to both of you. This is a very special treat,” I said, staggering to my feet.

“Buon pranzo!”

Gnocchi can be like uncured concrete if not well-prepared. Or they can be like these were; light and elegantly balanced between fluffy and rich. The sauce was deeply flavored, the cheese exactly enough.

“Congratulations,” I texted later, “Trattoria R&P wins all prizes for best in Umbria!”

The reply read, “Thanks for the compliment! I was the gnocchi chef, Patrizia is responsible for the ossobuco sauce. We are good collaborators.”

“Without equal,” I wrote back.

Balcony culture.

Photo is of Renzo making gnocchi (for the first time!)

Monday is the day. Such is the word on the streets. Streets that are more crowded with locals than they have been since early March. Save for a few of the young, masks are worn, distancing is observed, no one is touching; but people are out, unable to hold back until after the weekend.

I first went towards the hardware for a lightbulb, but while crossing Piazza della Repubblica noticed that the lightbulb store was open, its owner installed on the bus stop bench.

“You’re open?”

“Sure, come on in.”

I ordered an LED, he tested it to make sure it worked (the advantage of patronizing a niche establishment) and to see if I liked the degree of warmth it shed, charged me three euro, and reclaimed his spot on the bench. Spring was too much afoot to remain indoors.

The date I’ve seen for retail to reopen is May 18, but maybe lightbulbs fall into an essential category. Or a category all their own, like children’s literature, which I remember reading was allowed to open sooner than the rest. That sounded comical at first, until I imagined all those young parents reading to their preschoolers from books long since memorized by the child listener, at which insight it made perfect sense to permit book sales to recommence before… well, wine, for instance. Though, to be sure, an argument could be made for the bacchanalian elixir, and probably most strongly among that same crowd of young parents.

Those stores scheduled to reopen sometime between now and the eighteenth are preparing in eager anticipation.

Officina del Gelato moved location about a year and a half ago from its original place that sold gelato directly onto the street (with no seating area) to one a couple of doors down that enjoys space for a few tables. Their door was open today and Tomasso and a couple of other men were jovially moving things around. I waved and welcomed his – and his gelato’s – return.

“We’re back to how we started! Vending directly to the street! We should have never moved!” and he laughed, waving his arms in a comic parody of frustration.

Closer to where I live, a little corner pizzeria recently taken over by a Ukrainian couple had its doors wide open, too, the woman of the pair scrubbing away. 

“You guys have been busy.”

“Yeah. We had lots of time, so we decided to freshen things up for when we reopen.” 

The previous décor was charmingly peculiar. The new is charmingly Italo-Ukrainian. I enjoy those two, so earnest they are, forever improving their menu and their stake in the town, and always so genuinely excited about both.

“Are you reopening on Monday or on the eighteenth?” 

“On the eighth, actually,” a date that corresponds to none of the published schedules I’ve seen. They may be Ukrainian, but they’ve assimilated well.

Further on still, I saw one of my favorite doggie friends. Bea is small, lovely, and long haired with a feathery tail. She spied me from a distance (of course) and made a bee-line. What surprised me is that her mistress let out the leash so we could enjoy a minute or two of sweet communion.

“This is a wonderful tonic, thank you,” I said to her owner. She didn’t hear me. As Bea and I were finishing up, I tried again, “Maybe it’s not such a good idea to touch her like this, but it was a great gift for me.”

“For her, too. She’s missed you. Now, have a good day.”

A few meters on, a deli advertises pizza on their street sign. I’d sampled their cold case, but never saw any actual pizza. I stopped to check it out. Communication was slow. I’d ask a question, the masked lady would turn to pick up a plate while answering, and I’d understand nothing. That prompted her to try English – which I no longer view as a judgement on my Italian and actually regard as rather sweet – but between the mask, her movements, and my hearing, nothing much improved. After several minutes of good-natured repetition on both our parts – and in both languages – I am now happily waiting to pick up a fresh Margherita at seven this evening. Pizza Day has arrived! 

