Day 11 of Phase 2 in Codiponte...
Not much has changed in Codiponte from when Phase 2 was kicked off on Monday, May 4th. The only hardship is the isolation from You and our friends, many of whom are stuck in a Holding Pattern awaiting entry into Italy to return to their homes here. All the rest is a God Send: still no airplanes flying overhead…
oh, I spoke too soon! The sound of a lone aircraft. What could it be? Hark! A Kenyan Air Force two-engine cargo plane flying from Milan Malpensa MXP to N/A, meaning Rome and then some military airport near Nairobi. Well, after delving into the headlines at BBC and The Guardian Newspaper, Africa is now up to the tips of their tribal spears with Coronavirus. And sadly, Kenya is another hot spot. All on the African continent are in need of medical supplies & equipment to battle the pandemic’s invasion into their countries.
One of my hobbies during Phase 1 & 2 of Lockdown has been to check aircraft flying LIVE above the entire globe at flightradar24.com. Previous to the COVID-19 pandemic, the sky above Codiponte was a multi-lane, multi-directional flight highway connecting Italy to the rest of Italy, Western Europe North of the Alps and the UK despite Brexit to the Near East and Eastern Africa… Egypt south to Kenya, for instance. At all hours of the day and night. I’d sit out with friends, happily sipping an excellently chilled white wine from their cellars in their lovely fattoria high above the valleys of Lunigiana and in line with the Apuane Peaks, offering stunning, unblemished skyscapes. The friends look at stars off apps, while I pull out the ol’ iPhone 11 Plus, for cryin’ out loud, click the flightradar24 app to see what’s what flying above. Just click on a yellow airplane icon to find out the from and to. I am easily carried away with fantasizing of the places on many of the aircraft’s itineraries… Istanbul, Cairo, Beirut, Port Louis, Mauritius! I’ve been to the first two. Not sure when for the others but, Beirut is tops. Since March 9th, the highway is empty but for the sporadic domestic flights flown by Alitalia to connect Milan & Rome to the country’s major centers: Napoli, Palermo, Turin, Venice, Bari, etc.; and slightly more often, Italian Air Force and Police cargo planes and Airbuses to shift personnel, supplies & equipment for the Italy’s fight in this Coronavirus pandemic. The majority of airplanes, however, flying in our skies, and are about 1/100th of the normal traffic, are cargo airplanes. Again, shifting stuff to combat the emergency. And yet, the Boeings and Airbuses are also carry general goods & foods since, the belly-cargos of the passenger aircraft are empty and parked on aprons and runways all over the place. Major hubs like London Heathrow, Vienna Schwechat, Frankfurt-am-Main, and Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok have become huge parking lots for B-777s, A-380s, etc.. And so too at many a minor airport. There is one airport out in California… Victorville, California… a famous aircraft cemetery… is now home to umpteen hundreds of furloughed though ready to fly airplanes of all sizes. Oh, well.
… and car & truck traffic has dwindled to a trickle though there are tiny Rush Hours in the early morning and late in the afternoon. The Codiponte Natives are out yet, rarely far from home or vegetable gardens and they rigorously wear masks but, NO GLOVES!!! And the church’s campanile still rings in the hours from 7:00AM to 9:00PM. Hope it stays like this.
Semi-Coronavirus Liberation Day...
… or, in the current jargon, Phase 2 which began on the first Monday of May, the 4th, 2020. Coronavirus-COVID-19-pandemic-plague. Liberation? I didn’t think about it. Preferred to think about the many positive aspects of the strict Italian Lockdown here in Codiponte…
the general Peace & Tranquility… except when the kid in the the floodplain of Codiponte insisted on blasting Vasco Rossi out a speaker set in his BR window during the sacrosanct hour of Nap Time… knocking off innumerable items on my To-do List, the garden accounting for about 70%, pleasant chats on the telephone with family & friends from Italy to the UK and over to the US, exchanging terrifically funny videos, cartoons and messages through the auspice of Whatsapp, long morning walks with the Dog in the woods surrounding Codiponte… the Dog searches for a better stick, while I photograph sculptural and long forgotten chestnut trees… and fresh air!!! A simpler, healthier and remote Life.
