Category: Lockdown

The day offered a wide variety for all you weather-watchers, out there. It was nippy and partly cloudy, sultry and warm, spring blue-skied clear, and is ending with a rip-roaring electrical storm. Something for everyone.

My day began last night when the glasses I wear before contacts go in (and which I use to see them and unfold them after a hard night in their containers) fell apart into a useless heap. I fretted how I would explain to Diego what I had in mind to replace them. I just wanted magnifiers I could use for casual morning reading, and every now and then to wear instead of contacts. Both my eyes take 2.0 lenses, so that would work fine. I found an old pair of teeny-tiny reading glasses from fifteen years ago that I brought with me when I moved here, for reasons forgotten, tested them (sort of) and brought them with me as an example of glasses that worked, if they were only larger. I found being out of the house with blurred vision rather upsetting, and felt whacky to boot, but Diego got it immediately, and gave me more or less what I requested.

The more or lesses of life are fraught with difficulties.

The glasses are either too strong or too weak, I hate the style, and were too fancy (and therefore expensive). I discovered none of this until I arrived home (except the price). They did help, however, to get my contacts in. So now, I can fret about taking full blame and convincing Diego to exchange them for something I actually want.

After a rest, I went to see Maria on her first morning back in her weaver’s studio. We chatted briefly, I had a quick lunch at Montanucci, then returned for a more substantial catch up. Then at 15:30 we both met Massimo at the first apartment viewing of the day, a brand new restoration, nicely furnished, just below Piazza del Duomo; very comfy. The second was across town just off Via Pecorelli, larger, good light, and the smallest elevator in Italy. The last was on Piazza dei Erbi and I can only describe it as a nineteenth century tart. The first two will give me something to think about. The last one gives me food for thought, too, but let’s not go there.

Maria and I walked more, I had gelato, she had coffee, we discussed serious stuff and the importance of work. She had expected to miss her loom, she had not expected to miss her shop. She missed both. I told her about the series of WhatsApp chats I had with my friend who is helping to produce online and safe-distanced theatre events, and how it made me miss something, too. For both of us it was missing the exercise of our skills, but it was also interaction with others, of being integral to a community.

Officially Phase Two began May 5. Yesterday, most businesses were open. Travel restrictions here have been lifted in certain categories. During my first visit with Maria, two couples from Modena, who had stopped here for lunch on their way to Rome, bought scarves. Unfortunately for them, all the restaurants they were familiar with have not yet opened for lunch. But they now have lovely scarves to take home. So, I’m not sure this is Day Zero of post-lockdown in any official way, but it doesn’t feel like a lockdown, anymore. It feels like a welcome step towards a more social life, and a scary step, too.

As I left Maria, we paused over the mandatory bottle of hand gel. She shook my hand. My first human contact since very early March, maybe hers, too. We smiled, then both gelled up as we said our (very Italian) series of goodbyes.

So, in honor of what we hope is a turning of the tide, my daily report ends here. I’ll still post from time to time as the experiences of a day merit, but the regular evening journal has been completed. It was a joy to hear your comments, to know that during the isolation someone was still listening, and writing this has kept me sane. Thank you.

Be careful, stay well, and keep in touch,

David, in Orvieto.

A drizzly day. Montanucci re-opened this morning. I passed around eleven, and where their lunch buffet usually is were a dozen or so sandwiches. Fine, I thought, they’re working their way back towards a real lunch. I’ll go in for a sandwich anyhow, it’ll be so great to have lunch out, it doesn’t matter what it is. When I passed an hour later, the buffet was in place, and I had a real lunch at an appropriate distance from other customers; risotto with artichoke and green beans and carrots. It was delicious.

Valentino and Loretta sat, masked, outside their antiques shop, “We’re open again!” Loretta shouted. Valentino flashed an unmistakable grin behind his mask. When we produced Colloquia last June, I stopped to ask him if we could perhaps borrow a few pieces for the play. I had not yet finished the sentence when he set a time for us to choose what we needed from their warehouse. They delivered it to place on a Sunday morning, cleaned and polished, and picked it up a week later. No charge. I bought them a clematis – they were thrilled.

