The “new normal”?

It’s been a while, babes, I know that. I think I’ve skipped one or two weeks. I can’t tell: time moves weirdly.

We have been in a sort of “Phase 2, 2nd stage”, since then, and it’s almost like whoever invented this stages got drunk with whoever came up with BIM stages in ISO 19650. A confused, duplicit mess that seems to convey a concept while, in fact, it’s striving at something else.

Anyways.

The gap between regions is getting deeper and deeper, and on one side of things it seems to be right. We’ve had regions with zero infections, while Lombardy (my region) seems to be still running rampant, even if not as rampant as in the golden days of March.

I have recently realized my region is running 4th on the global death toll list, and we’re up there in the golden league allngside France, the United Kingdom and the State of New York. Which in itself is weird and says a lot about how numbers are being disseminated in this time of confusion: we have the region of a non Federal Country (Italy) comparing numbers with a much more devoluted (can you say that?) Country like the United Kingdom, and with no regards to its proportion to the general population. I am not in the mood of doing the math, right now. I can only tell you we have a 10 million population and we’re running points on the whole France, with its 65 million people.

Things have been bad.

Now, everyone seems to think we can run free. Numbers seem to be supporting that thought, even if in Lombardy infections are still rising and there’s very little reason to be optimistic. Pubs and restaurants are open and people seem to think it’s normal that you have to weak a mask outside (yes, it’s mandatory by law) but you can take it off inside and eat. People doesn’t seem to understand that it’s just the government’s way of placating the hospitality industryby giving them a chance to reopen, but rationally it doesn’t make any sense. People are hungry for what they call freedom, that in fact should be called leisure.

I am a party girl. Everyone knows that. I live on beer and social contact, I need social interaction and this is why I despise traditional parties, where loud music is trying to cover up the inner silence of people who have nothing to talk about and the are only trying to find someone to get laid with, undergoing the least possible spiritual intimacy they can master. I love meeting people and I want to know everything, I need their stories, their anecdotes, their soul-sharing.

You might think I have been starving, these months, and in fact I have. You might be depicting me out and about, a drink in my hand and my mask dangling from my chin. Well, I’m not.

And I frankly don’t understand how can people call this “the new normal”. I die a little bit inside, each time I hear that. I refuse to believe this is the new normal and I am willing to put my efforts into this new stage of the struggle. But no, this can’t be our life. It’s not logical. It can’t be. If things have to be this way from now on, we’ll have to rethink everything. Our spaces, out rituals, our growing mechanisms. So, we should be rolling up our sleeves and do that, instead of trying to squeeze our old way of life into these new rules.

But people seems to be unwilling to see it this way. They are tired. They can’t take this anymore. If this is just a phase, it means weare still fighting, and they can’t. If this indeed is our life, it means we’ll have to change. And they can’t. Hence, the “new normal”, an in-between without any structure, but with enough ambiguity for people to be able to navigate through it and elude its keypoints on occasion.

Is it because they’re weak? Possibly.

I think that maybe it’s because they live by rituals, without grasping their significance. It’ our catholic culture screwing us up at its might. If the law tells you that you can take your mask off in a specific circumstance, you just create that circumstance and do it. You don’t stop for even a minute trying to understand why was that rule created and what was it trying to tell you at the time. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how religion works. Bigotry, if you prefer. And we are a Country of fucking bigots. And today I hate us.

New normal my ass.