14.03.2020 | Pandemic COVID-19: a Journal of Resilience

While the COVID-19 pandemic expands, its awareness in the US overcomes the months-long denial. Finally extremely serious concerns prevails on financial interests. Yet the fine line between awareness and panic is often crossed. Irrational fears take over the necessary precautions and measures: panic shopping and toilet paper shortage are some of examples. If dealing with a pandemic related to respiratory illness may promote shopping of masks and sanitizers, it is puzzling the insane rushing to purchase toilet paper: on the bright side, at least in the US we have not witnessed yet related robberies.

My mailbox is flooded with cancellations of events including closure of main cultural and art venues. My social life heavily has been relying on NewYork cultural life as a single woman, recently divorced, and still dealing with PTSD caused by bullying and abuse. But I am also daily performing meditative practices developing resilience to the multitude of stressors and challenges I have faced in the past five years.

In the dystopian time, mindfulness and mindful movement, is more than ever essential to well-being. In the effort of acceptance of this new totally unexpected world order I decided to share my journal, which I started in 2014, as a means of emotional survival. I called it "journal of daily survival"; every day I record even a simple small action to transform a negative thought or emotion into a positive creative endeavor. With the coronavirus the effort is in transforming social distancing into spatial awareness. Today I have been revaluing outdoor activities, returned to power walking in my moving meditations in Riverside park. It is a beautiful mild sunny day, spring is approaching. My destination is the tennis courts at 120 Street; but it does not matter if will be able to find a court, I am just enjoying every moment of my walk, here and now, looking at the shimmering light reflected by the Hudson river. I forget about the pandemic.

Today a friend forwarded a post quite popular in Italy:

"L' Italia è come quella tipa che ha più talento di tutti, è come quella che le altre se le mangia, perché è nata bella, più bella di tutte e le altre se le asfalta. L' Italia è come quella più ingegnosa, che ha le mani di una fata, che si inventa mille cose, perché è piena di risorse. Sa discutere di storia, di mare, di montagne, sa di cibo, di buon vino, di dialetti, di pittori, di scultori, di scrittori, di eccellenze nella scienza, non c'è niente che non sa. E quando questa tipa bella e talentuosa inciampa e cade, la platea delle sfigate esulta. È la rabbia delle poverine ingelosite, quelle al buio, perché lei è comunque bella anche quando cade a terra. Ma l'Italia è una tipa con stivale tacco 12, ovviamente made in Italy, che nessuna sa portare meglio di lei... solo il tempo di rialzarsi.”