All day, people I don’t know made eye contact and wished me a buon giorno, in full resonant voices. It felt as if someone had put my photo in the paper with instructions to “greet this man”. It may have been the energy of opening spilling over onto foreigners who were here for the entirety of lockdown; it has made of us real Orvietani.

I made multiple trips between apartment and house, shlepping the stuff I’d brought over on Saturday. One of the afternoon jaunts coincided with Patrizia coming onto her balcony. I explained to her about the apartment, why I was looking in the first place, and what prevented me from taking it. Then I asked her about her job.

“Still working at home?”

“Without pause. You’re never away from work. Staring at the computer for hours makes me dizzy. At the office, people are always coming and going, asking questions, interrupting, there’s a natural flow. Here, it’s me and the computer. Renzo comes by, doesn’t want to disturb me, so goes down to the caverna to make things out of wood.”

“When will you go back?”

“We don’t know. It’s a week at a time. Soon, I hope. I miss the office, my co-workers, the irritating parents, the crazy kids, the whole thing.” Patrizia is the secretary for all of Orvieto’s five (or maybe it’s six) high schools.

Massimo, the real estate guy, sent me an email this morning saying he had a new restoration near the Duomo to show me, and another apartment near his office on Piazza Vitrozzi, and that we would meet “under the gelato place” near Le Scalette at 15:30. I was there, he was not. I sent a message and received a half dozen apologies for not having specified the day. We will meet tomorrow at 15:30. Today, tomorrow, what’s the difference? It was nice of him to have apologized… six times. 

I went to the “other” gelato place for a extra-small cup of vanilla with orange, and got too close to the cold case when I ordered. A new young lady behind the counter kept gesturing me back, then I’d forget and drift forward again. I left the poor girl a frazzled mess. 

I met Antonny, the proprietor of Blue Bar, in front of Montanucci, on his bike towards home.

“Tonio!”

“I’ve decided to give up the side room. It costs me five thousand a year in rent, and I don’t think it’s worth it. Instead, I’ll put up an awning and have tables on the street all the time. What do you think?”

“Sounds sensible.”

“And I can make room for tables near the bar. I think it will be better.”

“What about social distancing?”

“I am like Napoleon. I think carefully and for a long time, and when it’s time to act, I act!” he said with admirable exuberance. “Was that correct English?”

“I understood it.”

“I’m excited. It will be better. Of course, you like to sit in that room, but you’ll sit outside, too, won’t you?”

“And Keegan and David Perry…”

“I think it’s a good idea. Romina is waiting. I love you.”

And such was the energy of Orvieto re-opening. It felt good to have a day of mixed encounters (many more than are listed here). I hope it lasts. I hope we can make it last. I hope it can last. Safely.

The photo is of Montanucci giving out (free) refreshments on San Giuseppe day, 2016.

A bright and sunny day. I went out as often as I could to test how difficult the stairs here in my trial apartment would be. What I’ve concluded is, if I never have to drink more than tap water or eat more than takeout, the stairs should not be a problem.

What I wonder about is all the old ladies in town with their shopping carts. They don’t all live on ground floors or in elevator buildings. Yet you see them loading up, and presumably carrying their shopping up to kitchens high above ground. Do not be intimidated by old women, especially old Italian women, they are a superior race and their methods are not to be questioned, nor will they ever be understood by those of us outside the fold. And they have a lifetime of practice.

Wait! So have I. For fifteen years I shared a fifth floor walkup and carried groceries every day at least once. My only experience with an elevator building was four years in Brooklyn. But hauling up a shopping bag with liquid purchases yesterday, and again today, felt borderline unsafe.

My personal history regards places to live has been pretty fortunate. When confronted with a conundrum about whether to change a residence, it has usually (maybe even always) meant hunker down and wait. I’ve lived in everything from a fifth floor walkup (before the one referenced above) two rooms and a kitchen with shower, to a ten-room spread with covered porch and balcony. And every place I’ve lived, basic or luxurious, has been perfect for its time. Then suddenly something would change (or was scheduled to change) and it was necessary to look elsewhere. That change has come, and the looking has begun. The finding may take awhile.

