"Ornella? Good evening, it's me, the lady…». The video that circulated from the first days of the cloister tells of the blonde lady with polished speech who, confined to the house and forced to do household chores, asks the maid for help: the iron is held with the tip in front or with the tip behind? Ornella, resentful, cuts off the phone call. This is fiction, not very different from the reality of apartments closed due to a pandemic: washing floors, dishes, pans, linens, dusting, ironing, sewing on buttons. In Italian families it is unquestionable that males are capable of it (with a few commendable exceptions), and wealthy, multi-graduated, busy ladies take care of something else or have forgotten how to do it. The maid takes care of it, but she too is confined, unattainable.
Iron video arouses some assumptions about lifestyles after the pandemic: if someone, for example the blonde lady, wants to learn from experience, the consequences of the enclosure will be democratic and we will no longer say "my Filipina" but "Mrs. Maria", with the respect due to those who are not distinguished only by nationality and instead possess a personality and precious knowledge; perhaps the males of the house, young and old, will also value domestic chores with greater respect; perhaps the differences between the categories will shorten, perhaps it will assert itself a more equal coexistence.
This is a wish, but reality tends in another direction. For now, lifestyles seem to have been crumbled by the pandemic, everyone is coping as best they can. The dominant reason is the disorientation, followed by fear and accompanied by uncertainty about how we will behave in five minutes, tomorrow, in a year, at home, at work, with our fellow humans, with nature. A good relationship with neighbors – apart from the cohabitants, the only ones who see each other with their faces uncovered every day – it seems precious, as we read in the Donnein newsletter, because it heals the separation from the rest of humans, which is a source of anguish. Shopping for others, or having others do your shopping, exchanging advice on geraniums and basil, suggesting a cloistered menu creates a bond of solidarity that is almost a friendship.
Those who have remained truly isolated, without companions or friends, have fallen prey to the "hut syndrome” and he no longer wants to get out of it. The National Council of the Order of Italian Psychologists reveals that eight out of ten people say they need help coping with the trauma, while the Mario Negri Institute states that almost half of the population suffers from some emotional disorder. It may be the sign of a cultural evolution if up until about ten years ago Italians in difficulty turned preferentially to the priest, who is equipped to give hope in the afterlife rather than tools for the here and now. It is also the sign that even those who have escaped the virus bear its consequences in many ways.
The hope for equality remains the same, the observation of reality points towards an accentuation of the differences. The luckiest, the wealthy and the educated, find solutions in inner resources: reading "War and Peace" or "If this is a man" helps to remember that our ancestors came out of worse experiences, and gives courage; listening to Beethoven or visiting a virtual museum conveys a sense of beauty, and comforts; a smattering of scientific knowledge confirms that humanity has eradicated the plague, smallpox, polio and that scientists – beyond the exhibitionistic performances of some – are not sorcerers but people like us, who work for a purpose, perhaps with honesty and an open mind; a house in the country offers a comfortable and restorative diversion.
Among the inner resources, irony has proved to be a precious friend: who hasn't had a conversation with the cat, who hasn't talked to the dishwasher, who hasn't responded loudly to the politician on video? Please, in case of extreme confinement discomfort, reads a French post, do not call your psychotherapist right away. Unless the dishwasher responds to it. Making the "inner child" speak, psychologists still say, is a resource: that child is within us with imagination and freedom, inspiring inventive solutions.
How many come out of the pandemic with elegance and awareness? How many instead look to the future dominated by fear and resentment? Worst of all is the fear that we are poor, struggling with bills and rent, unable to pay a mortgage or a vacation, college or car. You don't sleep there at night, when the miserable current account balance appears in a dream; and then the older ones remember their mother who didn't waste a pin, she stretched the hems, recovered the leftovers of food and put the coins in the piggy bank. We all hoped we had entered a safe and prosperous era, but you have to start tightening your belt again, and this generates resentment. In the sale of food retail, the most expensive proteins, such as meat, have already dropped, and the less expensive ones, such as eggs and legumes, have risen. The new lifestyle will perhaps see us slimmer, especially as the gym is one of the expenses to be cut as soon as possible.
The pandemic pushes thrift for another reason as well. During the cloister we savored the joy of seeing the blackbird on the windowsill, the clear sky of a dry and sunny spring, even the fawns walking on the paved road. Protecting the environment is also protecting ourselves from Covid19, a virus which, as the naturalist Jane Goodall has been preaching for some time, resulted from two factors: the destruction of wild life and the spread of farms. Respect for the environment and love for nature will they be our eleventh commandment? Not everyone has the will and tools to understand how the virus is generated by a chain of perverse distortions between wild nature and the artificial world, easier to believe that it is a conspiracy flying the Chinese flag.
The days, one after another, have already changed: those who work at home have unlimited hours, don't crowd public transport, don't wear a business attire, jacket and tie, share the square meters of the house, consume their own electricity, he doesn't chat in the coffee break. It's a sea change: the working and living space that had separated since the industrial revolution are now reunited.
If the blonde lady of the iron, if the reader of "If this is a man" and if the new vegetarian have understood and learned from the cloister, because they have a library, subscribe to Netflix and the New York Times, credit card for online purchases, aperitifs with friends at a distance, there are those who don't. Not his fault, but because of the already serious inequalities before the pandemic. The virus is not democratic at all, it has hit the weakest and its strongly classist consequences will continue to do so. In southern Italy, according to Istat, four out of ten children live in overcrowding and a fifth of Italian families do not have access to the internet. It means that too many children without digital experience have missed almost a year of school. Not only did they lack education, but sociability, good manners, in short, all the equipment to start adulthood with serenity and fortitude.
The lifestyle of those who have spent a couple of months in a few square meters, without internet, with little money, no books and with only the company of quarrelsome evening talk shows can only be plunged into anger and prejudice. Curled up, addicted to the invectives circulating on Whatsapp, the less gifted and with no other way out will end up poisoning themselves. And they will go to any square where it is possible to vent resentment or compressed energy within four walls. They will joyfully join an autocratic way of life, the will of the boss. Lifestyle after the pandemic – and this is one of the easiest predictions – it will be strongly divided between the rich in means and critical spirit and the poor suffering and stuffed with prejudices. To be sure of this, we don't need to wait for a forthcoming UN report or an alarm from Caritas, nor do we need to stand and see if the 13 percent of Italians who approve of the feats of Pappalardo, the orange general, rise by a few or many points. So the most virtuous lifestyle requires keeping calm, calm nerves, an open mind, compressing fear and removing resentment.
