Lethargy

Like Christmas lights. Intermittently. That's how it works now. This is how we work. Doors open after endless preparations, they must be closed quickly, hoping there is no hand left in the middle. The light has been on for a moment and it is already time to turn it off, just when it is dark outside and someone would be nearby. The party is over. Hibernating again. Like animals. Only they knew it: it is Mother Nature's program to which they have always adhered, on pain of life, footsteps that have been heading for generations at the same time towards the same place. Tradition, imitation, fidelity to the species they belong to. They're preparing. They stockpile supplies, beautify and fortify the lair to be comfortable. Without the stars to classify elegance, luxury and difference. The law of the strongest dictates who is where and who is how.

Just keep it warm when it's cold outside, safe when it's dangerous outside. Survival instinct that commands when the Earth becomes inhospitable and threatening. Because you have to, because it can't be done any other way, not because it's beautiful. We don't make the rules. We believed we had become powerful and superior, nothing left to bow and kneel to except ourselves. We now also have a program to stick to. We can suffer and cry. Accumulating resignation and resignation. Break and destroy us. Or accept and create. Rework the loss and distance. Inventing ways to love each other and to love each other all the same. Even if it's hard, even if it's sad, even if it's not right. The den is small, the hugs forbidden, the distant affections, the more we like, the less we can do.

Outside there is the fog to hide in, the snow with which to decorate puppets and play angels with your eyes turned towards the firmament, the puddles where you can jump and reduce yourself to a rag. Outside there is life. But you can't. We are the rags. We have to stay inside. We have to stay away. Watch from the windows. Access to creation that we had to subjugate and dominate is prohibited. Instead. Still find the way. To stay in touch with those we cannot see, touch, kiss. They look like bars, even if it's not a prison. At least not for us. There are families of 6 imprisoned in the hell of a room. It will be a war for them. Food will be missing. There will be no air. For everyone it will make sense to be found behind prohibitions, renunciations and privations. Painful absence of special moments that we will not live, stolen by a virus that did not agree.

Yet. Tell the kid that he would win the cup . To the girl who lost her first kiss. To lovers confined far from each other. To the little abandoned life she had found a hand to hold. At the shutter raised after years of sacrifices and lowered in an instant, perhaps forever. There is none of this anymore. Resist. To survive. To the dust. To fatigue. To loneliness. About what we cannot do now and what we cannot do later. Moments of happiness and life that we have not been allowed to live, memories that we will not have and parties that will not be. Everything is suspended. Forbidden. Interrupted. They have turned off the power and nobody knows when the light will return. We have to find another way. To turn us on. To live the same. To accumulate beautiful memories and special moments. In any case. Even being inside. Even staying away. Being alive. Be us. Find the way. Find another way.


Marco Grossetti
NP December 2020