So as I mentioned, I went out as often as I could find an excuse to do, today, to test my compatibility with the stairs. The last several of those times, the streets were so empty it was as if lockdown had been reimposed. This made me sad. My first morning in Orvieto after I moved here in October 2015 is forever etched in memory because of the crowds in the streets. Jostling, diverse, lively crowds. A Sunday mid-May ought to feel that way, too. 

I know why the city was empty this afternoon. Restaurants that decide to re-open will begin doing so tomorrow. Today, people were lunching at home, maybe even savoring the Sunday meal in the manner to which we’ve become accustomed. There was no reason to be out, so they weren’t. I ventured forth again around four, and knots of people were collected around the gelaterie, happily soaking up ice cream on the season’s first summer-like afternoon. But away from these, piazza’s were empty.

“We will become used to this,” said Carlo, when I ran into him and Sylvia on my way to the supermarket which, I was soon to be reminded, now closes at three on Sunday. “In a few months, all this will be normal, and life will go on as usual.”

“It will be longer than a few months before life is normal again,” objected Sylvia. “We’re going to be dealing with this for a long time.”

“But we will become used to it,” Carlo explained. “I never experienced the War, or even a natural disaster like an earthquake, but from what I’ve heard from those who have, you adapt, you find a way to continue living a regular life. We’ll survive, we’ll find ways of making whatever happens, normal.”

My thoughts went back to the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. The friends I was staying with had a house less than two miles from the epicenter. I had been waiting for a lane at the university pool (and heard the quake approach as I lay with my ear to the ground) and didn’t know if there was a way back to where I was staying, so drove into town and stopped at a friend’s house on the way. That evening, we walked around downtown Santa Cruz. Aftershocks happened so frequently that we ceased even commenting on them. They had became normal within a few hours of the main event.

Two phenomena followed. For a couple of months, no matter how hard we tried to avoid the subject, no one could not talk about the quake. The other, aftershocks only merited comment if they were strong or happened late at night.

Some buildings were off limits, others were torn down. With them were lost favorite gathering spots, never to return except in memory. Many activities were suspended, some for a long time, while facilities were inspected for safety. The bold outlines of our lives were changed, some radically. Walking in open fields where nothing could fall on us became fashionable. But life did indeed go on.

I will find a new place or make adjustments to the old, and will continue to wonder how the old ladies of this town manage their groceries, and by and by the sometimes empty streets won’t even catch my notice. Then one day, there will be happy crowds again, and we will forget much of what we are going through now.

The photo is of The Cooper House, one of the lost treasures of the Loma Prieta quake.

Grey day. I left Lucky cleaning my house at about 11:30, and trooped back to the apartment I’m trying out for the weekend. Rachel had met me here earlier, we went over some basics (like getting the hot water hot), then fell into one of those congenial conversations that happen easily with people you think of as friends on first meeting. She let me complain about how I was feeling this morning, and I got to find out more about her work, her son, her husband, and her time in Orvieto. I look forward to the next chapter.

The apartment is a beautiful BnB. It is filled with air and light, spacious, clean, and fitted with the latest conveniences. It has also never been occupied. Most of my day was spent napping and trying to imagine living here. I was more successful with the naps (and very happy with the sofa). As to the other, I’m going to see it through to Monday, even though I could return to my clean house and home at any time. I have to give this a chance. And because I’m pretty sure I know why the first part of my day was so off, I have reasonable expectations that Sunday will bring some clarity.

Friend Marilyn put me in touch with a lovely person with the equally lovely name of Maria Silvana who has an almost ground floor, soon-to-be-vacant apartment on Piazza del Popolo. I would love having Maria Silvana as a neighbor, but the place is too interesting. Had I my youthful energy, I might have considered it, but no; I’m looking for an abode with minimal need for input. Good luck, say I to myself, with a ironic bite in my delivery. But maybe.

I finally got to a real walk around five. To begin, I went by the pizzeria where I’d taken out lunch to pay my bill in exact change, as all she had earlier was a twenty and a fifty. Then I cut across town to descend the Confaloniere. My mood improved as I passed people I know, and again when I was meowed at by the green-eyed, long-haired, three-legged cat. The movement down hill woke my muscles, and I arrived on Via Roma much improved, but still grouchy.

