Something is changed

Look at the sky. Observe the firmament in the late afternoon, before sunset. Lie down, nose up, let your gaze get lost in the infinite blue that slowly turns pink to give way to dusk and the moon that faces the horizon. Many times, in this particular summer, from the small terrace of my house overlooking the Ligurian Sea, I have observed this fascinating change of celestial scene in silence. While the mind pursued distant thoughts. Unknown spaces, endless spaces, transparent spaces, places extraneous to the frenzy of humanity well anchored on earth and unable to live and inhabit them if not simply with the eyes, with the gaze, with the thought.

But there is an intermediate dimension, fleeting and as fast as a cloud, moments in which we are physically suspended between heaven and earth, locked up in shiny and pressurized nacelles, we plow the skies at 10,000 meters without even thinking too much about the miracle of flight to which technology by now we are used to it. But from the ground, from the terrace at dusk, the large planes full of distracted passengers and only anxious to reach their destination as soon as possible, do not go unnoticed; with their long white trails of water vapor released by the turbines, they weave a web that for a few moments seems to harness the entire firmament. In that particular area dozens and dozens of routes intersect, cut, overlap, drawing the frenzy of men in the sky ... but it is for a short time, soon the universe regains the flavor of the eternal inviolate waiting for new traces of carefree humanity . But this year no, something in recent months of apparent normality has profoundly changed, something that should make us reflect.

Evening after evening, sunset after sunset, on the terrace with the nose up, no trail cuts the blue, no warping, no sign of human workmanship ... just an infinite clean universe, some clouds, the moon and then the stars. Even if we pretend nothing has happened, in indifference and often in arrogance, in the rampant contempt for the rules dictated by the global emergency and in the dangerous belief of many that everything is as before, the world, in silence, has changed. But in the holiday period, after the long and heavy lock-down, it does not seem so different. Somehow we have regained our normality, our little vices, our tested habits and we do our best to keep them unaltered, contemptuous as always of prohibitions and totally indifferent in the observance of behaviors aimed at the good of the community ... But if you stop and you look at the sky, you realize that something has really changed.

Michelangelo Dotta
NP august-september 2020