Breakdown of equipment, a computer battery dead, a knitting needle that snapped, a knife that broke whilst cutting a cauliflower. Today I walked a long way but I didn't touch a paintbrush. Welcome to Day 20.
Today we began to realise that this virus is not going to go away any time soon. The penny dropped for all of us. The girls I think have come to terms with the end of their overseas learning adventure but I am slow to pack away my dreams. I realise that if I could get into Italy, I could stay as I've got a residents visa but then if something happens to me, the daughter probably won't be able to come to return. Realisation freezes us in different ways. The daughter starts to plan a different future. Her partner is stoic even though she has the most to lose, having only just having started her year abroad. I stop as if I'm holding my breath - it's not that I just want to continue a long holiday, it's that I've become so infused with Europe's struggle with this that I want to be here when it emerges victorious and there is dancing in the streets. I want to be in Italy when this ends, where I've assimilated myself deeply within it's psyche because it offers us anglo saxon people an emotional escape route. I want to laugh, mourn and sing with them. Because sing they will. Even though their socialising lifestyle is probably what led to so much death within their country, it is also what will save them when they open their shutters, lean out of their windows and weep and vocalise their feelings. When I return home there will be no clapping at eight o'clock. We will close our doors and retreat inside and I'll get used to it because that is what I'm used to.
But when Europe's doors open again I'll be back to gather their celebrations within words, within photos. In the meantime I will have to clothe myself in the fabric of the Mediterranean people who don't worry about toilet paper and haven't stripped the shelves of shops bare.
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