As I rounded the bend from Via Montemarte to Via delle Pertiche No.2, a gentleman with glasses, little hair, and a white mask, grunted as he tried to set a foil-wrapped dish onto the passenger seat from the driver’s door of his car. 

“My old bones aren’t up to this,” he muttered, more or less in my direction.

I looked at what he was trying to accomplish and doubted that anyone’s bones would be up to it.

“I’m seventy-nine. How old are you?” he asked without introduction.

“You don’t look seventy-nine,” I said, truthfully.

“You don’t look your age, either. How old are you?”

“Seventy.”

“There. Nine years smaller than me,” a phrase no one had used on me since grammar school, “you look good.” 

I tried to protest that I felt nine years older, but he was on to the next thing, having decided to bring his foil-wrapped item to the hatchback instead of the passenger seat.

“I worked as a restorer. What about you?”

“What do you mean? Like art restoration?”

“No, restoration. I restored Le Grotte del Funaro, for instance.

“Oh! You mean you’re a restauranteur!”

“No, a restorer. They were caves, I turned them into a restaurant. Like that.”

“Good job.”

“Lots of work, but feel here,” and he offered his right bicep. It was, unflexed, impressively hard. “I loved the work. You haven’t been in Orvieto long.”

“I moved here about five years ago.”

“I thought so. What do you do?”

“I’m a writer,” I said, settling for shorthand.

“Of what?”

“I wrote a play about Orvieto that was presented here in June.”

“Ah, yes. I saw that. Very beautiful.”

“You saw it?”

“Oh yes. It was excellent work, the whole thing, and I don’t give compliments readily.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you. I’m off now,” he said, placing the foil-wrapped item on the passenger seat, this time using the passenger door. “Whatever you do, keep writing.”

I walked home (to pick up yesterday’s pizza for supper) and back to Via Garibaldi, a bit stunned, but more fleet of foot than I’d been all day.

The photo is of Le Grotte del Funaro.

I rent a room from a friend in Scranton. She donates the rent to an arts education non-profit she created, and sends me important mail. So, today I received a stimulus check, which I planned to deposit using mobile banking. I have two American accounts with mobile apps, and have used both within the last month. They were fine.

I logged on to the one for the national account. “This app is being retired, update now.” Okay. That took me to the App Store where the only option offered was “open”. That took me back to the sign-in page with the same message. After rounding that circle a couple of times more, I chose “Remind me later”.

A new version of the app opened after I signed in. I took photos of the check, front and back, but when I clicked on “amount of check” it took me back to the home screen.

I traveled that circle several times.

Then I tried the app for the Scranton bank, and had almost exactly the same experience. I looked up both apps in the Store, and both now require OS 11.0 or higher. I checked my phone; OS 10.5 installed. Choose update software. Message returned – software up-to-date.

It seems that to use a mobile app to cash my check, I will have to first buy a new phone (I am still using an iPhone 5s). (I know, ancient, but I just don’t get excited about electronic upgrades, anymore.) (I bought my first computer in 1983, I’m over it, okay?)

Of course, the reason I use WindTre as my carrier is that four years ago when I took this house, there was no reception for TIM, here, and even though once inside WindTre barely registered, it was something. Now I’m planning to move. That means, to be prudent, I’d best wait until I know where I’m moving to so I can test reception. No use tying myself to a plan with a service that has no reception in my new place, now, is there?

American cell plans get my head spinning, all such option-rich shopping does. I stopped buying potato chips decades ago for exactly that reason. And of course, Italian plans are in Italian, and while I think I understand what I’m reading, if the text is addressing something the least bit crucial, I’m never quite sure. So, chalk up another degree of complexity to this move. That’s alright, I’ll adjust.

