Category: Lockdown

I looked at the weather for the next few days, and it is gorgeous for the weekend, then on Monday and Tuesday it dips to highs of +7C (about 45F). That’s not really cold, but neither is it gardening weather. Not for me, anyway. So I decided to forestall preparing the zucchini soup until Monday so I could enjoy the milder temperatures while they lasted. I had visions of repairing the corners of the umbrella and letting it spread magnificently across my little courtyard, then of lounging under it like a Roman emperor at his villa in Capri.

Didn’t happen. I hadn’t accounted for a chill wind and once I noticed, didn’t feel like sitting in it. One may not actually contract viruses from the cold, but why test the theory now? I managed to do a few simple tasks outside, but mostly I spent my day indoors.

I did make it to Metà at 15:30, the quiet time, and sure enough, there was no one in line and only me and two others in the store. Gabriele was on the phone as I walked in. I didn’t catch any of the conversation, but he was earnestly engaged. I went about collecting ingredients for the soup, and other basics, and returned front to an empty line.

My friend Anna came in. We did air-kisses, she smiled broadly and said, “Just like normal!” I was glad to see the smile and welcomed her good humor; last I saw her she seemed to be having a hard time adjusting.

Gabriele was still on the phone as I checked out. I couldn’t tell if it was the same or a subsequent call, but he was saying, in a most cordial manner, “…at Liceo Artistico (The Arts High School).” (pause) “Right at the bottom of Via Roma. Yes, just off Piazza Cahen. I have a green Ape (a kind of tiny three-wheeled pickup) will that be enough?” Then I became absorbed in the logistics of bagging – as Gabriele was otherwise occupied – and missed how the conversation progressed.

It sounded like he was arranging for a delivery to a plague town (though Orvieto has not been severely hit) – “Leave the merchandize at the gate with your bill, we’ll arrange for payment via our agents in Padua.” I flashed on his comment of a few days ago that everything took three times the effort of a week before, and as I reflected on shelves that showed a bit more paint than they did even on Tuesday, I wondered if that ratio were now up to nine times the effort.

As I rounded the corner to home, one of my neighbors was standing at the front door to his building enjoying a smoke. I think he just moved in a few months ago – at any rate, we only began exchanging greetings a few months ago.

“Salve,” he nodded (sort of like, “howdy”, only more Roman).

“Salve. How’re you doing these days?”

“We’re well. We have to do this, don’t we? So we do it. All we need is a little patience.”

“A little? A lot of patience.” I responded in my loud American voice.

He looked puzzled.

“Sorry. A little. It’s not really so bad.” Or at least that’s what I wish I’d said. Instead I bade him a nice evening and rushed through my gate.

Part of that sudden escape was simply because my Italian-readiness in speech has degraded during these last few days of isolation, and I didn’t trust myself to correct my over-reaction in a way that would make sense. A larger part of it was that I had shocked myself with the exaggeration, however mild, that had taken over my personality. I had vividly experienced a cultural divide concisely expressed in an exchange of a dozen or so words. Perhaps my young neighbor had not experienced those events that required more than a little patience, personally, but the knowledge of them has been passed down in the communal genetic code. As rigorous as the quarantine is, it pales in its demands on the community compared to – well, pick a decade. There are heroes aplenty in the health system, the government, the police, even in the Gabrile’s and delivery folk of the nation, but all most of us have to do so far is to stay at home.

“All we need is a little patience.”

I went out again immediately, before I lost impetus, to the fruttavendolo (produce shop) for zucchini and shallots. The shop is owned by a high-energy, bright-eyed young Orvietana who, after at least two years of regular conversation over purchases, I am finally beginning to understand – a word here and there. I usually am able to respond comprehensibly if not always appropriately, but today I could tell from her expression that it was too much trouble to figure out what I had meant by what I had just said. I dropped stuff, fumbled the change, and stammered my goodbyes.

I have to start with the online lessons again, because the slide is not going to reverse itself. Sometimes it’s a blessing to be told to stay at home.

The photo of Metà is from before it was renamed “Pam”. As a sophomore in high school I developed a crush on a girl named Pam, and, rationally or not, I don’t want my supermarket to share the name. She moved to Alaska, by the way.

(Okay, let’s see if I can write this thing in under a half hour.)

My mother seemed always to be amazed at how quickly I did things.

“That would have taken me an hour, and you do it in five minutes.”

Of course, I loved that, and years of praise for my swiftness as a child ingrained habits of swiftness as an adult. I pride myself on being swift and on schedule. Of course I do, such identities don’t go away easily, but bodily reality slows me down, and a retiree’s schedule is highly theoretical.

Then came the lockdown. I wake earlier these days than has lately been my custom, but am still nervous about making it to the bar before Giancarlo runs out of strudel (even though he always saves me a piece) and onto the Anello before it’s too sunny on the section I walk (even in winter when sunshine is deliciously welcome). Then I look outside. Oh, right, lockdown. No bar, no strudel, no Anello, no direct sun, mitigated walk at best.

