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September
October 8, 2022
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Written on my iPad, and my laptop, and
whatever device I could lay my hands
on in the course of two weeks
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It's been a long summer, and for some reasons even longer than
I expected. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining: I used to
love summer as a kid, when I used to spend, every year, three
months close to the sea; and I love it now, even if my moments
of freedom are much shorter than those I grew up with, and the
season has become a patchwork of work and rest, traveling and
staying at home, sea or lake or mountains, and spending time
with the family or alone... Perhaps this is one of the reasons
why Summer never seems to end!
Another reason is that, right when I was expecting the new
season to begin, I found myself projected in a different place
and, apparently, time of the year... But let us start from the
beginning.
London's weather was already getting colder and, after a very
dry summer, the first week of September was bringing us a decent
amount of rain. My niece was visiting and El had just left to
visit a friend in Otranto, Italy. After just a couple of days
into this new routine, El called me saying she was not feeling
well and she had decided to take a covid test. And after just
a few minutes she called me again, saying she was positive.
Thus, in the very same days when people from all over the world
were flying to London for the Queen's funeral, I was flying away
from it directed to Otranto, with the aim of carrying El to
another place, assisting her, but above all be close in case
anything bad happened.
For the first few days, my concerns about El's health, together
with uncertainty about the future and the fear of not being able
to do my job well, were way bigger than the enthusiasm, or even
just the curiosity, of being in a new place. As soon as I saw
some improvement in her condition, though, I started to take
some time for myself, either in the early morning or at sunset,
to have a swim in the Adriatic Sea, from a small public beach
that was just a few minutes' walk from our place.
Despite the difficulties we had during that week, I have very
good memories of it. Perhaps because the following one got
unexpectedly harder, with El's frustration of not seeing her
conditions improve after she got negative, while having to
move from one place to another. At the same time, my dad was
hospitalized due to a pericarditis, and at the end of the week
El and I had to fly back to different destinations.
But, you know, I think there's something more to it, something
that does not make that week better just a posteriori, as a
comparison to the following one. Perhaps it was because, at
last, I was back into the sea. Perhaps because that happened
when I least expected it, a summer whiplash in an unforeseen
place. Or maybe because, in those moments, I felt I was in the
right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.
During the last swim I had in Otranto, another man in the sea
started talking to me. I am not sure whether it was me being
a good listener or as talkative as him, what I know is that we
went on swimming and chatting until we were far away from the
shore and our fingers were all wrinkled. It took us a while to
get back, and saying that in the meanwhile he narrated me his
life is not an understatement.
Paolino -that was his name- was originally from Naples and he
ended up working in the northern part of Italy (actually quite
close to where I was born) for years. He decided to move back
to the south, looking for a more quiet life, after he had a
heart stroke. Retrospectively, he saw it coming: he could
precisely remember all the symptoms he had that morning, while
commuting to work, when he decided to turn his car around and
head to the closest hospital instead.
The following morning my sister called me. She said our dad
was not feeling well, even if his GP had seen him and said
it was nothing serious. She then started describing me his
symptoms, which were exactly the same ones Paolino told me
the day before.
I guess I was indeed in the right place, at the right time.