Last night, I put out two of the five bags of garden leavings that Lucky generated on Tuesday. This morning, as I left for my walk they were still there. There was a tag on one. “Your registered container was not with this bag, inability to detect the tag.” I have no real idea what that means even translated. Maybe the barcode on the organic container has to be scanned for some reason. Is that because there’s an extra charge for garden trimmings? If so, I don’t know what to do, because when I took this house I never got around to changing the registration of the containers. That would have meant going down to the COSP office in Fontanella di Bardano, which seemed too hard by bus. I’ve paid my trash tax all along, but the bar codes are probably still registered to the guy here before me who is a restaurant owner in town, and Lord knows he has enough on his plate without having a charge appear out of nowhere for my garden trash.

At any rate, tomorrow I meet Rachel at the apartment under consideration so that I can test it out for the weekend. It is a great boon being able to do that. But there is the issue of packing. Overnight or for a month; except for socks and underwear, you have to pack more or less the same stuff. I’ll start early. I hope I like the place. I saw Massimo on the piazza yesterday, and he has people in line to see my house.

I’m very fortunate to have these niggling problems to worry about. So far, it seems that all my challenges are of a similar nature; mildly annoying but not existential. I’m tempted to feel guilty, but that would help nothing.

I received a series of WhatsApp messages this afternoon from a friend in Florida. He’s deeply involved in finding ways to produce plays that respect the safety issues now at the core of any public event. He also tells me that Actors’ Equity is insisting on safe conditions for its members, a bit of news that I find heartening. The union, lately floundering to shore up its reason for being, is finding a cause in a new, vitally important way of protecting its actors and stage managers.

The solutions my friend is cooking up with theatres are creative, effective, and fascinating. Reading his messages, I felt physically healthier. It was the kind of stuff I thrive on; how to continue to find ways of congregating despite the challenges and necessary restrictions. His work reawakened a great longing; to open the doors, seat the audience, and delight in their responses to a play while hiding somewhere out of sight. That’s my metier, my home base, my element.

But, for now, I’ll hope for more updates from Florida, and to see Orvieto’s restaurants and bars navigate a successful reopening. I’ve got a check to deposit and trash to get rid of.

The photo is of the famous azaleas on Via Garibaldi, just because they’re gorgeous.

The weeds at San Giovenale’s garden have been mowed into a lawn. I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, the field couldn’t be allowed to turn into a forest. On the other hand, it was beautiful all shaggy and loose, and wildflowers would have soon followed. But one of the garden’s functions is a dog park, and foxtails don’t go well with dog fur. If I’m allowed three hands – on the third hand, there is something reassuring about a mowed meadow. The civilized world may look like it’s falling apart, but someone still cares enough to mow the weeds.

And my neighbors still care enough to line the lane with flowers.

And my friend Pat in Pennsylvania cares enough to practice the piano.

And Roy cared enough to list of series of apartments that may be worth looking into, while waiting in line to enter the supermarket.

And friend Catherine checked online for ground floor rentals in Orvieto, maybe for herself and incidentally for me, but that’s irrelevant, she has the courage to exhibit hope.

Sam works on videos on Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Frank writes his own loopy sonnets, and copies his friends.

Lynne snaps astounding photos from her wheelchair.

Jeff, working at home in his family’s Astoria apartment, barely large enough for him, Megan, and their kids Josie and Tucker, washes his keys when he comes in from errands.

Ida called, concerned when she heard I wanted to move.

Claudia called to let me know that she continues to seek appointments for both of us with la dotteressa, who promises to see us as soon as her own back pain releases her attention.

Alessandro scheduled to give me a haircut a week from Monday and Michele a shiatsu, next Wednesday — both after too long a pause.

Rachel will show me an apartment I can take on a weekend trial, a bit early so that Lucky can clean my house, so the Massimo can show it next week to prospective renters.

All these casual connections and hopeful actions – and that I have so taken for granted for all of my life, really – suddenly represent the real world, the thing that despite markets and crazy politicians and personal ambitions, will keep the human experiment going long enough for it to recover.

Erika writes me almost daily notes, recording her thoughts and appreciations.

Maria, who because she lives in the country I have begun to call “The Lady of the Woods” sends regular greetings by WhatsApp from just beyond the cliffside vista.

Dan, who suffers from the effects of a brain injury, emails with updates on his brain, but also on his Long Island community, and reminds me what real courage is.

