Lockdown: Day Whatevs

I’ve completely lost track of how long I’ve been stuck inside the apartment. March was around 7 000 days long and April, so they say, is the cruelest month. Fork you T.S. Eliot. The lockdown in Italy has been extended until the middle of the month, although we all know it will be longer. Easter, the biggest holiday of the Italian year, has effectively been cancelled. Meanwhile, the rate of new infections has slowed and the number of deaths remains pretty stable. That’s good news and an indication that self-isolation is working.

Obviously, we’re all still being super careful with the hand washing and mask wearing. Here’s how paranoid I have become. A few nights ago, I woke up around 3 am to have a pee. In a crucial aside, Phryne likes to carry things in her mouth (see Exhibits A and B below). When she is bored, she grabs whatever low hanging fruit she can find (books, toiletries, Tupperware from the bottom shelf in the pantry) and walks around with the thing for a few minutes giving me the side eye until she loses interest and drops it on the floor. On the night in question, she fished a used sterile glove out of the trash at some point and deposited it on my bedroom floor. Naturally, I stepped on it on my way to the bathroom. After I got back into bed I worried and fretted for way too long before getting up and washing my feet in the bidet for three go-throughs of Happy Birthday.

Exhibit A

A slightly blurry Exhibit B

At this point, many of the people reading this blog are having the same experience as I am. Here in Rome, we’re just slogging along. No more singing on the balconies, no more applause sessions for hospital workers. Life is pretty boring. I’m reading and cooking (and eating and sleeping) a lot. My hands are super clean and they look like I’m a thousand years old from being washed 75 times per day. I’m having lots of Zoom coffee dates and cocktail hours. That’s great actually. I’ve started to clean out my junk room after ten years of talking about it. We’re not supposed to go far from the house and we need to carry a little document saying why we need to be out. The fines for scofflaws are huge.  It’s super weird to think of Rome as being all but deserted. Imagine how cool it would be under different circs to have the Colosseum or the Vatican all to yourself. The dogs are moping around and even Reina (who usually hides when a walk is in the offing) races to the door when it is time to go outside. Phryne is desperate to play — she looks out the window a lot and cries when another dog walks by. Fortunately, we have a hilly little patch of ground in back of the building so they can run around a bit.

Listen, mopey whining aside, I know exactly how fortunate I am. I have plenty of work and, since I’ve worked at home for years, I’m already in the groove (much more distractible though; I look at the coronavirus statistics a million times a day). I’ve got a fantastic view right onto the park, although I can’t yet go inside.

There are worse views, I’ll grant you.

I’m safe and warm. There’s plenty of toilet paper and a handful of well-stocked shops in the neighbourhood. I’ve got the dogs and the UV here to keep me company and to tell me everything I am doing wrong housekeeping-wise.  I think of all the people who are out of work, without a safety net, who have had to close down their shops and restaurants, maybe forever. This will not be an easy thing to bounce back from. Most of all I think of the amazing health workers who are risking so much to keep us safe. And the individuals, organizations and companies who are being so generous with their time and money, making and donating masks and other critical supplies. It seems clear to me that at the end of the day this crisis will be overcome, despite the governments, through the efforts of ordinary people coming together to make a difference. And that’s kinda great.