The lake

When the night is almost over, she drops randomly, 

folding over and staining the horrors; 

but if you can just get lost next to the lake,

it will sooth you and calm you

until you can no longer breathe.

How beautiful the lights reflected on the water

fooling anyone

And if you want, you can cut it in pieces

It's then that silence throws on the water

the ticking of clocks that are rotting.

Down there you can find that girl, minding her breath and her skirt

As wide and open as floating flowers

She's dancing, she's burning bright, she's feeling

it's not worth it, life is not worth it

the crazy life of a financial advisor during lockdown

The morning starts well. By now (after 5 weeks of smart-working from my parents' place and 3 weeks of total lockdown) Husband and I have completely corrupted my mother's black cat.
The Panther (aka Mom) has two cats: Tigros - a smart huntress, intelligent, reactive and a bit of a tedious whore if you want my point of view - and Negus (which means black prince in Ethiopia).
Negus is the dumb brother, he's a black cat who only has (had?) one goal in his life: being petted by my parents. He's super-loyal and affectionate, but the Panther always had a thing for intelligent ones (see Bro and I, where I was treated like the accident daughter until my late twenties).
After these weeks, where we have been spending only on treats for Negus, he's finally moved downstairs with us (insert evil laugh here).
So in the morning he steps in from our bedroom window and plops down on our bed, right in the middle. Goodbye morning sex by the way - clearly gaining the cat's affection has become more vital.

Despite everything, two clients managed to close their transactions this week - I usually don't develop much on my job, but basically they have acquired other companies. Given the lockdown (and the recession), it's almost a miracle.

Fast forward through a morning of conference calls, lunch with the family and quickly preparing some bread (currently baking in the wood stove upstairs).
At 2.45PM I was preparing for a long videoconference when a girl rings our bell and frantically warns that, in the filed close to our home where we keep the hens, she spotted a dog chasing Mom's hens.
Now, the Panther is a bit peculiar - we are virtually vegetarian and she takes very good care of her hens that are more like pets then anything else.
Husband reached that part of the yard first - blame it on my knee surgery, but I still cannot run (not even a few steps) at the risk of stumbling down. By the time I got there, it was a mix between a will coyote cartoon and a zombie apocalypse movie. The hens are 14 and live a very large yard, with their coop (the fox comes every night so they must be locked sunset to sunrise) lots of grass, bushes and trees.
There were feathers everywhere, bloodied pieces of hens spread around, dead hens, hens running like crazy and in the middle, my beautiful, brave, big husband with a pitchfork, chasing a pitbull that was chasing hens.
Surreal.
He managed to scare away the dog while my parents reached the owner, and then we proceeded for the next hour in counting the fallen, the injured and grouping the scared healthy survivors.

All while trying to soothe the poor Panther, who was very grateful towards us, until I suddenly realized I was 30 minutes late for a conference call, and absentmindedly dropped an F bomb right in the face of my Mom. Aw, well, fuck it.

Fast forward through a boring call, more cat therapy, realizing that I screamed into the dog owner's face that he is a fucking moron who likes to butt-fuck his sister (and most important, realizing I dropped all this in front of the Panther but she was probably in shock or something because she did not flinch nor mention this), I finally remember to bake bread for dinner.

While the bread was baking in the wooden stove I was strolling through pant-suits on IG and started wondering if we'll really ever go back to the pant-suit and heels life (well if my knee does not heal I can probably forget the heels). Back to the city, professional version of ourselves?
I honestly don't know any longer, but meanwhile I took a mental note that I need to fetch more wood for the chimney tomorrow morning.

just want to go out

The older you get, the more you value walking. At almost 38, I already considered that the best part of my weekdays was when I managed to walk home from work instead of taking the tube. I live 3.5km from work (a bit over 2 miles) and whenever it wasn't too late and it wasn't pouring rain, I used to walk home, sometimes making calls to clients or my mother, sometimes just listening to audible and watching shops windows.

I seems like I'm talking about a long time ago, but we've been working from home since February 22, and in a total lockdown since March 7. Yesterday I decided to go for a walk in the woods (my parents' place is really next to wild woods by the lake) and in order to do that I had to wait over one hour: as soon as I saw a police car patrolling, I waited for it to be gone and crossed the road to get to the footpath in the woods.

That because if they stop me outside home, I can get arrested.

I so miss walking.

My father in law died on Wednesday morning. He had 4 sons and a daughter, all loving him and living close to him, and he had to die alone because we are not allowed to leave home (let alone visit sick relatives in the hospital). He was buried this morning with no funeral (not allowed) and no family (again, not allowed). On of my brother in laws is a priest, so he's celebrating a private mass via skype for the family tonight.

This gives you an idea of the situation I guess.

because this is Italy

And as such, while the whole country is quarantined,  on a sunny Friday evening at 6PM, a whole nation of 60 million people open their windows and start singing the national hymn, you remember what a crazy beautiful mess this country is.

shut-in

...and we are still here.
The whole country is in shut down; 90% of the time I think this is a pneumonia that spreads a bit more then a flu, and it will never hit healthy people like us.
That it is handed badly, and that this complete quarantine is an absurd situation.

Than I hear about someone I know, someone young and fit and healthy, who is in Intensive Care and I wonder.

After a while I revert to my initial thinking because the alternative, the possibility that this will destroy our civilization is too dramatic even for a drama queen like truly yours.


Positive things:
since I'm crashing at my parents, I can go for long walks in the woods next to the lake. Spring is amazing, there's plenty of flowers growing in the woods, sunny and warm weather - mixed with the quarantine, this means you get to enjoy all the above in a very private way. I love it.

Negative things:
economy went down the drain two weeks ago - it will take us 5 years minimum to recover
as such, I'll never find an easy way out from my current job
my mom keeps cooking and I keep eating. I probably gained 10 pounds already