MILAN — When I received the birthday party invitation, I replied automatically with a convinced and happy “yes.” Up until February, I would never have thought twice about it. And since Italy has returned to a form of “normal” after the worst of the pandemic, I’ve slowly fallen back into old habits.
Still, the day before the party, doubts and fears filled my mind. A house party? How many people will be there? Was it safe to travel to the province of Bergamo, the area in Italy most affected by COVID-19? What if someone at the party was asymptomatic and contagious? How would I get my girls to keep their distance from the other kids or stop them from touching their faces?
Standing in the garden outside our friends’ front door, a view of the mountains in the distance, a wave of anxiety gripped my throat. I took a deep breath, the kind you’d take before sinking to the bottom of a pool, and went inside.
Needless to say, the anxiety didn’t go away. The adults avoided kisses and hugs, but nobody wore a mask. As soon as I could, I went to the bathroom to wash my hands, dragging my protesting daughters behind me. And only there, in the comfort of a simple gesture that has now become almost a superstitious rite, did I feel safe. I left the party early, feeling guilty.
When I got home, I was hit full force with the realization that this pandemic has revolutionized not only our daily lives but our sentimental ones. Physical distance is building, brick by brick, more emotional distance.
We are less spontaneous and easy-going and, although we have started to hug one another again, at least among family, we do so self-consciously.
We Italians are the people of hugs, kisses, big family parties. Until recently, the idea of maintaining social distance among friends and family was inconceivable. We are, after all, also known for our aversion to the rules and our creativity in avoiding them. And yet we have strictly respected the rules to curb the rise of coronavirus infections.
In part, this is no doubt because we were the first in the West to experience the fury of the virus. We were the first to see thousands of people die of COVID-19. We were faced with the fear of an unknown illness before the others.
We keep following the rules because the numbers tell us it’s working. One day last week, five people died of COVID-19 nationwide; in March, there were days where 1,000 died in 24 hours.
But the rules that have saved us have also changed us. We feel less safe in the places dear to our heart: among our families, with our grandparents and our closest friends. Who would have thought that one day, sitting next to those we love, we would feel ourselves to be in danger — or to be a danger to someone else?
Paradoxically, it can be easier to feel relaxed at work or in public spaces, where plexiglass and floor markings tell us how to keep our distance, sheltering us from our fears.
If life has more or less gone back to what it was like before the pandemic started — some offices have reopened; in the afternoon, children stay home with their grandparents; we eat with our mothers on Sundays; many have ventured out for the holidays — it is the way we experience these familiar situations that has become unfamiliar.
We are less spontaneous and easy-going and, although we have started to hug one another again, at least among family, we do so self-consciously. We turn our heads in opposite directions. Grandmothers clutch their grandchildren standing, not bending down to their level, to keep their mouths as far away as possible from the little ones’ faces.
Can love and affection co-exist with the strange choreography of social distancing? Yes, probably, but this infamous new normal is hard work.
We’ve become a society that studies the safety of an embrace or a hello. When we meet neighbors on the stairs, we stay a few steps away. If we see a small group of people on the sidewalk, more often than not we cross over to the other side of the road. And yes, strangers have a new aura of danger about them.
My biggest fear is that children who are growing up in the midst of this pandemic are starting to internalize the idea that other people are dangerous: that they could be sick, unwitting carriers of the virus. When we tell them to wash their hands after they’ve played with another child, or to keep their distance from other adults, how can they know that it’s about the virus, not the people themselves?
Every now and then, I try to explain to my daughters in simple words the contours of this strange moment we are going through. I don’t know if it’s working, and I don’t have many other tools.
My biggest fear is that children who are growing up in the midst of this pandemic are starting to internalize the idea that other people are dangerous | Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images
Maybe in a year all of these doubts and fears will be no more than a distant memory. Maybe this virus will have been just a parenthesis in our busy lives, and we will be able to freely embrace each other without anxiety.
But for now, the images of the pandemic are still too strong. Only a few months ago, hundreds of coffins were transported out of hospitals by a military convoy. The elderly were stuck in care homes without visitors, their only contact to relatives was a wave from the other side of the window. Friends lost their parents and grandparents, often without being able to say a proper goodbye.
Terrible and alienating as it is not to be able to hug and embrace our loved ones without fear, we know that our vigilance — even if it is awkward and an effort — is still worth it. Nobody wants to go back to the spring of 2020.