So, I drift downstairs and read, then meditate. Meditation, until three days ago, always involved a timer. I had things to do! People to see! Can’t sit around all day! (Not really, but dare I repeat myself – habit is stubborn.) Then I forgot to bring my phone downstairs one morning and thought, why time it? I’ve no need. So, I meditate as long as it seems right, and is almost always about as long as it would be using a timer. (And I do check.)

Then I fix breakfast, moving as fast as my nervous system will allow, sit with it before me on the table, review my words of thanks with my spoon hovering over the muesli, ready to pound it back into its bowl should it try to escape. Breathe. Appreciate. No where to go.

And so forth, throughout the day.

The biggest challenge in these circumstances of isolation is taking time as it comes, neither putting the next thing off, nor rushing into it. The uneasiness of living otherwise, even when in satisfying-schedules mode, is thrown into sharp and distinct relief.

I stayed home again, today. I’m well-provisioned, so there was no need to shop. I decided to forego the midday walk to see if that made a difference (it did, comfort level decidedly lower). I did work in the yard for two hours (timed it, too – checked the clock going out and coming in, as if I had to report it on my timecard). I saw my neighbor Patrizia on her balcony. We chatted for a bit (I’d estimate two minutes). Five and a half minutes later, Renzo’s face popped up on the other side of the garden wall; he was watering the pots of flowers he and other neighbors put up and maintain. We discussed the weather for fifty seconds. It was wonderful to see their fond faces. Two days of solitude is nothing for a cave-living hermit, but in a town that stakes its identity on its buzzing streets and busy eateries, it’s an unnaturally long time.

(How am I doing? Will I finish before my walk at ten?)

Daily, I live a bit further from the clock. Time is not the issue, we can experience nothing without it. It’s the obsessive measurement of time that begins to look hollow from this perspective. It took me two hours to clean the yard whether or not I checked the clock. I was no less tired knowing that, the yard was no more clean. All the two hours represent is a layer I insert between myself and the experience of cleaning – the subtext being, “It would have taken my mother two days. Aren’t I a swift little bugger?!”

Tomorrow I’ll make a list of ingredients I need for the zucchini soup, plan my route, and try to arrive at Metà around three, when it’s slow and there is no line. The whole town is in suspended isolation and there is still a slow time at the supermarket. Isn’t that amazing?

Time for my walk. (Made it!)

Erika’s route (with her dog, Teah) has not taken her past new children’s art, I’m sorry to say, so I put in a photo of my garden — as it was three years, six months, and eleven days ago.

My pantry is stocked. Meds up to date. Even have toothpaste. So there was no need for commercial ventures that take me beyond the confines of my little sanctuary. I did take a walk around 13:00, even more repetitive and boring than my hooded adventure-by-night; to the end of my street, left to the cross street, turn around, back home – repeat ten times. But at the end, I felt exercised, which is the point.

Day before yesterday I made soup. One of my favorites during my Scranton period was a recipe I’d found in an Italian cookbook, a brew called acquacotta. That means “cooked water”, so named, I think, because water is the only ingredient that you can’t change. Not having the book with me, I searched the Web for acquacotta and pulled up a dozen or so recipes, none of them even vaguely alike. In the States we’d probably call it “refrigerator soup”.

So, based on what was available at the store and what was available in my memory, I made a nice big pot of it, avoided tedium after the first meal thus provided by ladling it over arugula, or bread, or a good pecorino, finally adding pasta for the last warming.

I also picked up a small ciambellone (similar to bundt cake) at Metà — industrial to be sure, but not bad considering — and a jar of mirtillo (blueberry) jam at the bodega on Piazza Sant’Angelo. It’s one of a dozen or more flavors of marmalade made by the Trappist Friars of Vitorchiano. Wonderful stuff. The fellow who owns the shop called out “be there in a sec” from the back somewhere when I came in, and soon arrived all masked and swaddled. I’d prepared exact change, for which he was grateful, and promptly dropped the jar onto the floor. I’d intended to drop into my bag.

“I missed my bag!”

“Did it break?”

“Seems to be okay. Strong jar.”

“Medieval monastery. Jar’s made of wood. Just looks like glass.”

The industrial cake topped with medieval jam is a surprisingly tasty dessert.

The main excitement today was spring. A glorious morning turned into a balmy afternoon replete with goldfinches darting around the blossoming apricot tree in my yard. Everything there needs tending, so I put on shorts and a polo shirt and set out to clean the paved area in the elevated section.

