ANDIAMO AVANTI

I hesitate to write today because I am in a foul mood, which certainly is of no use to anyone, least of all me.  I’m not sure what it is that’s got me feeling both depressed and angry and am surprised that it’s possible to feel those two things simultaneously.  Then I realize that I am not, but rather am veering back and forth between the two at an alarming rate of speed. I have always written as a way of discovering what lies beneath the surface of feeling and thought and belief, so I hope you will bear with me today and perhaps together we can discover something of use, or at least a way out of funk and into forward motion.

I know I am not alone in feeling depressed, nor am I alone in the accompanying guilt at what seems like an indulgent feeling given my relative comforts.  A little while ago, Lee, the owner of a little Italian deli around the corner from us, dropped of some supplies.  He stood at the front gate some eight feet from where we sat on the stoop. He was happy because he had just managed to get the pub next to his shop to let him use their kitchen; the pub, of course, closed for business three weeks ago. Turns out we have a Michelin starred chef living across the road from us whose restaurant like all others is shuttered…perhaps for good.  And so Lee has enlisted the chef’s help and together, in the old pub’s kitchen they will now cook 400 gourmet dinners a day for the NHS workers in a nearby hospital.

How shameful to feel envy at the news of such charity, but that’s what I felt:  envy of someone else’s ability to be of use. And that’s when I realized that one of the reasons, I feel depressed is because I suddenly feel redundant. We who are being sequestered away because of our age feel useless and I can’t help wondering what we are being saved for if we can’t be of use, for surely we all need to feel a sense of purpose.

I had originally intended today to write about the nature of luxury so let me make that detour now, especially as it relates to the other feeling I‘m experiencing today: anger.

I read somewhere lately that we’re all beginning to realize what we actually need in order to survive.  The writer observed that we don’t need celebrities or star athletes. I certainly don’t need a video of Madonna lolling in a bath strewn with rose petals.  Turns out we need doctors and nurses and all those workers we previously judged to be “unskilled”…the delivery people, the sanitation workers, postmen and women, food packers and shelf-stockers and on and on. So yes, you bet I’m angry that some people get paid millions a year for kicking a ball around, while those who it turns out we actually need live on minimum wages and in America have no medical coverage. I’m angry that people like Richard Branson, whose personal wealth is in the billions, have the nerve to ask the British government for millions of pounds to bail out his airline company (so he can continue to pollute the world) instead of using is own money.  The list is long.

I’m angry that the UK and US governments let their hubris determine their decisions rather than having the humility to learn from other countries, thereby endangering more people for a longer period.  I’m angry that 250,000 people die of poverty every year in America and that the government doesn’t give a shit because hey, it doesn’t affect them. But now that they are equally at risk of dying suddenly, money is available.

I’ve never been into what is regarded at luxury.  Jewelry doesn’t interest me (although I admit I have in the past had a healthy appetite for shoes). Yachts, villas, luxury hotels, private jets, cars, cosmetic surgery, hold no attraction. And I wonder how it is for all those who had such luxuries up until this pandemic are holding up without their goodies.

Joel and I have lived a good life with more comforts than many. As someone who once lived on welfare and food stamps I count my blessings daily.  And yet, like so many of us, I now don’t have access to some of those blessings.  We miss our Tuscan home. We miss our kids and our friends. We miss museums and theatres. We miss ourselves, the selves we were until 3 weeks ago.

And yet…small things become luxuries now.  A box of fruit and veg delivered by our downstairs neighbours. Yesterday, the arrival of a single hot cross bun and some clotted cream. The birds serenading me now as I write.  Sitting on the stoop yesterday morning, the sun warming our faces we heard a passing family speaking Italian. A single word, “Vai,” which means “Go.” I called out and we exchanged pleasantries in Italian.  This morning, sitting on the stoop again, the mother passed and seeing us there called out, “Buongiorno!” and for five minutes we chatted in her language and I felt all the years of living in Tuscany rise up in me, alive and well.

So let’s turn the phrase, “The nature of luxury,” around and call it the luxury of nature.  That little blue forget-me-not pushing through a crack in a wall. The puff of a white cloud blithely sailing across the blue sky. The satin petals of a magnolia tree strewing the sidewalk.  On our walk on the heath this week we came across this little cherry tree which had obviously self-seeded. It is socially distanced from all the other trees and yet is full of itself.

And so, in our isolation, we feel full of ourselves even when we feel empty, or sad, or useless.  For as long as we are alive we have the chance to blossom, to feel our rootedness. Even in this spring of our dis-ease we can call out to each other, “Vai Avanti,”  as the Italians say. “Go Forward.”

I leave you with one of my favourite poems, by Pablo Neruda:

I sat in the garden, spattered

By the great drops of winter,

And it seemed to me impossible

That beneath all that sadness,

That crumbled solitude,

The roots were still at work

With no one to encourage them.

Be well, Stay strong.

With love,

Maggie