Diary Of A Lockdown: Day 365

One Year On - 09/03/2021

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year?

In daylights,
In sunsets,
In midnights,
In cups of coffee,
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife

In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in a life?

The musical Rent taught us to measure our lives in love, but, instead, the past year of our our lives here in Italy has today been summed up by much more grim figures: 100,000 lives have now been lost to Covid-19. This “terrible threshold” marks 365 days of unimaginable loss, in what was Europe’s first country to go into national lockdown, on 9th March 2020.

As journalist Jon Henley reports, on that day a year ago “a population of more than 60 million was ordered to stay at home, permitted to venture out only under specific circumstances – solitary exercise close to home, grocery shopping, going to the doctor – on pain of a €400-€3,000 fine.

Schools, universities and all non-essential businesses were shut down. Only supermarkets, banks, pharmacies and post offices could stay open. All travel within the country was banned, except on health or other urgent grounds.”

I received a barrage of messages and calls of concern from friends and family around the world. Nobody could really process what was happening, here in Italy or beyond; little did we know that everyone else would soon be following suit. And now, as Henley remarks, “the extreme measures first imposed in Italy a year ago on Tuesday no longer seem so shocking”.

Since then, we have developed a whole new lexicon: from “lockdown” and “R-rate” to “antigen tests”and, the latest, “vaccine passport”, these buzzwords have peppered our vocabulary and our media so frequently over the past year that we have become inured to them; much like the lockdown restrictions — and perhaps even the virus, itself, too.

I wish I could say there was light at the end of the tunnel, that although we have gone through the mill, we are coming out the other side better, stronger, wiser… But in all honesty, as The Observer’s Tobias Jones put it, “after a year of death and solitude, Italy is a sober, serious place”. The initial, triumphant singing from balconies and rainbow-adorned banners that once hung proudly from balconies in the first weeks of Italy’s “draconian” lockdown now seem “vapid, if not insulting”; front-line nurses and doctors working tirelessly in Covid-19 wards recently wrote to Italian media sources angrily lamenting that, while a year ago fellow citizens were delivering free pizzas to hospitals for them in thanks, today they leave work to find that their cars have been keyed and their windows smashed.

And the tragic benchmark of 100,000 deaths is not the only bleak statistic measuring a year of Covid in Italy: Jones goes on to state that “by mid-May at least 14 business people had taken their lives because of the economic catastrophe. By September that figure had risen to 71.

Behind those tragedies were many others: bankruptcies, divorces and domestic violence. Unemployment now stands at 9%, with youth unemployment at 30%. Within those stark figures is an astonishing gender imbalance: of the 444,000 people who lost their jobs in 2020, 312,000 (or 70%) were female.” I was one of the latter. (Happy ‘International Women’s Day’, indeed.)

And yet, despite the promising news of vaccine roll-outs, we find ourselves almost back where we started, as both Italy’s newly sworn-in Prime Minister Mario Draghi and Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio have hinted that “stricter restrictions, which could place all or half of the country in the toughest “red zone” category, are expected to be announced if the daily number of infections surpasses 30,000 by Friday”. All this talk of a second “hard” lockdown, on the anniversary of our first, is not doing much to boost national morale.

In the interest of full disclosure, though, I do feel that I need to mention the ways in which we have been ‘lucky’ here, compared to other countries: here in Rome, for now at least, under current restrictions we can still go to our favourite coffee bar for our morning cappuccino; we can meet up to three other people and sit down for lunch, indoors or out; when we have “nothing to do”, we can go for a stroll around the (deserted) UNESCO World Heritage Sites our city has around every corner; we can even spill out into the piazzas and drink Aperol spritzes to our hearts’ content (until 6pm. But everyone appears to be so drunk by then, they don’t seem to mind going straight home — which is somewhat reminiscent of my university days…). Not to mention the fact that during the summer months, we enjoyed (relative) freedoms, like going to the beach with friends, being ‘allowed’ to travel to other incredibly beautiful regions, such as Puglia or Umbria —and even having friends and family to visit from abroad. So despite such a gloomy picture, there are small mercies to be grateful for.

Personally, I was also “fortunate” enough to experience lockdown in two different countries, having made it to Scotland in December, just before the post-Christmas lockdown was announced there. What followed were six weeks of fresh air, tranquillity, perfect wintery scenes and even a hefty dusting of snow (almost unheard of on the west coast of Scotland!) — and, of course, quality time with my mum after so many months apart. It felt like I was given the chance to switch off, to get away from it all, and was forced to take some time out to reflect. For that, I am truly grateful. As a self-confessed travel addict, it also felt thrilling (if slightly risky, I’ll admit, despite the many precautionary measures taken) to cross a continent for the first time in a year. Now that I’m back, I’m trying to hang onto the lessons that I myself have learned from it all, and from what I have seen and heard both in Italy and the UK, over the course of the most troubling year of our collective lives — at least for my generation.

Friends have had weddings postponed and cancelled more times than they can count; others have missed loved ones’ funerals, or the birth of their grandchildren or nieces and nephews; major operations have been rescheduled, or even cancelled altogether; relationships have been formed, some tested and some torn apart; hobbies have been taken up; careers have been abandoned; (many, many) babies have been born. And all in just 525, 600 minutes. It’s a lot to take in, and I have no doubt that we will continue to see the effects (psychologically, socially and economically speaking) for years to come, but, while we might not know what lies ahead, to those of us who are still here: we made it. And to those of us who aren't: thank you for teaching us what really matters, and how precious each day is — even a dismal, rainy Tuesday in March.