Quarantine: Phase 2
When I saw her standing at a distance I almost cried. There she stood in a short skirt with boots and a coat and I wanted to run up and give her a hug but I realized I didn’t know how to greet her.
Eventually the lady bugs find you. Deborah made me a Murano glass ladybug ring.
What was it Frances Mayes said in Under The Tuscan Sun? “Listen, when I was a little girl I used to spend hours looking for ladybugs. Finally, I'd just give up and fall asleep in the grass. When I woke up, they were crawling all over me.”
My friend Deborah from Murano snuck out to see me yesterday. More businesses are starting to open as essential businesses so she made an excuse for needing to buy computer part near Campo San Bartolomeo so she could see me.
She texted and said can you happen to be walking by me en route to the grocery store in 30 minutes? We planned an accidental rendezvous. When I saw her standing at a distance I almost cried. There she stood in a short skirt with boots and a coat and I wanted to run up and give her a hug but I realized I didn’t know how to greet her.
I’m a kisser - I wanted to kiss her on each cheek as I normally would do or embrace her in a hug Hello but we are not allowed to touch. We awkwardly reached out and held hands glove in plastic glove violating the 1 Meter distance for a small touch of humanity. She had a black mask on her face and her black hair fell over one eye. She looked beautiful but she - like me - needed a hair cut. The one unobstructed eye locked with mine and filled with compassion.
It was so good to see a friend.
I didn’t even know what to say. Where to start. What words to use. In fact words weren’t even necessary. We spoke of course. The world has changed. Disbelief. Of income lost. Of encounters with police. Watching to make sure no one was watching us linger too long. We kept backing up so we stood far enough apart.
She snuck off Murano to see me she said.
She was worried.
She told how she’d seen her son once since this began- and how they stood at a distance on the street like us not touching, both in masks and gloves. How difficult this is for an Italian girl, not touching.
We called Steve and Dennis in Boston, and Dennis didn’t recognize me at first in my mask. We stood awkwardly on the street just looking at their faces on the phone, they at ours. I couldn’t hear them. They were on speaker but Deborah and I stood 1 Meter apart so their voices were muffled to my ear and my voice didn’t travel muffled by my mask but we wanted them to know we were together, if only for 15 minutes, standing on the street.
They had introduced us, Deborah and me. Kind of. We actually introduced ourselves now that I think about it - the day after their Grand Opening of the Favreaulous Factory - a design destination- in Boston. I walk into the after party brunch Sunday morning and hear 2 Italians speaking in Boston by the bar. I go up and introduce myself. “You’re Italian!” I say, “Piacere! Where do you live?” “In Venice.” Deborah said and I exclaimed “Me Too!” And we’ve been friends ever since. She doesn’t know it yet but I’ve decided she should be my new Italian teacher when this is over. When we are released it would give us reason to see each other. To speak weekly. I miss Chiara, Orseola, Valeria and Sarah and vow to put friendship first when we can see each other again.
On Monday May 4 we start Phase 2 of lockdown.
Friends from outside a Italy text excited saying you must be so excited quarantine is ending but I am struggling with it because I find as a foreigner - who is single - who is living alone - without family in Italy - who works virtually from home when not traveling with a normally very busy schedule internationally for work - that there is no real reprieve for me in stage 2.
Tight restrictions on movement remain, meaning anyone leaving their house still needs to declare it with your police document autocertificazione giving their reason why. You'll be allowed to leave the house for all the reasons you currently can – buying groceries or pharmacy, doing a key job, visiting a doctor or pharmacy, walking the dog, exercising – plus one new one: visiting relatives.
These new measures will be revised again on May 18th but the new May 4 decree allows people to see congiunti - aka- relatives but the word choice was so vague it instantly became the most googled word within minutes following the Prime Ministers speech.
The government has said people must follow social distancing and wear protective masks when seeing Family’s. And Visiting friends is NOT allowed.
My life hence to forth has worked because I’m proactive and I’m very social. And I’m having a hard time understanding how my life works in this new reality. I try to have patience.
Travel is still heavily restricted between regions in Italy. Under May 4 You can leave your region only for health, work, or emergency reasons. We are awaiting another speech this weekend with perhaps addendums.
Whenever leaving the house, it will remain necessary under the new decree to bring your completed self-certification form, plus any documents which can help prove your need for leaving the house. If police stop you and find you haven't got a copy of the form, or that you don't have a valid reason for travel, you could be fined up to a maximum of 3,000 euros (or more in some regions.).
Talk has started about summer plans. It’s impossible to imagine summer in Venice without the beach at Lido involved. Beach clubs scramble to find politically correct solutions.
Health experts have warned people not to expect to be able to travel as normal to Italy from abroad this summer, and Italy's tourism secretary said that 2020 might as well be "written off".
My Family asks why I don’t try to get on a flight to America when they resume but to do so means leaving all my possessions behind and to be paying rent here when I don’t know when I’ll be allowed to return. Combine that with I don’t know where I’d go in America and leaving my house in Venice seems pointless. I try to figure out what makes sense for me and at the moment staying put is the only answer.
I try not to be discouraged and I am making good progress on my new business plan but it’s difficult not to fear. And I lay awake at nights worrying about money. I burst into deep sobbing earlier today because I talked to 2 more friends in their late 30s who gave up their apartments as of May 1st to move back home with their parents. They were both entrepreneurs. I keep coming back to this question ... I don’t know where is my place in this new world is. So in the meantime I try to wait at home - sta a casa- and wait for the ladybugs to find me.
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