My yard is on two levels; the lower, intended as a parking space (how that’s supposed to work, I don’t know), and up five steps, a plot of earth of an area greater than my house, walled and overlooking the street. The parking space I use as a little courtyard, shaded by a three-meter square “hanging” umbrella, and furnished in plastic wicker. About half the upper area I had paved when I moved in. Daniele, the guy who painted my rooms, knew a veteran muratore (mason) so it was an easy hire. Daniele took me on a shopping trip into the countryside to search for paving materials, stopping at several suppliers, all of whom he knew. I wanted to do the job with terra cotta, which would have matched the steps and the path that was already in place. He convinced me to go with a exterior porcelain tile, because it was beautiful and on sale (what a bargain). He and Fabrizio the muratore did a wonderful job, and yes, he was absolutely right, the tile was stunningly beautiful once in place.

What I feared, however, was the difficulty of maintaining a textured, variegated, but essentially off-white tile, especially after a winter’s accumulation of grime and dead moss. Today, once again, my fears were founded. Two hours later, I have about 20% yet to scrub with brush and soap. And yes, it is still beautiful, but so is the cotta which has never been anything but swept. Oh well.

Self-isolation turns out to be well-timed. Tomorrow, I will venture out for ingredients to another soup favorite; zucchini creamed with gorgonzola and sage. And for the next six or seven days, two hours at a time, the yard will come into spring readiness.

Otherwise, I hear the same news as you do. Am sick with sorrow for the town in the north that has lost hundreds and is unable to mourn in groups. Am appalled by yesterday’s death rate in Italy. Am heartened by China’s report of no new domestic cases. Am concerned for the land of my birth.

And today, having been responsibly homebound, I have nothing much to add except my creepings within the walls of my domicile, creepings replicated in some fashion by every other resident of this town, and of this country, and increasingly (regretfully) well beyond.

Wash thy hands, world, wash thy hands!

Thanks, as always, to Erika Bizzarri (who has a dog) for the photos of children’s art.

An early post today. I took a walk around noon along with trips to the pharmacy and supermarket (on Via Signorelli) and, if my body can stand it, will not walk again until this evening. Don’t know if I’ll make it, but any walk between now and then is likely to be uneventful and will not add much to today’s story.

We don’t know how long this public health emergency will last. No one does. It’s human to want to know the end of any plot, but life is seldom structured that way. What we do know is that worry and fear are far, far more contagious than any virus, even this one. Consequently, they spread faster and affect us quite deeply.

I took a back street to the pharmacy. Halfway there a man in full protective gear was exiting a house, a youngish couple waiting together, but separated, on the street. I tried to give the woman a sympathetic smile. She returned it. The man did not, could not. The man in protective gear walked ahead of me. An ambulance waited on the cross street. The rest could be deduced.

There were three of us waiting for the pharmacy, everyone contained, circled by an invisible shield. I leaned against a wall and wondered if it was safe to do so. Someone told me that a sneeze can implant the virus on pavement, and that you can carry it on your shoes to the floors in your house. I’ve searched the Web for confirmation, but have been able to find nothing. At some point you’ve got to determine, on your own, what is prudent and what is excessive.

The pharmacist ordered something for me yesterday evening. When she told me it would arrive this morning, I was so surprised I effused. That pleased her. When I came in this morning, she seemed glad to see me, that maybe there weren’t many people effusing about anything these days, and she needed some levity, even if it were only about an-earlier-than-expected delivery. That and other items came to twenty euro, twenty centesimi. Venti, venti. I repeated it for the music. So did she, her eyes smiling behind her mask. I determined then that I would greet and smile – even effuse, when it is honest – whenever I could.

I went on to Via Signorelli. The owner of a lovely restaurant called Enoteca del Duomo was first in “line”. He smiled, I smiled back like I was seeing a favorite friend for the first time in thirty years — no exaggeration, it felt that way. We chatted from a distance, someone came out, he went in.

The usual checker at that store is a neighbor of mine. He seems as if he’s had a damaging history, evidenced in part by a longish scar on his right cheek, in part by a conscious distancing, even in normal times. I try to be as warm as I can to him. Slowly, trust has built, and we’ve gone from passing without recognition, to exchanging nods, to murmured greetings. He checked today. Even with a mask on, some people know how to smile with their eyes quite as graciously as they would mask-less. I was astonished to learn that he was one of them. In fact, the mask may enable the smile. My heart flew open.

Exiting the store, I bowed to the man next in line, he bowed back. Little bows, Italian bows. On Via del Duomo the cook from that same enoteca was walking her dog. She wore bright red lipstick and a jacket to match.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“Marvelous! You?”

“Me, too.”

“The dog is good company for me. To him, everything is normal.”

At that moment her canine buddy chose to relieve himself. As she prepared her plastic bag…

“A very small price to pay for having an excuse to get out. And for friendly companionship.”

“Very useful, that fellow.”

“Very.”

We wished each other a good day, four different ways, she blew a kiss, I blushed a bit and grinned like a sophomore.

