DAY 7: WE WILL RESTART

MIRIAM 7– We are at a turning point, dear Andre. The first Sunday with Covid, the end of the first week that, by decree, has seen us separated by 1000 red km. It’s been a week since our life has turned upside down, and I finally realize not only that the virus is now a constant thought, but also that it’s a lens through which we are looking at the world, an opaque wrapping around our thoughts.

Slowly, as an invisible and vile enemy, it has insinuated itself not only between us (dividing families, mothers and children, grandparents and grandchildren) but also into two other things, less important of course, but that make me understand how nowadays the concern is growing invasive and uncontrollable.

At night, these last few days, on my sofa after the news, around ten o’clock I try to distract myself by watching an episode of the series I left hanging. But every time there is a scene of people talking, someone going out to go to work, whatever you would consider “normal” life, I think that no, they cannot do that, they are in danger.

I expect them, at some point, to talk about the virus. 

The other thing I care so much about, and that I really don’t want to see “infected”, are dreams. I dream every night, since I can remember, and when I wake up in the morning I like to take a moment for myself to fix these dreams in my head, begore letting them go forever. To understand why this or that came to me in my dreams. Well last night, for the first time, I dreamt the virus. I was in a hotel, beautiful and crowded, maybe in Milan, and elegant people were fighting to get out after the end of an event. I panicked, covered my mouth with my hand, and elbowed my way out while holding my breath. 

And that’s how I woke up, breathless.

How much distance do I have to see, how much life do I have to sacrifice before I can come back to my old self? Will we ever come back to our old selves? 

ANDREA 7 – Sunday 15th of March 2020. We will come back to our old selves, I promise you. With “more determination and resilience, just like our grandparents after WW2”. A friend of mine living in Milan shared this thought on LinkedIn, and I agree with him. We will come back to our old selves. News from China tell us of “only” 20 people now infected with the virus. I trust this data, because they represent the future, the goal of the next two or three months, what we are all looking forward to.

It’s Sunday and I miss the family lunch: it’s a tradition, we have always had lunch at my grandma’s house, which later became my aunts house, and which now is the house of my remaining aunt. But we have always been together: big cousins, little cousins, then grandchildren, and aunts that turned into grandmothers and girlfriends that turned into wives or partners. And there were French fries and cotolette, and Napoli playing, Maradona’s Napoli, the one you would listen to on the radio reports.

That’s what Sunday is and will always be to me. And we will have other Sundays like this. I promise.