DAY 36: BUILD

Andrea 36 – With this last piece of pastiera my Easter 2020 is officially over, with a positive outcome: I learned how to make the casatiello and pasta with the left-over lamb sauce from the day before, I trained, I read a book and I managed to focus on a few things and many people, dedicating to each of them their own time and carefully avoiding ten person videocalls. They’re ok for greetings, but not to look into each other’s eyes. By looking into the eyes, I saw the determination of those who want to build, of those who do it because they want to, and those who do it because they need to. There are those who build to get distracted, those who have a lot of spare time and those who want to feel in the future already. Easter Monday is over, so I get in the car, I turn on my Youtube radio, and I prepare to face these thousand kilometres to get back home. On this journey that lasted three days throughout your Easter days, I saw many people building with their heads and hands, with flour and wheat, with memories and dreams. I saw my friend Gianluigi build a Lego truck, which he had forgotten in the cellar because of the routine of his job. I saw Gaetano build up thoughts, every day, to try and make life for his traveling companions and his family less difficult, and to make sure his company will be more competitive when everything “will have gone well”. I saw Valentina build our dream house with a pencil and a ruler. I saw Antonio build a small terrace so to be a better keeper for our office, he who lives in the building in front of it, always up in the clouds. I saw someone, reading this diary from day 1, build a new life. I saw my brother build his career and speed up to get it started. We will build, together.

Miriam 36 – This Easter that slips away, dear Andre, sees me, as well, dealing with a new construction. The construction of a new story that now, after a year, finally works. The construction of characters ready to have their own growth, the construction of an outline that, by following it (but not too much), will help me write what will probably be my next novel. That strange feeling, the desire to get to work even at night-time, the urgency to bring out this new life that doesn’t belong to me and yet is a figment of my imagination. This might mean that before our now 36 days “break” I was holding back my creativity, filling my life with things to do, always in a hurry. And you can build very little and quite badly, with haste. Instead, this dilated time puts new tools in your hands, or it simply makes you realize that you already had them all there, ready to be used. It’s a creation that tastes of discovery, of attention given to the right things and people. It’s a creation that tastes of new habits, new points of view. It is a creation that gives me hope, that makes me understand that, now, we are ready for phase 2. But I’m not talking about the quarantine, I’m talking about our lives.