Yesterday afternoon on the way back from the bank (and holding to the back streets) I passed a man of about my age sitting on a low wall, resting his bicycle. He’s a nodding acquaintance in normal times. Yesterday, he looked in my direction, but no expression showed. I took a chance.

“Buona serata.”

His face broke into a shy smile. He looked so relieved it almost made me cry.

“Buona serata,” he nodded. And then repeated it. Twice.

As always, thanks to Erika Bizzarri for the photo of children’s art.

I realized last night that taking a walk didn’t have to mean one of my usual walks. All that is necessary is to keep a steady pace with a loose stride for about a half hour. Where I go is irrelevant.

I put on a dark sweater with a hood over my charcoal trousers, and a black peacoat over that. I had my doctor’s note in the unlikely event that police would stop me at 22:30 in a back street, and was too warm, to be sure, but I wanted to be as invisible as possible. (I think I may have an authority problem.) Then I chose a route down untraveled and narrow lanes where cars are unlikely to go. (I do, I have an authority problem.)

The route was about a third of any of my usual late night walks, so I walked it three times. No one saw me. Further benefit; I didn’t feel like I was abusing privilege – it was a boring walk, almost puritanically so. I was not walking flippantly, I was exercising, pure and simple, and no one could say otherwise. Doin’ my bit.

Happily tired, and after a good session of yoga, I went to bed with a clear conscience and slept so luxuriously I didn’t want to stop. My last dream was set at one of my bars, Forno 2000, where Giancarlo serves (and makes) wonderful baked goods. Stopping there is an every morning custom on my way to walk the Anello, save rain or his taking a day off. We banter and riff on running gags of our own invention. Or more accurately, he riffs and I do my best to keep up. In my dream we were riffing away in Italian, my head spinning with each variation, when suddenly I could understand every word he was saying! Because he had switched to English.

“I didn’t know you spoke English.”

“I didn’t tell you because you needed to practice your Italian.”

“And I don’t anymore?”

“Oh, no you do, but my English is so much better than your Italian, I thought it was time to give it a rest and just enjoy each other’s company.”

In waking reality (which these days seems more and more like a dream) he knows how to say “number one” and “Kentucky Fried Chicken”, and will repeat after me if I give him new words, but forgets them by the next day. He knows that KFC stands for the above fast-food restaurant, but pronounces it in Italian.

The story there is that on his days off Giancarlo frequents a community-run hot springs out in a field on the way to Viterbo. Once every few weeks, he’d travel to Viterbo and treat himself to a KFC.

“There are only five in all of Italy, four in Rome and one in Viterbo. I don’t go very often…” and he makes the international gesture of growing enormously fat, “…but every few weeks. Kappa Effe Chi!”

I came in several weeks ago after he’d taken a few days off.

“So, how’s KFC doing?”

“Terrible news. Now there are only four in all of Italy, all of them in Rome.”

“They closed the Viterbo store?”

“Gone, finished, empty.”

“So what’d you do?”

“Ate at Burger Kinga. You can get chicken there, too. They have this sauce made of American cheese. Oooh, buona!” and he made the gesture for delicious where you push your index finger onto the corner of your mouth and rotate while executing a look of utter satisfaction. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing – a cultural inversion. “Of course, it’s all on a level of industrial waste, but once it awhile it’s fun.” This from a man who can go on for ten minutes about the relative qualities of differently sourced flour. The charm of novelty. I was quietly shocked.

Sometime just before the Lockdown he announced that an Egyptian firm had taken over the KFG store.

“What do they serve?”

“Chicken.” and he went to provide a menu. The menu is in Italian as far as product descriptions go, but all the dish names are in English, as are the banners and exciting announcements. I laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“It’s almost all English!”

“The important stuff’s Italian. Anyway, it’s nearly as good as KFC.”

And so the world grows smaller. But I’m glad he only goes there once a month.

Now, of course, he’s spending all his time at home, in the countryside around Baschi, in his garden and with his dog, Black. I know this because he sent me an email this morning, free of punctuation but fortunately short enough to figure out.

For some reason, I woke up from that dream of sudden English thinking that if we can manage to get through the pandemic with minimal damage, can we remember enough to apply the same principles of community action and self-restraint to global climate change and plastic waste? While understanding too, as Giancarlo may, that we need not be puritanical about any of it? Just figure it out and get the job done. We don’t have to only tread familiar paths.

Thanks again to Erika Bizzarri (who has a dog) for the photos of children’s art.

Well, it happened. I took a midday walk to Piazza della Repubblica, about the minimum distance I can do and still enjoy therapeutic advantage. There were people standing about waiting for the pharmacy on the left, for the bank on the right, and in the middle a couple of policemen were in their car warning some old men not to sit where they were sitting – or probably at all, at least not away from home. I decided to avoid the whole thing. The car followed me down the alley, the officers probably recognizing me from yesterday’s pass in Piazza del Duomo. 

