DAY 33: I SEE LIFE

Miriam 33 – Many weird coincidences, today, dear Andre. A chase of opposites. Good Friday is Death’s day par excellence, Death with a capital letter, the Death of a Man that today is celebrated all over the world.

Then there is the day of our diary, the thirty-third, 33 as Christ’s age.

Everything seemed to lead us to a journal focused on this.

Yet today, in our Instagram live, when we asked what theme we should have talked about this evening, we were asked to talk about Life. Life that, after all, is also inherent in the Death with a capital D we celebrate today.

And I reflected on how Life always finds a way to win the eternal battle, how it always prevails over its dark enemy. Life, that these days is on hold for us humans, is flourishing as never before both in the animal and vegetable world. As if this huge heart that pumps blood in its creatures couldn’t stop throbbing and showing it off without fear.

We observe with amazement, as if we were kids, dolphins swimming in the waters of Nisida and swans crossing Venice’s canals. And herons, flying in skies that have never been clearer.

Mother Life keeps whispering to us that she won’t stop blooming, that she will continue to flow, regenerated, waiting for our life, now on hold, to start again.

Life outside is waiting for us, and it has become much more beautiful than how we remember it.

Andrea 33 – There are some details that the world ignores, but they make a difference, in our way of observing life and in our thoughts. These details do not appear in the titles, they can be found written in small characters, in the last lines, those not everybody is able to read, but that are the key to step “inside” the news and make it real. Today, while we were live and talking about dolphins off the shores of Naples, as if it was a news, some kind of nature’s awakening, someone said that actually dolphins can be often seen in Nisida and that in 2016 even a whale was spotted there. This is to say that life, in my opinion, is often hidden between those lines we are not able to read. We are waiting to find it in the big titles while, instead, I’m realizing now that Life is in the everyday things. I see life in the happy hours we are having on the balcony, with Cecilia’s salami and Valentina’s speck, and we tell ourselves that for tomorrow’s lunch we will book a table in the corner. I see life in our parents’ efforts. We are their life, and in order to see us they learned to make videocalls and to arrange the camera at the right angle. I see life in all those struggling to get the 600 euros to support their families. I see life in the belly of the mums-to-be, those who, today, must go to the doctor alone, because their husbands are not allowed to go with them, and then find them waiting in the car. I see life in those kids living alone, forced to learn how to cook by following their mums’ recipes. I see life in the people queueing, only once a week, with medical masks and gloves, out of respect for others. The respect for others. I don’t see life in those who think they are preserving their well-being by putting the life of others at risk. I don’t see life in those who, today, go for a run or a walk for no reason. I don’t see life in those who go grocery shopping every two days, I don’t see life, never, in those who in all circumstances, try to outdo the others who are waiting. I’m done, I lift my head from the computer, and I look at the picture of mum’s 60^th birthday, where it’s the five of us. Mum, Dad, and us three brothers. I see life.