Cataclysmic events mark epochal changes, bondages that kept molecules together are disrupted, and isolated atoms and ions go aimlessly searching for new ties, the old age-long links of home, family, neighbourhood, friendship, acquaintance, that were connected to the earthquake-hit places have crumbled and were truncated by the fallen buildings, new meeting and contact methods must be found. Our neighbourhoods have gone, new neighbours are found under tents and coastal towns.
A new school for me today, new colleagues, new students, I have to turn the pages of my memory, how do I approach a new class, what shall I do with the new unknown chaos before I can establish rules, my mind is not ready to follow a programmed sequence... then it is easier than I thought, the students are interested, I help them get ready for a test they have later that day.
Finding a shop where to buy a frying pan. Failure. Such a stupid item, I cannot find one whose features and price satisfy me. We cannot even fry an egg these days. Then I remember last night, Francesca invited mine and another family to her tiny living-room in her bungalow, and on one of her two cooking fires she made crepes, dozens of them, while two of the kids were filling them with Nutella or jam - they tried also both fillings. A couple of hours of fun, we joked - if a TV crew comes now, imagine, they'll make a special on how the displaced enjoy themselves...
At lunch in the restaurant - it was the Sunday after Easter - there was a TV interviewer with a cameraman filming people - a man rose from his seat at a table asking them rather rudely to go away, not to invade our privacy. Though on the one side my old, before-the-earthquake self sympathised with him, no one likes to appear in the news in this situation, with clothes that are not yours, no makeup, untidy hair. On the other side with my new-born awareness - something I am still not at ease with - I think of the global community that has been helping each and everyone so much, the innumerable people that we do not know whose sons, daughters, and fathers and spouses left their homes at night, destination earthquake land, to try to help - all the people that donated their money in such a dire economic crisis - I realize it is important to show them all how much their help was needed, what a gift they gave. It's just like saying thank you, thank you.
So I do not share that fellow citizen's attitude, rather, I feel a bit ashamed of his behaviour. The TV crew were not after all filming corpses or wounded, distressed people, but a noisy community at lunch in a restaurant. This is not the time to be proud or arrogant. The camera was filming the togetherness, the solidarity after the event that so tragically proved how frail is what we had been working all life to build, our castle of cards on which suddenly Nature coughed in a moment of distraction. This is not the time to be proud of our privacy, now that the inside of abandoned homes is naked as in a Big Brother reality show, for everyone to see.
My pride today is only for our rescuers, the volunteers, the firefighters, I feel proud of them, I feel proud that they exist. Our private pride may return one day, will surely return, but not very soon, certainly not today or tomorrow.