“Where’re you going?”

“I have to walk for my health.”

“I understand, but you also have to stay home. Walk at home.”

“Thank you.”

All very polite, but as I turned away, I was rattled.

Thing is, this past week I’ve felt steadily stronger, and I know that walking – and the relief of stress that it offers, both emotional and muscular – is an important contributor to that improvement. Even putting improvement aside in deference to the common good, to the stability I’ve again begun to enjoy. There is also meditation, yoga, (the greatly missed) shiatsu, and writing, but take away any one voice and the suite turns into incoherent disharmony. I’m already lacking one voice, I don’t want to lack two.

On my way home, and to the pharmacy immediately afterwards, I had short (long distance) conversations with five people I know. I told each about the encounter with the police and asked for advice. The first simply said “it’s hard.” Of course, she has a beautiful dog so is allowed to walk. The second said to stick to narrow streets and allies. I’d already been rerouting my walks in my imagination, so that sounded sensible. The third sympathized, but was outdoors for the first time in a week, so I didn’t feel she quite understoond my desperation. The fourth told me her husband got a permit to walk the Anello, for fitness. Getting closer. The last, my neighbor Renzo, told me to ask my doctor for a note. As is often the case, Renzo hits it home.

I emailed Claudia. I’m not good on the phone in Italian, and barely understand my doctor in person. My doctor is also doctor for Claudia and her family, and she has accompanied me to appointments to help communication. She wrote right back; sure, no problem, he’ll have it ready by 16:30 this afternoon. It was about 15:45, so I decided to shop, then go to Studio Medico for the note.

I tried yesterday to put on one of the masks I bought a couple of weeks ago, but I’d already put in my hearing aides and couldn’t figure out how. But going to Studio Medico, I had to wear one.

As I understand, masks are really only effective if you have active symptoms, or are with others who do. And for the people on the other sides of counters at the supermarket or pharmacy, or anyone at a medical facility, the masks are quite important because the meter distance is easily violated, and they don’t know the health of the dozens of people they serve throughout the day. For the rest of us who practice social distancing, it’s a reassurance, an indication of solidarity, and a fashion statement. So, I took out the aides and put on the mask. I checked myself in the mirror and was pleased to conform to a look that had lately become so popular. And while I wouldn’t say it felt good to be wearing one, it wasn’t horrible, either.

I walked up to Metà. There was only one other person in the store, so I waited outside unnecessarily. Gabriele waved me in. I got my stuff. One of the ladies from the pharmacy came in after me, sans mask. Gabriele and his co-worker wore masks, both askew from having been on for hours.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“Okay. We’re all very tired. Every little thing takes three times the effort from what it did a week ago. But, we’re keeping it together. That’ll be eleven twenty-five. This won’t last forever.”

He bagged my stuff (not customary, but he’s particularly kind), and I said goodbye to everyone, including the pharmacist who had taken a place in line, two meters away. I walked home, left my groceries, and headed for the Studio Medico. All the way, I’m thinking of the people I encountered today. How precious they are, each one. How saying goodbye at Metà was filled with sweetness. How we are all doing this together, and increasingly not out of worry or fear, but out of love for one another.

I got my note from the doctor, handwritten on a sheet of padded paper. As is universal for a doctor’s script, I can’t read any of it, but I trust it will do the job.

I went up the hill to home, heart overflowing for this town, and for all towns and cities, everywhere. We’re doing this for love. Remember that.

And by the way, thanks to Erika Bizzarri (who has a dog) for the photos of the children’s art.

How long before we become restless and want to sit down to a really good, wood-oven pizza? Compliments to the pizzaiola! Let’s have a dolce! Not long. I’m already there.

People have compared the lockdown to wartime. I’m not old enough to remember the second world war, only that it was frequently referred to when I was a child, and simply as “The War”. But I know people here who have real memories of Orvieto during the German occupation and Allied bombing raids, and I have a feeling the comparison, if made at all, strikes them as highly superficial. It’s quiet, there is a threat lurking somewhere that has caused it to be quiet, but no fire falling from the sky, no death in the streets, no fearsome soldiers marching in tight formation through piazzas.

It’s just profoundly quiet.

I walked today, as ever. Around the house I feel that I move like a man of 180 whose health is not particularly sound. Five minutes on the street, I’m a fit forty-five. So, of course I walk. And if the town was empty on a weekday, it is even more empty on a Sunday afternoon. But how can that be? There was nothing left to cancel, no shops or restaurants left to close. Maybe the repeated experience of emptiness drives the emptiness into one’s organs, makes it hyper real.

I took a long time to get going this morning. Having no one to see, nowhere to go, and a Sunday, robbed me of motivation even to dress. Around noon, my friend Ida called.

