DAY 50: CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE

Andrea 50 – Change of perspectives. For 50 days I have been looking at the world from the same place, my home, but from many different points of view. I had never had the opportunity and the will to identify myself with the stories of others, to seek ideas for comparison and concretely touch the differences in the highest common denominator of all our existences, which today is staying at home. From my couch I look at Naples through Miriam’s eyes, from her mornings in the courtyard, where the silence of the city accompanies Pino Daniele’s music, which is the soundtrack of her Instagram stories when she wakes up. I look at London from the sofa of my one-bedroom apartment, where Filippo is sitting, the friend and colleague to whom I gave way. I look at Milan through the tales of the queues at the supermarket by Valerio and Alessandro, and from Paoletto’s sofa. I look at the other side of Turin’s centre from Roberto’s gaze in Cernaia street, where Ciccio’s Brazilian sushi restaurant has its shutters always lowered. I look at my house in Naples from the camera of my mom’s phone, which only focuses on the kitchen table and never goes around to see what my brother is doing in the other side of the house. I look at Rome from the videos of my nieces Emma and Elisa, from the chats with Giulia and Luca, who is staying in his house in Trastevere, bought to feel the life of the city centre, which is now only a memory. I look at Trieste from Veronica’s window and from her breaks on the seaside and in a small square. I look at the clouds from Antonio’s terrace. I look at Vesuvius from the terrace of Ciccio, now co-author of this blog, with his punctual comments every evening. I look at Reggio Emilia through the stories of Maria, another one of our authors, born in Naples, raised in Emilia. I look at Vomero from Leo’s balcony and I feel like I’m going to the neighbourhood shops when he tells us about his biweekly grocery shopping. I look at the offices through the windows of my brother’s car, who never stopped going to the bank at least once a week. I look at the school through the daily lessons of my cousin Laura and my nephew Angelo, the greatest expert on dinosaurs I know. I see love when I get out of my office in the kitchen and I go to her office in the living room. All I need is a change of perspective.

Miriam 50 – Our first 50 days, dear Andre. Who would have thought that we would have reached 50, when we started writing to each other on March the 9^th. How much fear, the first days, and disorientation, the inability to fully understand what was going on. Then the moments of despair, that luckily came in turns, to allow us to help each other when there was a need. The sudden choice to go online with a blog and to share our days with anyone who wanted to read them. And the diary of the Italians, the space that gradually opened up on its own, spontaneously, in order to collect the daily diaries that arrived from all over Italy and also from much further away. Our “sofa” has become more and more spacious and welcoming. And then the new routine, the new good intentions, the new rules, the hypotheses on the end of the quarantine. Without realizing it, we have changed and together with us our priorities have changed. A parable, a journey that we started in two and that many joined along the way. And how much life has come through these past weeks, between our lines and the fingers running on the keyboard. What we have all written and are still writing is simply a part of our life, our little daily truth, a story that could, one day, be the memory of a journey long 1000km and even more.