Now, Phase 2? Had no idea. Then, reality hit. At 6:30AM, last Monday morning, I was unexpectedly and rudely awakened by traffic over on the Strada Regionale 445. Cars, trucks, flat-beds, buses, pullmans. Heading to work after a 2 month hiatus. Why the rush? The work might’ve disappeared or will with the economy shot. Anyway, the roar was occasionally accented by casual honking. Italians cannot seem to resist a friendly toot to friends & family seen along the road or, at the bus stop at the Rimessa to catch the corriere to Aulla, the Big Town of lower Lunigiana, and apparently, at any hour of the day. They think: we’re up and so should the rest of the World… at 6:30AM in the morning.
It came as a shock. Mostly the amount of traffic. I hung out the window of my bedroom in La Casetta, which affords a direct line of sight, providing an eyewitness account of the noisy flow of vehicles. The Dog was confused when I got out of bed way before the standard signal that Our Lockdown Day had begun, Codiponte’s church’s campanile unwaveringly ringing in 7 o’clock, Lockdown Day in and Lockdown Day out. The four-legged creature elected to stay in bed. Wool blankets are so inviting to snuggle and especially when the human body has left. I went for a restorative caffe. I needed caffeine to ponder the new developments. Such as, arrivederci to Codiponte’s lovely Peace & Tranquility of Lockdown so ignobly shattered. I felt threatened. Seemed more dangerous now than ever before to run for groceries, buy dog food and hit a friend’s nursery for urgent gardening supplies which, I needed to do after the Dog’s excursions into our local wildernesses. I’m not used to traffic. Up until this May 4th, I was normally, the King of the Road. I enjoyed the privilege, the privacy and the absence of stress having an Italian in a white VW Golf try to butt-fuck me because he needs to be somewhere faster than my SUV can go and thus, I WAS IN THE WAY!!! And too, there will be strange people about the land of the Lunigiana. I only saw people I regularly see in my normal Life at the grocery store, etc. No more, I suspected. They could be COVID-19 carriers! Masks & gloves are no guarantee.
Dottore You confirmed the above and doubly confirmed later in my morning. You strongly suggested that I stay… at… home… as much as possible. Good he didn’t add… as humanly possible. He continued by reiterating the concept of… There’s no sense in risking one’s vulnerable health as a prime Coronavirus candidate by co-mingling with errant rabble, racing to shop at the OVS super store after being shut-in at home for 8+ weeks.
However, My Human Nature has frayed a bit despite the rigours of my particular Lockdown in Codiponte. I have been in self-quarantine for 10+ weeks now. I wanted to break away. Freedom. Freedom of movement, like those folk racing to & fro earlier in the morning. A desire to belong? For so long, I only left Codiponte on Wednesdays. On Moral, Psychological… Emotional Grounds… I felt the strong urge to head to Aulla on this Liberation Day… to enjoy civilisation.
Then, I ran into this…
Again, for second time in less than two hours, I had unwittingly become an innocent victim of Coronavirus Liberation Day activities. The Dog and I made up part of a long convoy of vehicles rolling to Aulla. And the same in the opposing direction. The Dog was miffed: he could not hang his large Weimaraner head out the SUV’s back window for a breath of nostril flaring fresh air, ‘cause he’d been trained!!! to tuck said head inside, if something comes towards us.
And what… a… snarl… of… traffic! Cars darting in & out from all directions & angles, bottlenecks at critical curves along the road or, at stores NOW OPEN FOR BUSINESS, cars double-parked at all my stops…
the first: to buy dog food. Took 7 minutes. Next stop were nurseries: the Aulla Consorzio for a fungal disinfectant to cure our suffering verbania… planted in what was 11 years ago the main dump for garbage thrown there by the admirable citizens of Codiponte and is probably a sort of chemical waste pit of deeply submerged plastic bags and other I-don’t-want-to-know stuff… Katia & Paolo for pots and a fragrant rose bush as a belated birthday gift for a Codiponte friend, and finally, a visit to Cristiana, my dear Codiponte friend, and owner of the big nursery, for potting soil and some inconsequential plants necessary to plug some holes in our green Privacy Screen. I overbought. Walked out with a snow-cone plant, a photinia, several corbezzoli and several geraniums. The poor SUV was sluggish from the weight of it all. Had to hit three grocery stores too for my newly discovered am-not-drinking-white-wine substitute. An Italian ginger-ale. It’s orange. A festive color. And, it’s Zero. Slimming, perhaps. Two establishments had no stock but, the Conad did. Cleaned them out. I know, I know, not very considerate of others. However, I need all the help I can get and especially for not resorting to white wine in these dawning days of a lesser Lockdown. Kind of hate to think about Phase 3. A possible YIKES!…???