“Are you up?”

“I am up.”

“I’m about to walk with Amber (her Jack Russell terrier) and wonder if it would be okay if I dropped by. Just to see a friendly face!”

“That would depend on how soon you’ll be here.”

“Fifteen?”

“I’m up but not ready.”

“Oh, then, that’s okay.”

“But raincheck. I’d love to see you.”

“I’m thinking of renting Amber out to people who need an excuse to walk.”

“I’ve been thinking of offering to rent her.”

We concluded and hung up. Ida has a charming, funny, and intelligent husband, but I reckon we are all of us getting a little tired of the sameness of the days. The food. The routine. The company.

When I finally got out, I passed Igor on the section of the Anello near Porta Maggiore. Igor is a brilliant presence in town – kind, friendly, energetic, and with a superb aesthetic. We exchanged the usual greetings, two meters apart.

“Are we criminals for being out like this?” I asked, only half joking.

“We are allowed to walk, even without the dog.”

“Good! Because I’ll go mad if we’re not.” And we both hurried on.

But that does reflect a change. As the novelty of a town utterly transformed wears thin, many of the people I pass seem wary, sad, unsure if they should smile or say hello. Not everyone, to be sure, but many more than four or five days ago. It’s almost like being out is in itself wrong, even if there is plenty of distancing and no contact. We avoid each other, guiltily.

I stopped to take a photo of Piazza del Duomo close to sunset, deserted, a vast expanse of untrod pavement. The local police cruised by. I quickly turned towards the stairs, and moved with great purpose. They were not at all interested in me, but the occupied city parallel must strike a chord beyond what I regard as rational.

On the other hand, children who are at home instead of school, instead of playing or wandering, instead of being royally escorted in their prams well past there being a need, at home instead of learning the vital skills of social interaction, these housebound kids are making signs. Most include a rainbow, some have handprints, self-portraits and representations of relatives – and the words Andrà tutto bene, Everything will be fine. Their art is being hung from windows and on doors, little by little, all over town. Apparently, children are not as vulnerable to the virus, and in that possibility may rest the key to effective treatment and cure. It is fitting that it is children who are crafting the town’s messages of hope.

Tonight at nine we turn off the lights for one minute, and illuminate our houses with flashlights and phones. Because we can. It may not be pizza, but it is an expression of community, and community is what we really miss.

“Carissimo, la busta?” asked the blue-eyed checker. The verbless question with a superlative form of endearment threw me for a moment. 

“Sorry, yes, I have my bag with me, thanks.” In Italian, of course. Slightly late and slightly perplexed, but with fairly good grammar.

I’d taken a long route to the store. I skipped my morning walk because I got to bed too late and slept too long for a walk to be reasonably possible, and by 14:30 every muscle in my body was screaming at me, move! for pity sakes! move! On my way to Piazza della Repubblica I passed two of my pharmacists, both masked. They nodded. They may have smiled, too, I couldn’t tell. I began to think of heroes unsung, not only the health care professionals putting themselves at constant risk, but those in essential shops who continue to be exposed to the rest of us and our usual random collection of microbes, one strain of which might be a very unwelcome guest. As taciturn as my wordless mornings make me, I tried my best to thank the guys at the supermarket for being on a front line they may not be especially aware themselves that they’re on. I managed to get out a “grazie per tutto” and with great feeling. It wasn’t much, but it seemed to have landed.

On my way from Repubblica to Metà, I’d taken an alley parallel to Corso, and past some lovely nineteenth century apartments with gardens and terraces. It sounded as if someone were on their terrace finishing up a Bach cello suite. I stopped to appreciate the last few bars. The town is brimming with musicians. I trust the cellist is not alone in sharing.

I dropped my purchases at home, and went up the Passeggiata Confaloniere, the northwest promenade along the top of the cliff. A few people were walking dogs, among them Hélène with her white poodle. She’s an American from New Orleans who lives here with her Italian doctor husband and her aspiring pianist daughter. I’d not seen her for months. I told her about the cello.

“Did you see the video from Firenze?” she asked. “A trumpeter at his window playing ‘When the Saints’. I rarely post to Facebook, but that one I did, for all my family and friends. Hmm. Our piano is by the window, when my daughter plays, we have to remember to open it so neighbors can hear.”

I asked after her husband who works at the local hospital.

“He’s still assigned to pronto soccorso (emergency). So little happening there last few days, he took along a book. But if someone has to be airlifted to Perugia’s ICU because of the virus, he has to go with them in the helicopter.”

“How is he kept safe?”

“We don’t know because it hasn’t happened yet. Probably the usual protocols, maybe something extra. They have it together, he won’t bring the virus home with him.”

“Does Orvieto hospital have ICU’s?”

“Sure, but they’re trying to leave them open. It’s not like with the virus around, all the other diseases go on vacation. Did you hear about the 97 year-old man who was in an ICU with the virus and recovered? Wonderful.”