Since lockdown began fifty-four days ago, I have equated Pizza Day with Liberation, and as a cue to hang up my chronicler’s pen. But this will be pizza consumed at home, even if professionally prepared. So I’ve adjusted my thinking; this is Pizza Preview Day. Pizza Day is still when I and a friend go to Al Cordone and I order a caprese, già tagliata, and eat it there, then walk to have a cup of Tomasso’s pistacchio gelato, and maybe even a nightcap at Montanucci or Blue Bar. 

With that list of prerequisites, I may still have quite a lot of journalling ahead of me.

The photo is of the Italo-Ukrainian pizzeria, now open again for takeout.

Today was Friday. I know that because yesterday was market, and that means yesterday was Thursday. Tomorrow will be a Saturday without market, and the day after that, Sunday without church. But no day is really significant to me now until Monday. Monday we walk. Monday we can order takeout at restaurants able to be open on that basis. Why, Monday if I get it in my head to go to San Giovenale to look at the view, while carrying a sandwich I will later eat at home, I can just do that.

We are so fortunate. I really mean it, and don’t have to explain why.

It was suggested to me a week ago that I submit a few of these journal entries for publication in the U. S. So I’ve been reading back to March 10 when the national lockdown in Italy was announced. Count forward six days, I was already yearning for pizza. At the time of the announcement a two-week closure seemed inconceivably long. As of today, there is still a month to go for a haircut. And a month doesn’t seem so bad. It may be a month of long hair, but while it achieves its hitherto unimagined lengths, there will be pizza.

And there will be the unending kindness of good people.

Ten or twelve years ago, I inadvertently entered what I came to think of as “the gift wars” with friends Vera and Giovanni. Every time we would go into their shop for a purchase, we were given something of greater value than what we had purchased. On subsequent visits, we came with gifts for them, which were met with extra gifts in return. It was impossible to keep up, let alone pull ahead. Eventually, I stopped tallying, expressed my profound gratitude, and left it at that.

One night earlier this week, I won’t pretend to know which one, I finished supper wishing there were dessert. Fifteen minutes later there was a rapping at my chamber door. It was not Edgar Allen Poe, it was my neighbor Renzo with a plate in hand. 

“Crostata. Apricot.” he said, whipping off the paper towel that covered it with a flourish.

“Your timing is awesome. Thank you!”

“Buonanotte.”

It was still warm from the oven, and so light and delicate I had to hold the edges of its paper mantle to keep it from floating away. I ate half on the spot, and half after the next day’s lunch.

Maybe it was the following evening or two evenings later, I won’t pretend to have a superhuman grip on the passing of time, but I ran out of energy for cooking. The whole day had been an energy vacuum, and when faced with turning what was in the fridge into something more elaborate than a sandwich, imagination failed me. I felt new appreciation for my mother who during lunch would begin to speculate as to what we might have for dinner. The relentless arrival of mealtimes can wear a person down. I ended up fixing a sandwich, and not a very interesting one at that.

After a glum consumption of said sandwich, I spread out my newly acquired blister packs of pharmaceuticals and set to organizing them into bins and boxes, a job I never look forward to but usually accomplish with less distress that I was experiencing that night.

A face appeared at the window.

“I called but you didn’t answer.”

“My phone is upstairs. I didn’t hear it.”

“Fresh tagliatelle with Bolognese. Buona cena.” and he was off.

I cleared a spot in the chaos of the table, and enjoyed a supper far superior than I had expected or deserved.

Next morning, I sent Renzo and Patrizia a WhatsApp.

“You are a kind of wizard. I wanted a dessert after supper, and you arrived with a crostata. I didn’t feel like preparing supper at all, and you provided a delicious pasta. I cannot thank you both enough for your kindness.”

The reply, “And you are always kind to us. Our behavior is not the fruit of magic, but rather the result of what our parents taught us about the value of life – admire and respect each other. Friendship and family rise above all else. It is for us a great pleasure to have you as friend and neighbor. The simple joy of service is beyond assessment of value. Good day to you, our friend.”

When a great tenor finishes a perfect aria, the appropriate response is appreciation, so I left it at that.

About an hour ago I saw Renzo and Patrizia on their balcony.

“’Risotto tonight! Good by you?”

“Wonderful! Thank you.”

And I left it at that.

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.