DAY 53: THE APPARENT ORDER

Miriam 53– These last days of April have the same colours, the same scents, the same emotions of an April of ten years ago. I had just entered the ninth month of pregnancy, expecting Vittoria. I was excited at the idea of starting a new adventure, happy to finally look at the face of that little girl moving inside my belly. I was ready, or at least I thought I was, I had birthing classes and I read books on how to understand her secret language. I was also aware that my life would change forever, that I would never go back, that a new life would be born that would be entrusted to me forever. Forever. That I would have had new responsibilities, new joys, new heartbeats. And I was, I must admit, very scared. I didn’t know what awaited me, I didn’t know how the delivery would have gone, if I would have suffered, and if there then would have been sleepless nights and baby colic, or if my Vittoria would have been one of those textbook babies. It was an April like this one, the same sweet weather, the same expectations. New doubts, new responsibilities, new awareness maturing day after day. Waiting then, waiting now. With an open heart, then as now. With the positive energy that rarely leaves me, then as now. The desire to look into the eyes of those I love, and I cannot see, then as now. With the responsibility of having to protect my daughter, no longer protected by the four walls of my belly, but in this new contact with the world. Then, just like now. 

Andrea 53- Protecting ourselves or taking risks. I feel a great distance: between an apparent strength given by this April sun and the number of contagious that has lowered, and a latent strength, given by the fog of the opaque lungs of many people and the number of contagious, which here in Piedmont, in particular in Turin, doesn’t lower. I feel a distance between the blue sky, the scent of the beautiful season that’s coming, that you feel when at the end of the working day you look out from the balcony at 7pm and you can still see clearly the green of the trees, and the sirens of the ambulances, that bring you back from the sunbed on the seashore of thoughts to the reality of the couch in the living room. I still feel the distance between the anachronistic desire to resume a normal life, covered only by a medical mask, and the reality of a recovery that will only be possible when a vaccine will be available. I feel the distance on the tracks of our Freccia Red 1000km, between some cities that have done their duty and have exploited the good luck of not having an outbreak, like those in the South, and those in the North where to the bad luck of having an outbreak was added a useless feeling of vulnerability, often due to the privileges enjoyed as a kid or to an economic power acquired over time, which generated careless behaviours from the population and the institutions. I feel the distance between the reality and the dream. I feel the distance inside me as well: to challenge the virus by trying to start again or to keep the status quo of an office in the kitchen and a break on the balcony until further notice? I have, however, the doubt of trusting those who issued the new order. What if it’s just an apparent order?