Situation report

Yes, we are back in Italy, as we optimistically resume our half-and-half existence shuttling between Fidenza and California. We arrived a week ago, late in the evening, and here's the view that greeted me when I came out onto our balcony early the next morning.

The neighbors are lucky I didn't burst into song.

In some ways things here don't seem to have changed much. People are still waiting in line to go into stores, to maintain social distancing, and they're still wearing masks indoors and at the big outdoor market. When you enter a restaurant--masked, please--you have to show your "super green pass" proving that you're not only vaccinated but have been boosted at least once. (Luckily everyone we've encountered so far has accepted our U.S. vaccination cards, because we haven't yet gotten our booster shots into the Italian system.) 

Our friend Franca is vaccinated but refuses to get a booster, for reasons I'm not clear on, and I haven't seen her yet so we haven't had a chance to discuss it. Without the booster she can't go into the coffee bars where we usually meet. And after a couple of warm days it's gotten too chilly to meet out of doors, since she's also been suffering from an on-again, off-again fever. Her doctor says it isn't COVID and she's been testing negative. The green-pass rules are scheduled to lighten up at the beginning of May, but I have to say I'm more than a little nervous about getting together with her. 

COVID hospitalizations are still down and the pandemic no longer seems to be top of mind. The mayor's Facebook page instead has a lot of entries about bandages and other aid that the town is sending to Ukraine. 

The war and the energy politics around it are causing some serious disruption. Pam says several local industries have cut back or temporarily closed because energy prices have gotten so high. Gas, always expensive here, is now even more so, despite cuts in gas taxes to lower prices.. Italians have been told to turn off their heat to help conserve fuel, even though so far this has been a rather chilly spring. I don't know if it's because of the war or COVID or other factors, but there are more empty storefronts now, and our usually bustling street seems a little less busy.  

Until a few days ago this was a fancy women's lingerie store.

 Overall, though, things seem much the same. Latteria 55 downstairs still has lots of customers for their hams and Parmesan, the clothing stores put up glamorous new window displays every few days, and the bars have plenty of people drinking coffee in the morning and bright orange Aperol spritzes later in the day. The town recently washed and disinfected parts of the centro storico, the historic center, which is our part of town, so everything looks bright and shiny. And it's spring, when even gray days feel like progress toward better times.  

This is the town's Parco delle Rimembranze, Memorial Park, with its rather Stalinist monument to those who died in the two world wars. (The motto on the pedestal reads, in translation, "We are dead only to those without faith," a sentiment that to me seems both delusional and offensive.) It's a reminder of how huge the cost of war was for Europe in the last century, and how dangerous the current situation is. Yet though there seems little reason for optimism, the new leaves and the budding flowers inspire a flicker of hope nonetheless.