During the quarantine , which was then a sixty year, I learned many new things that made me see other perspectives. They opened portals to me that were previously invisible to me. And they also changed my attitude towards time and the way I organize my creativity.
During the quarantine , I finally learned how to make bread.
I’ve learned that people under emergency stress socialize more with each other. I got to know my neighbors better and the people on my country lane have finally started greeting each other.
During the quarantine , I learned about some edible wild herbs. To go to nettles early in the morning, when the world still sleeps.
I learned to look at things more deeply and I also learned that on windy days … Do you know what birds do on windy days? Well, on windy days the birds play. I hadn’t noticed this in a lifetime. And they spend hours whirling between the ascending and descending currents as if they were at the carnival. And they also play between different species!
During the quarantine , I got to know myself better. To meditate every day and try fasting to probe the reactions of the parts of me that I did not yet know. I learned to listen to my every reaction in the face of any interchange.
I learned that slowing down everything would become abundance and that, slowing down the pace, abundance would become visible and evident all around me, exactly where I was and how I was.
During the quarantine , I learned how to wash the car. I learned to sleep without closing the blinds, waking up to natural light just after sunrise.
During the quarantine , I learned to recognize different types of extra trees and bird songs. I compiled a spring diary in which I marked the arrival of each species of bird and the flowering of this or that plant. The sounds and smells. And I composed my herbarium with the leaves of the field.
During the quarantine , I learned routes that I had never walked. I perceived paths between fields and along canals that I hadn’t even seen before. Or mapped the oldest oaks in my area. I discovered details that had always been under my nose but that I had never noticed. I have practically begun to see.
During the quarantine , I also learned how to make cakes and the first pizza of my life! For the occasion, I made it to my heart, so that it represented an offer to myself and to the joy of living.
During the quarantine , I learned that adults become children when they are afraid and see a lot of ghosts. I learned not to listen to them when they express themselves in fear, because all those words and their products would dissolve within a few days, and then forget about it or replace it with yet another fairy tale.
During the quarantine , I learned how to get rid of the internet for one day a week and replace a book for the internet in the dark hours, before bed. I learned to save money and always dine by candlelight.
I learned that miracles can happen. That you can find the mountain air in the Po Valley, and the starry skies you dreamed of, and the sociability you wanted from the people in your area… and the animals that are no longer afraid. And so the silence, which you thought you had to go and look for who knows where: he came to me, along with everything else.
During the quarantine , I learned that nature begins to recover in just a few weeks without us.
