I came across a nice little book whose title really captured me .. (this and little else as the content honestly wasn’t as interesting): MOMENTS OF NEGLIGIBLE HAPPINESS -author: Francesco Piccolo.

And you …. could you make a list or a delicate account of your moments of negligible happiness?

We are talking about those moments or colors or smells or sensations that last a breath, but which remain within us like an imprint, like a song that is no longer possible to forget. Then I would call it MOMENTS OF NEGLIGIBLE HAPPINESS IN A TIME OF COVID.

In that addition “in covid time” there is obviously a lot. We have said a lot about the word covid and every day we say a lot, but about the words “in time to”, perhaps it is worth talking again because they are treated as those taboo topics on which everyone looks down hoping we can pass over them but at some point, you know that it is much better to share them.

What is hurting us is that no one tells us the final word, no one assures us that soon we will be able to go back to classes at the university, to have a pizza with friends, to go to a concert, to travel. The lack of an END date forces us to remain suspended, takes away all energy, prevents us from dreaming, planning, looking inside our super-technological boxes by giving us a live appointment. And it seems incredible to say it now after all the efforts of recent years have been aimed precisely at making us stand there, in front of a screen, instead of encouraging us to be together, to share real experiences, to hold each other a little more …

I was hoping they would come up with a game where whoever was able to organize the biggest royal picnic in town would win, or an app where you were the coolest if you could meet the person who liked you on your profile in person, but they always went out of style. other things, those that favor isolation, those that urge you to do without others, such as solitaire with cards or the famous Farmville: you learn how to make yourself a mega garden yourself and also build a wooden farmhouse, and then if I invite you to take a trip to the woods to collect chestnuts you look at me in horror.

We are confused and we don’t trust them anymore, and even though it’s been almost a year, we still haven’t gotten used to wearing these damn masks. At first, it seemed like we were rude to cover our faces in front of someone we knew … “but how, you will not think that I, that I …” “um, no it’s just that you have to wear it, I don’t know, that is, I know that you have nothing, but I also do it to protect you .. “. We have now passed that awkward phase, but we feel irritation at this piece of paper or cloth that traps our face; every second we must remember that no, it is no longer the same, that the whole world is in the midst of a pandemic, that here in Italy we are not vaccinated and as usual there are only so many problems.

The government has fallen again, new ministers are appointed, vaccines and syringes are lacking, layoffs, unemployment increases, still online universities and smart working … We get up in the morning and we do not expect anything good, we do not have the expectation that it will change something. So what to do? So let’s start with the US, because it is certainly worth it. Starting from oneself does not mean being mere selfish, but planning all that is possible to make this time of waiting better, to make it ours, to make it valid, to ensure that it is not a time suffered but a time of quality. ..

Last March 2020 the lockdown took us a little by surprise and after the rainbows and the songs on the balconies, there followed dismay and anger for some (mainly families with children), peace and creativity for others (young couples and artists in general), loneliness and anxiety for still others (elderly, sick, disabled, people with personal frailties). Now it is different because somehow we have gotten used to remote meetings, shopping online, staying at home for days, to tolerate things we never would have believed … but our internal system is in “overload”, as if unable to find a corner that is really of real rest.

We travel with a red light always on and this is why it becomes even more important to invest in us. We have certainly understood what our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities are and we can dedicate space to them. From now on we can decide to get better. Not tomorrow, not next month, but now. If we need to start psychotherapy we can do it right away.

Even a Yoga course, a cooking class to learn how to make the Sacher or the dream of making a huge origami. Or learn to play the guitar because it was our childhood dream. This is the best time.

And after all this pandemic period we can say that we will have spent MOMENTS OF INCOMMENSURABLE HAPPINESS IN A TIME OF COVID.

In the meantime, I am writing to you some that come to mind – which have occurred in recent months – and which are much more forced at home than anywhere else in the world:

• Choose some photos among the thousands taken digitally and print them on paper, hold them in your hands, scatter them around the rooms.
• Buy a can of chalkboard dye to create a huge artboard for Ben on his bedroom wall
• Take out the wool and cashmere sweaters I am most fond of and calmly and patiently pass them gently with a razor to remove all the dots
• Browse the art catalogs and read the texts (!) of the artists who gave them to me
• Studying after a long, long time
• Baking cakes with Ben that nobody eats afterward
• Gratitude on certain sunny mornings
• Admiration for some well-written sentences
• The emotion of notes that cut the heart
• The sensation of the flowers between the fingers
• The linden perfume
• The washing machine that ticks and signals that it has finished and the memory of my grandmother saying that once everything was washed by hand
• Mix the tempera and create new colors
• Orange and pink grapefruit juice
• The phone call you did not expect
• The phone call you expected

Make your list, and share it with others, you will feel better😊