He deserves to live to 115 after that ordeal. I was encouraged to hear that people so at risk are still able to be treated.

“So, I’ve heard various things, but what do we do if we experience what we think might be symptoms?”

“There’s a hotline to call. They will send a doctor to your home to see if your case warrants special care. If not, you stay home and they’ll check in twice a day.”

“By phone?”

“Oh no, in person. Then if hospitalization becomes necessary, they can act on it immediately. The idea is to keep you home as long as possible, with supervision, and isolated, so the hospitals don’t become more stressed than they already are. But listen, if you notice something, call me. My husband will make sure you’re attended to.”

I suddenly felt a lot better. My Italian is terrible on the phone.

Her poodle intensified his whining after not being able to sniff a fellow canine that had just passed, so they moved on. “So much fun to see you! We shouldn’t wait for a pandemic.”

At the crest of the grade the beautiful, green-eyed, three-legged cat sat contentedly in the middle of the street. I often pass to find her on the top of a car. Given that she lacks her left rear leg I cannot help but wonder how she gets there. She purred and cuddled and let me know that she had her secrets, and that everything was fine.

A friend sent me a notice. There will be a spontaneous concert at 18:00. All of Italy will go onto its balconies and serenade itself for fifteen minutes, sort of a national flash mob. I got the message at 17:57, had just come home from shopping, just taken off my shoes, just taken out my hearing aides, and was emotionally prepared for not going out again until my late night walk. And my section of town absorbs sound into its crooked, narrow lanes, so even the closest church bells sound like a Vespa with a bad muffler if my windows are closed. And it seemed ingenuous to go into the street with the single purpose of listening for evidence that others were not going into the street. But it was the most exciting thing that had happened all day, so I pushed in one aide, put on my jacket, and went through the gate in my slippers.

We had three very windy days about a week and a half ago. So windy that it blew the extra key I hide (I won’t give details, I’m naive, but not that naive) out of its spot and… where? No idea. Even suggesting that wind was responsible seemed a bit too innocent. When I discovered it was gone, a week ago, my next door neighbors, Renzo and Patrizia happened to be passing. Renzo knows about the key, so I asked him if he’d seen it.

“Somebody probably took it. Might have to change locks.”

That fed my paranoid instincts perfectly. For the past week every time I couldn’t find something, I imagined a lurking presence with the stolen key – then I’d find the misplaced item and blush.

So, I went through the gate in my slippers, and there, across the way, hanging on a nail that looked almost like it were placed there specially for the purpose, was my extra key. By chance, Renzo was arriving home. We greeted each other two meters apart.

“Look what I found!”

“Where was it?” I pointed. “Well, I guess it was the wind, after all. How’d it get on that nail?”

“Someone must have found the key and hung it there.”

“And it was there for two weeks?”

“I guess.”

Renzo shrugged and laughed in Italian, shook his head. “That was some wind.”

“How’re you doing through all this?” I asked.

“I’m going to the store, the most exciting event of the day.”

We chatted some more, didn’t shake hands or clap each other on the shoulder, rotated around an invisible axis so as not to violate the two meter rule, and went off to our respective evenings. I’d already made two trips to the store, so there was only this blog post to look forward to. Renzo had chitchat with the guys at Metà (PAM) to entertain, still ahead. I half envied him.

By then it was too late for the flash mob, so I turned around and took myself inside.

I had gone once to the Metà on Corso where, having spoken not a word all day in any language, I found myself unable to banter even our simplest routine with Corrado. It was like being in high school again and botching a once-a-week chance to impress the cool kid you wanted as a friend, with the difference that Corrado seemed more disappointed that I was. Home, unloaded, off to the Metà on Via Signorelli for a few things only stocked at that location.

There was a ticket-your-turn machine outside at the door, and three other people waiting to enter. We greeted, I took a ticket (E31) and looked around for a now-serving display. Nothing. I held the ticket up to the couple closest to the door and twisted my face into the “what’s this about” gesture. They shrugged in Italian. Someone came out, the couple went in. More people arrived, asked who was last in line, and happily waited. Standard procedure, all three; the ticket machine, the absence of a functioning number display, the informal and non-linear line self-created by order of arrival.

I spent far too much time this afternoon reading news and posts on Facebook. A couple who had been due to arrive in Orvieto for a month’s stay on Tuesday coming, got stuck behind the lockdown in Lecce where they had been staying for the past several weeks. (If you have to be stuck somewhere, I hear Lecce’s a nice spot for it.) They posted a story of going out for a walk and being told by the police they had to return home. That, too, fed my paranoid instincts perfectly, and I imagined two weeks ahead of not being able to take long walks, a circumstance that would render my body a twitching blob of nerves and locked muscle. Fortunately, Orvieto is not Lecce. Orvieto was a part of the Papal States, and unhappily so, for too long to be that draconian. More significantly, perhaps, it has only two streets wide enough for police to effectively patrol. But the dystopian vision painted kept me indoors for hours. When I finally left the house at 16:00, just to make sure I looked sanctioned, I carried, rather than pocketed, my shopping bag. An afternoon patrol slipped past me and a number of others (who were not brandishing shopping bags) without so much as a turn of the head.