Chuck doesn’t often write, but we’ve known each other for fifty-five years, so he doesn’t need to.

Ed and I keep the characters of Lord Chem and his ridiculous cousin Dizzy alive in sequential letters about the difficulties of maintaining a good household staff in his three-room apartment in Elmhurst Queens, as red zones rage around him.

David calls and we discuss life in rural Pennsylvania.

Greg and Denise call and we discuss our longings for each other’s company, not yet satisfied after forty years friendship.

Gianna calls and we discuss everything.

And backstage, as it were, tens of thousands of others support these little acts of hope, and charity, and faith, with their own little acts of similar design, and it is that infinite network that allows me to list some (just some) of the people who are dear to me, and the things that make them so. It also allows – that network – for others dear to read my scribblings.

Giancarlo makes me a strudel for old times’ sake, and Renzo and Patrizia enjoy half of it for dinner.

Marilyn in Italy wants to organize a lunch party in Lubriano, someday.

So does Victoria, but in Montecchio.

Marilyn in Clarks Summit wants to organize a virtual book club.

From beyond the Great Divide, all my relatives who have leapt that chasm send me dreams and daydreams wrapped in hope.

So the field is mown, and a bit of rain may perk up a few of the municipal flowers. But what I really hope is that someone goes out with a pitcher and a fork and puts some life into those flowers, deliberately.

Orvieto Centro Storico has, according to the word on the street, about 4,500 residents. That’s larger than any of the colleges I’ve taught at, but it doesn’t seem like an overwhelming number of people. So, how is it that on my morning walk, aside from those manning their shops, not only did I see no one I know (that’s a lie, I waved to Stefano) but no one I saw in an hour’s time looked at all familiar. As inter-regional travel is still not allowed, those folks must have come from around here. Were they all from surrounding villages, and freakishly decided to arrive in town at the same time, this morning? Was there a promotional shoot I hadn’t heard about, and empty streets were therefore filled by bussing in extras? I mean, I don’t expect to remember everyone I see, but I have lived here five years, and most of the time most of the crowd looks at least somewhat familiar.

I don’t expect answers. It’s just an odd way to begin the day. Maybe not in New York City, but here, yes.

It was also one of those odd windy days. Orvieto, as with sound, funnels wind in strange ways. My apricot tree may show a few trembling leaves. Walk to Piazza del Popolo, you may be buffeted by a gust or two. Piazza Vitrozzi will be still as a stone, but turn down either of the arched passages that leads towards Piazza della Repubblica, and you are suddenly the object of a sustained aerodynamic endurance test. Walk at a sixty degree forward lean, and arrive into a piazza that is a vast haven of serenity. The way down Via Filippeschi – all is calm. Via Malabranca is a bit gusty, but refreshing. Arrive at the cliff at San Giovenale, and you will be blown onto a bench without your having intended to sit. That, or blown over the edge, your choice.

You eventually tumble back into town, hair standing vertically, a living advertisement for one of those haircut things they’re all a-chatter about being available again on Monday, next.

Of course, for wind you can always go to Piazza del Duomo which is reliably gale force almost any time of day, and exclusive of any other street, square, or alley in the surrounding area.

Further oddness. L’Ufficino del Gelato has its post-lockdown/pre-tourist hours beautifully posted; they are closed between 13:00 and 15:00, every day. Yesterday I happened by at about 14:30 and they were open. So, when I arrived today at 14:15 I had no idea what to expect, but had pocketed a euro in change, just in case. I rounded the corner onto Corso to meet Tomasso face to face just as he was about to lock up.

“Oh! I’ll come back, later.”

“Child’s cup?”

“No, you’re closing, I’ll come back.”

“What flavor?”

“Hazelnut.”

He served me, I gave him my coins, he looked relieved that the change was exact. I thought of inquiring after his hours of business, but restrained myself. I suspect he’s searching for a predictable pattern from data that is actually, genuinely, inexorably random. I thanked him and made my way through the few, totally unfamiliar, people on the street towards my bench for eating gelato.

At least the bench was still familiar.

