A Beautiful Fall

March 15, 2020

Locked down but not out in Italy

Singing from the balconies! One nice thing about this crisis ... solidarity! “Guess you’re not living like a tourist anymore,” was the funny, truthful and somewhat gut-wrenching message of a friend the day the lockdown in Italy began. Today is day 6. My beloved Italia has been hit hard with the COVID19 epidemic. With the second largest elderly population in the world, the epidemic has meant a disproportionate amount of deaths in the country. So though I haven’t been worried about contracting it myself, this isn’t about me or someone like me who, if contracted it would probably have a sucky couple of weeks and then recover. It is about if someone like me contracted it and then spread it to a person with a complicated health history or an elderly person with a weakened immune system. Eerily orderly: Lines for the grocery store, each person one meter apart In a country with no concept (and no physical room really) for personal space, and in a city with reproachable hygie

Yes, I have been silent for awhile now. My stress levels have been skyrocketing for the last few weeks, and I'm sure you know how monopolizing stress can be on time and energy reserves. While I struggle to put stress back on its leash and to stop letting it run wild in the makeshift backyard that is my mind, I have perhaps been heeding the advice of one age-old saying: "If you don't have anything nice to say..."

So, for now, instead of nice things to say, I've collected nice things to show: it has been a truly magnificent Fall in Italy, Canada and the U.S. and I have made it a point to marvel at nature's beauty no matter where I am: