-My Girl
I'd seen this poster floating around online before, but it seemed particularly appropriate this week. Earlier this week Italy went from "lock down" to "total shut down". The quarantine has reached a new level. All shops and stores are closed except for grocery stores and pharmacies and we are all encouraged to stay home except when absolutely necessary. #iorestoacasa (I stay at home) These restrictions have been in place in the North for a couple of weeks but are now in effect for the whole country.
On Wednesday, when we were still in mid-level lock down, My Boy and I went for a nice walk through the Appia Antica park. The entrance is close to our house, but the walk was long because the park is huge. This part is called Caffarella park after the Caffarella valley at its center. After walking through the deserted city center last Friday we found people! The park was full of people walking dogs, jogging, riding bikes, playing soccer, walking, and enjoying a beautiful early spring day. All while supposedly keeping an appropriate "social distance". A few people wore masks, but mostly everyone was just enjoying a day out. It felt pretty festive, like everyone was out for a holiday.
The park has a working farm and we even saw the herd of sheep!
There are many old buildings in the park. This looks like an old stone barn or farmhouse, but is actually, a Roman cistern from about 100 AD. It was originally underground, but was uncovered a couple hundred years later when some building was being done nearby. There's no sign or fencing. People were climbing up and around it. We did too. It's an incredible view from the top.
My Boy wanted to show me the second century nympheum he found a few days earlier. It is built into a hillside with a fountain at the back fed by a spring. The fountain has a statue of the God Almo, the personification of the nearby Almone river that runs through the park. I can imagine the niches with their statues and a lovely pool to honor the water nymphs.
It was a beautiful day. We had no idea that the next day things would change again. It was all a bit confusing when I first heard of the shut down. I didn't know what was allowed and what was not. Now, a couple of days in everything has calmed down. People are really taking it all in stride. There is even a sense of solidarity in the whole situation. The piazza where we live is quieter than I've ever seen it. Only a few cars go by and a few people are out to buy groceries or walk their dogs. An Italian flag popped up on the balcony over the shuttered fronts of the hair salon and cafe.
People are lining up in a very orderly fashion to wait their turn to enter the grocery store. The social distancing rules limit the number of people who can be in a store at any given time so people wait patiently. This is so strange in the land of take a number and cut in line.
Today in My Girl's social studies class the teacher told her that at 6:00 people would be out on their balconies to sing. We forgot about it until a little after six when we heard the music. Someone was broadcasting the national anthem and songs about Rome over a loud speaker. We couldn't tell where the music was coming from, but we went out onto the balcony to listen and wave to our neighbors. It was beautiful. Apparently this has been happening all over Italy. I love it. I can't imagine any of this happening in the US. It looks like we'll get to see pretty soon.
This isn't the first pandemic the world has seen. People are talking about other pandemics like the recent SARS outbreak, H1N1 flu and the 1918 Spanish flu. The last one isn't the best comparison, because that flu was much more severe than the current coronavirus but I think it is instructive. I saw a comparison of death rates and disease progression in Philadelphia vs St Louis. One city cancelled parades and events, the other one did not. It made a big difference. Many lives were spared by what we are calling social distancing today.
Earlier this week my Mom told me about my Grandfather and the 1918 Spanish flu. As a small boy he lost his mom who was quite pregnant at the time and a young sister to the flu. Funerals and other gatherings were not being allowed, but he remembers seeing her in her casket in his grandmother's living room with a baby on each side. It was something that affected him for the rest of his life.
We are doing well. The kids and I have our school work to do and we try to have some fun. We had a dance party to banana songs. (Yes, we have no bananas and I love bananas because they have no bones.) They are on day 7 of online school. So far so good. My Girl likes that she can go to school curled up in a blanket and doesn't have a 45 minute bus ride each way. She doesn't like that she can't talk to her friends as easily. They get around that with video chats at lunch and to work on class assignments, but it just isn't the same. She feels lethargic and tired after sitting at a computer all day. My Boy loves that everything starts a lot later. He had been attending an online scripture study class at 6:00 am. That got moved to 8:00. Much more reasonable for us all. He likes not feeling used up by the end of the day. He misses his friends and his drama class and doesn't like that this is happening because of a pandemic, but doesn't seem too bothered by staying home. It's the classic extrovert/introvert dilemma.
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