Three weeks into the confinement, our life is taking shape

We have been confined for about three weeks now. A police state has been implemented with stricter movement control and more severe penalties, even if the numbers for new contamination have gone down, showing that the quarantine measures are working. On the self-certificate we have to carry with us, we now have to specify whether we have tested positive for COVID-19 or are under imposed quarantine (if we have been in contact with infected people). We can no longer move from one municipality to another under any circumstances except a major emergency. The objective is to have nobody outside anymore until the virus can be contained. I have been stopped by the police twice already, both times when I was out with my 12 year old son. The last time it happened in our village, when I was out shopping. The police insisted heavily on whether my residence was here, why I was out and where I was going, etc….They know we don’t live here full-time even though our house is here, during the week, we normally stay in Rome because of work and schools. Both my son and I were wearing a mask and surgical gloves, which probably helped our cause as after about five minutes of probing us they let us go. That episode made me anxious, and I bought twice as much food as I had planned to last for a few days without returning to the village. Seeing myself stocking up on food reminded me of a great-aunt of mine who experienced hunger as a young child during WW1 and remained traumatised for life. She always had too much food in her house, even in her old age, when she no longer needed to feed a family. We used to laugh about it, not understanding why she needed to keep two large freezers full of meat, fish and vegetables when our supermarkets were over abundant. Today, with the coronavirus epidemic, we revert to this kind of emergency mentality. Uncertain of what the future holds, we refocus on the essentials which is to eat, remain healthy and be with the people we love (if we can). Everything else becomes secondary. Being quarantined at home, we are faced with ourselves and our choice of life. Is it really the way we want to continue living? Did we make the right choice in the first place? We have to live 24/7 in an enclosed space as a family, when before we each had our own territory: work/office for the parents, school for the children and home for babies and toddlers. Now we have to share that space with a new dynamic, and that is when the truth of our life comes to the fore. Coming out of it, many of us may take drastic decisions to change the course of their life or maybe, we will find comfort in having made the right choice….in the meantime, the anxiety level remains high for all of us.

Life in our house is now more organised. My two sons aged 14 and 12 are coping fine with online schooling, they are isolated from their friends but so is everybody else, which helps since they feel they are all in it together. Their work day is lighter but they spend more time on a screen (so do we). My eldest daughter who came back from studying in Paris, is using the time to work on her art; she cooks a lot too, always trying new recipes and has started digging a small plot to grow a vegetable garden. Mu husband is working 10 to 12 hours a day as if he were in the office. He is using one of our other daughter’s bedroom as his work space and disappears there right after breakfast until dinner time. As for myself, my main task is to manage our household and food supplies, and monitor my younger children’s school work. I limit my shopping trips to once a week now to decrease exposure to the virus and avoid being stopped by the police. They feel empowered with their new role, we don’t want to give them an opportunity to fine us. When out, I also refill our drinking water jars (6x20 litres) at the village’s fountain, the free distribution point made available for spring water. We have water, food and internet access via 3G, we can go on, that’s all we need for now. As freelance writer, I am currently out of work. All my contracts have been suspended or postponed to a better time, that is until the epidemic is over. No one knows when that will be and like many, I don’t expect to resume my work activities as before. The market will have changed, and above all, our mindset will have changed, what seemed important before will appear as futile, as is already the case.

Despite all the hesitations we had, I feel lucky to have a house in the middle of the countryside. We may have traded social togetherness in the city for total isolation, but at least we have a space we like, and space makes all the difference when confined for an unknown duration. We can switch our mind off social media and bombarding news headlines, and watch nature come back to life with the arrival of spring. In the last couple of weeks, the oak trees around our house have blossomed. The nascent leaves are of a very light green, almost yellow, and are not yet covering the branches. We can still distinguish the structure of the tree. It may take another month for the leaves to be fully mature and turn into a darker green. It is not the same with the olive trees, they stay green -silver green- all year round. Ours are full, as they say here. It means that the foliage is too abondant and needs to be pruned. The branches growing on the inside of the trunk have to be cut to air the tree and let it give fruit. Olive trees have male and female branches (the one giving fruit), they are recognisable from the way they grow: male branches stick up, female branches hang down. It is the male branches that are cut first to air the tree. We will have to prune ours soon, before they blossom in May/June. I hesitate to do so, I am still learning about olive trees and worried I may harm them by cutting branches erratically, and I can’t call a gardener, all non- essential work is now prohibited to avoid or minimise contact between people.