5 Musings on Love in the Time of Corona
Corona . . . means crown in Italian, melodic, the fitting start of a muse. The scene above from the streets of Rome is not unusual. There is no destination really, no festival or special event. It is just an ordinary summer day filled with travelers, shoppers, people watchers and all the elements that makes Italy a magical muse. But this is Italy no more, replaced now by beautiful, empty spaces, all humanity drained out but the color still bright. Will the ‘Vera Italia’ ever come back? By midsummer perhaps and no later than the fall. We cannot let the virus kill the soul of Italy because that will kill ours too. Hail to the summer, when we will hold hands and venture forth!
Travel, especially travel to Italy, is my passion. By late winter the yearning has already started and by springtime I can picture the poppies on the country roads by Trequanda, where we have a summer home. The restaurants all over Italy are setting up for the Summer tourist rush, like the crocodiles after their long fast awaiting the wildebeests gathering at the riverbanks. With the poppies, the gathering herds in Firenze, Milano and Venezia are milling about in anticipation, rich and poor, all ages, colors, shapes and races, waiting, But not this year. The end to Covid 19 is not close in Italy. So I start this blog with five musings on The Virus and Italy: Hail to the summer, when we will hold hands and venture forth!
- Why not shelter in place every January, starting after the holidays perhaps and continuing for 30 days, giving us a chance to fight off the next strain of influenza A and B epidemic, H1N1 or Covid 20 with social distancing? One month of lockdown cleared the air over Wuhan and central China and saved 77,000 lives, more than 3 times the Covid casualty list. Roma, Milano and also Beijing, Los Angeles and Mexico City will get a brief respite, giving our planet a chance to exhale. We are all connected by one air, one sky and one sea. Hail to the summer, when we will hold hands and venture forth!
- Corona has proved that Italy is not resilient, despite the singing from the balconies—not to this kind of threat. A mega earthquake, a super volcano, a centennial hurricane will all kill and destroy more but we are equipped as a culture to mourn the dead and gird our weapons and rebuild. Italy has faced earthquakes and volcanoes—many if fact—but soon enough life recedes back to its usual tide of ebb and flow of passeggiate, cibi, famiglie e cene. This virus is not the same. It preys on our need for community, which is why the kissing on both cheeks doomed Italians faster. Hail to the summer, when we will hold hands and venture forth!
- Community is the foundation of our consumer and service economy. Tourists come to Italy to enjoy the La Dolce Vita—the sweet life. No amount of government help will save that world of small neighborhood restaurants and bars, crowded markets teeming with life, especially the cafes on the packed piazze. Binge watching reruns on Netflix won’t stave off depression and isolation. We need the real thing, soon, Italia. Sheltering in place is the right response right now but will it be the right response in mid May? When summer comes and there are drugs that can effectively fight off death and many Italians are already immune, what choices do we make then? Hail to the summer, when we will hold hands and venture forth!
- Technology—so often maligned—has once again saved us. How bad would this be without the internet and the ability to be productive from home? How much worse would the isolation be without Amazon and Google and Netflix? Anti-virals, drug cocktails and home testing kits give us hope. Hail to the summer, when we will hold hands and venture forth!
- For American retirees who depend on it to travel, the US stock market will not recover quickly—this is not 2008. But wary investors both large and small will be sleeping uncomfortably on cash stuffed mattresses, watching inflation eat away at it. Hail to the summer, when we will hold hands and venture forth!
Soon it will be midsummer and then fall. The streets will be filled again with travelers looking to replenish their souls in Italy. Hail to the summer, when we will hold hands and venture forth!