I wandered some, after that, and eventually ended up at (what I still call) Metà. Everyone was familiar! Okay, none of the other customers were, but at least the guys who work there were still working there; no one had been blown off the cliff or replaced by central casting. As it often is for me, the supermarket was a welcome oasis.

The blue-eyed checker, whose name I still don’t know, was behind the counter.

“How’s it going,” I asked.

“Andiamo avanti,” he replied – we go onward. “And you?”

“Andiamo avanti,” I shrugged back, “There is no choice, is there?” We smiled.

“Per forza.” Of course.

Such useful phrases these days! I replayed them over and over while I shopped.

Clinging as I was to the familiar, I almost reluctantly checked out. He bagged my items and after telling me the bill (six forty-three, which in Italian sounds one letter different from seven forty-six… sort of) playfully repeated the amount in English.

“Very good!” I effused.

He brightened. “Thank you!” he added, showing off a little. “Goodbye, now,” he said before reverting to Italian with a string of farewells even longer than usual.

I walked out onto a tranquil Corso knowing that somewhere in town, probably near an ancient church, someone I had never seen before was having hair and clothing whipped about by an inexplicably strong wind.

Metaphors for our times.

I first got to know Lucky when he was begging at the entrance of Montanucci, shortly after I moved here in the fall of 2015. I liked him immediately, so would give him a bit of change daily. He would never look down to see how much I gave him. He’d make eye contact, smile, and thank me. Simple and dignified. Were I to pass again that day, he always avoided greeting so as not to be understood as asking again. “This guy’s got class,” thought I.

After several months in front of Montanucci, he transferred to the entrance of Metà on Corso. The guys there kept his backpack behind the counter so that Lucky didn’t have to worry about it, and when a large delivery arrived, or some other task requiring extra hands came along, Lucky pitched in.

The wineshop caddy-corner from the supermarket eventually started asking him to sweep and wash the pavement around the store from time to time, and I began to see him other places helping out on a casual basis. It was about then that we traded names.

At this point my memory grows fuzzy. Either I had the idea to have Lucky and a compatriot of his named Kingsley help me open my yard in the spring of 2018, or the idea was planted by my American friend Michael, who is also a full-time expat in Orvieto. I do recall at one point Michael and I discovered a shared respect for Lucky, but the order of events fades. However it happened, they showed up one afternoon and we worked together, washing and putting things in order. They talked nonstop. “How cool,” I thought, “I’ve got a couple of guys from Nigeria working in my yard speaking Yoruba; how international, how thrilling, how exotic the sounds!”

After a couple of hours of this, and eager to show off my knowing what the national language of Nigeria was, I asked if they had been speaking Yoruba. They paused and explained, “No, English. It’s the Nigerian national language.” They had wondered why I never contributed to the conversation. Separated by a common tongue.

Since then Lucky has come to clean my house and work in the yard on a regular basis. About two years ago, Michael, who also enlists his help, found Lucky a nice situation not far from town. A friend who lives on a sprawling property had recently lost her husband, was becoming increasingly isolated, and house and garden began to fall into neglect. They arranged a trade; the guesthouse for Lucky in exchange for his services as groundsman.

“This is great, Lucky! You’re becoming a part of the community.”

“I’ve always been part of the community,” he shot back with no hesitation.

Michael knows Lucky’s story, and has shared it with me, but I’m not about to repeat it in as public a forum as this. Suffice to say, it would be turned down as implausibly tragic by even the most sensational of film makers.

This year it has become obvious to me that I am not really up to working the garden anymore, at least not pleasurably, at least not for now. A slow spring allowed it to grow out of control, which placed my laboring in it even further beyond my reach. So I asked Lucky. He came over today. I took him through to explain what was and what was not a weed.

“If it blooms, leave it. Except for that, that, and anything like this, everything else can go. If you have questions, ask.”

“No problem, no problem.”

I went inside to finish a project, and came back out in an hour. Lucky works quickly and well, and except for the obvious perennials, had stripped everything down to bare soil. Including a clematis that was overflowing in blooms.

“It was all dead from this point on,” he explained.

“No, no it wasn’t. That’s just the way it looks this time of year. It was in bloom, remember?”