I did take a walk this morning though, almost entirely alone on the streets. I passed Rafaele at the hardware. They were open. Why?

“We sell cleaning and disinfectant products, deemed essential, so are not allowed to close,” he said from two meters away, slipping his mask down from his forehead. That explained why the soap and toothpaste store is open, too.

I walked on Corso Cavour, the shopping district, alone, past businesses with everything in place as if they had been abandoned in too much of a hurry to do more than turn the key. Which is pretty much the case.

I have been saying I wanted to take more meals at home, but I didn’t mean that all restaurants and bars and pizzerias and gelato stores should close. I’ve been wishing there were fewer cars in town, but I didn’t mean people should go away with them. I’ve known that February and March were quiet times for Orvieto, but…

First virus-related death in Umbria today, not the hospital nurse in Orvieto. I trust (and pray) she is improving.

I couldn’t tell what it was coming towards me across Piazza della Repubblica from Via Filippeschi. Two bright, clear lights, one at ground level, the other a meter and a half above, more or less, with little blue sparks dancing around the lower spotlight. For a moment it seemed that after decades of expectation fed by popular culture an alien invasion were finally under way. Or was it a crack in time admitting a sanitation worker from the future? A techno angel?

I apparently read too much science fiction as a youth. It was Cho, daughter of Grazia, both women of fire and wind. She was speeding along on a one-wheeled electric vehicle wearing a helmet that sported what, were it on an automobile, might be called a fog light.

She stopped, dismounted (however that’s done), and covered the upper spot with her hand rather than turning it off. Very brief small talk ensued, then she switched to English so we could exchange on a meatier level.

“The government is declaring a nationwide lockdown.”

“I heard. Restricted travel…”

“No. More. The only shops allowed to stay open are those that sell food, and the pharmacies. Certain hours for banks. Everything else, closed for two weeks, then we reassess. I’d say more like two months, but we shall see.”

“Supermarkets?” I asked, thinking of Metà.

“Supermarkets sell food.”

“Wow.”

“We’ll get used to it. But it’ll be hard for shop owners, especially if it goes longer than two weeks. Has to be done. My mother isn’t going out at all. If you need anything…”

“I still shop. I pick quiet times when there are few people and give a wide berth to those I meet.”

“And walk at night. Very wise.”

She mounted her wheel, removed the hand that covered the light, and was off in a blaze.

That was last night. The headlines this morning confirmed Cho’s report. They also announced that the single case of the virus in Orvieto, a female nurse, is in grave condition. As I read that, I felt the whole town rooting for her. Those who pray, pray. Those who don’t, profoundly trust in her recovery. Doesn’t matter which, we want her well.

This morning’s walk took me onto the ring trail that follows the base of the cliff called the Anello. The sun was warm, the grass so green it looked impossible. Mustard is starting to bloom, not yellow yet, but attracting bees. The birds tweeted messages to one another, none of them angry or insulting or divisive – at least they didn’t sound that way to me.

The walk through town on my way home confirmed Cho’s news, as well. Caffe Montanucci, the center of town for many, was closed. The only other time I’ve seen it dark was when Reno, the supremely generous pater familias, died in December ’18. Bar Sant’Andrea, another main gathering place, had blocked its entrance with chain and recycling bins. Almost all of the smaller shops and eateries were quiet and waiting, most with its own version of a sign explaining why, expressing unspoken hope, wishing the reader well, and affirming that we are in this together and will reach the other shore on the strength of that togetherness.

The big bookstore under the Tower wins the award for saying it all in as few words as possible – somehow fitting for a bookstore. To translate the photo above, “We’ll see each other soon! #allwillbewell #Istayathome [not shown] The Orvieto Staff.”

Metà reduced its number of concurrent customers to six; either a recalculation on their parts or a misunderstanding on mine. They are well-stocked and cheerful and a blessing to us all. The blue-eyed checker wore a mask today and assiduously helped a man even older than I empty his walker, bag his goods, and pay out of his coin purse, a sweet gentleness pervading every gesture between them.

The pharmacists were some masked and some not, and reminded me not of all of Harpo or Groucho, not a one.

Marina stood under an overhang on Corso waiting on her phone, a striking new hair color and a bottle-green jacket radiating confidence and purpose. She flashed a brilliant smile.

“How are you doing with all this?” she asked.

“We survive, don’t we?”

“And that is wonderful, isn’t it?”