Day 56: The end is only the beginning
Phase 1 is ending today
Don’t worry, I am still alive. As all of us here in Italy are gearing up for Phase 2, mostly to understand what it really means. Can we go back to work? Should we go back to work? We can exercise outdoors with a mask, but should we be exercising with a mask? Will my favourite restaurants still be open? If people can now go see their parents, does that mean the virus has stopped being lethal for anyone over 65?
The past few days have been remarkably busy. The weather has been pleasant, and yesterday we witnessed what I would like to take the liberty of describing as a pollen-storm. It was a poetic image: the sun was shining brightly, and it looked like there were snowflakes floating in the air; but it was only plant sperm. What better timing could there be, to confuse the impending second outbreak with everyone’s hay fever.
On Friday, after yet another day of Zoom calls and much hard work, we also celebrated the release of our music and listened to pre-recorded sets of ours being played on a radio station in Georgia. Some people actually asked if we were in Georgia, which worries me. The truth, though, is that we could be anywhere we liked. Perhaps it’s time to go back to another favourite student pastime (not necessarily mine, though maybe it was), which was getting stoned, going on street view inside Google maps, and getting lost for hours.
The opportunities are endless, really. For example:
A friend shared an article this morning, which described how a man in Italy named Pietro, who apparently owns a leading wedding dress design company, set his entire collection on fire. I had a little image formulating in my head, of multiple wedding dresses catching fire like dominos, mine included. He did this to signal his discontent towards the government and the lack of support for businesses like his. Someone should probably tell Pietro that all weddings, and fun in general, have been cancelled for 2020. I think he maybe didn’t think things through.
In other news, I won’t be writing Letters from Quarantine every day anymore because, as you might have guessed, the lockdown will definitely not end tomorrow. It’s been a blast so far, with many people commiserating and then, slowly, beginning to share the suffering across the world. Letters from Quarantine even got featured on the homepage of Substack. A friend said I might be writing these posts till 2021, which is probably true, because as they say (and as she said), once you pop you can’t stop. I still expect many half-amusing, half-terrifying things to happen in Phase 2, and beyond.
So, let’s brace ourselves for Phase 2. And to paraphrase what many of us said at the end of 2019: this Phase is going to be the best one ever!
Lunch of the day: I have had three lunches since I last wrote, so I’ll change this to favourite meal, which was prawns with feta, tomato juice and ouzo (one glass for the food, and one for you)
Song of the day: The Velvet Underground - All Tomorrow’s Parties