“Sorry. How about this?” and he waved at a bed of brilliant yellow-orange flowers.

“Leave them! They’re in bloom! But you can cut back the sage, even though it’s still got flowers.”

“Okay, will do.”

Lucky’s Italian has come a long way, and to circumvent the language barrier that English usually erects, I’ve begun to speak with him exclusively in Italian. Today, I forgot. I returned after a walk. He was sweeping up. The orange flowers had survived. The sage was untouched. And isolated under the apricot was a lovingly preserved, if scraggly, milkweed.

It’s okay. I’ve decided to look for a simpler place to live in Orvieto. The joy of the garden – the daily sweeping, the watering, the trimming, and weeding – has turned into a chore. I also no longer want to live on two levels. I’m ready to trade interesting for comfortable. The tabula rasa that Lucky organized will allow the next tenant a free hand to build his or her own garden paradise. 

Being separated by a common language yields some inscrutable outcomes. Next time, let them be in Italian.

It’s all over but the shouting.

That’s an American expression I’ve always loved for its simple, punchy, elegance.

Unfortunately, these days it applies to nothing.

There is an Italian expression I love that applies to everything — piano piano. A bit at a time.

Yesterday’s numbers in Italy were the lowest since March 6: 802 new cases and 165 deaths. We can celebrate the statistical mark, but of course we cannot celebrate the misery that underlies those numbers. And consider this quote from The Guardian, “The Italian government has ordered the closure of all schools and universities nationwide until 15 March as it grapples to contain Europe’s worst outbreak of coronavirus, which has claimed 107 lives, an increase of 28 in 24 hours.” That article was published on March 4. At its worst on March 27, the virus in Italy claimed 919 lives in 24 hours.

This thing can quickly spiral out of control. So, hold the shouting. For the next two years it is likely that anything more than an occasional yip will end up being a premature victory bash followed by an extreme hangover.

What we can celebrate in those numbers is the amazing coordinated effort made by the sixty million inhabitants of the Italian peninsula. We can celebrate the courage and dedication of those in national and private healthcare, the sanitary workers, grocers, postal and delivery people, those who make sure that electricity and gas continue to flow, warehouse workers who sort and pack record amounts of merchandize ordered online, bus and tram operators – the list goes on. And we can celebrate the courage of government officials who, given the gravity of the crisis and the speed in which it developed, manage to respond thoughtfully and humanely, communicate clearly, and encourage their patchwork nation to unite in ways, and to a degree, most would have considered impossible last February.

We can celebrate that the national characteristics attributed to Italians of good humor, kindness, tolerance, and respect for life and human dignity turned out to have substance, were not just trite phases from a travel brochure next to photos of fun in the sun.

We can celebrate that wonderful music has already been written about this time, and much more will come, and will be performed with genuine feeling, from real experience, and with a flowing compassion. The same goes for all the arts, but it seems that Italy, at least, sings before all else.

But we need to celebrate gently and at a distance, lest we lose it all in an unguarded sneeze on a busy street. We are attaining a delicate equilibrium and will need to become experts at maintaining it, too.

We can also celebrate that out of a two-month exercise in isolation, we (in Orvieto at least, but I suspect everywhere lockdowns have been observed) have emerged more caring and connected than we were going in. There was, and is, nowhere to run away to. No place safer that we can get to. No hiding, no escaping, no vacations. That is a situation that would have struck me as brutal not too many weeks ago, and now I’m almost grateful for it. “Almost” because it would still be a delight to drive to the lake with friends for a well-prepared cacio e pepe and a glass of local white while at a table graced with flowers. The day will come, it’s only that there will be many days in between when we will have to forego relaxed society… at least “relaxed” in the mode of last December. As my Italian friends are always reminding me, piano piano.

As I write this, a dove is cooing somewhere on Via delle Pertiche Prima, as if to boast that there is no chance in creation that it will end up in a plexiglass tube on Palombella, this year. Ah, to be a dove! To fly to the lake with my feathery friends and pick at the crumbs dropped by a motherly cook claiming a takeout meal for her family who are bored with the fare at home. The doves! The doves can celebrate.