Diary from L'Aquila

Wooden skeletons have started rising on the lawns and courtyards of abandoned houses. Wonder and the old pride for my clan, the sturdy people who do not believe - in their age-old distrust of governments - that September will bring new houses for everyone, and won't wait lying in the sun for September to arrive. They know that in September the homes must be ready, the harvest stored, the roofs repaired, 'cause rain and snow and cold may hit early. Hammering sounds echo through the fields reaching the ruined belltowers and ghost alleys, wooden poles are raised, walls start to take form. Like ants they are building the cells where to survive through the winter, the Abruzzese of the mountains know that they cannot afford either to sing and dance throughout the summer, or to cry and wait, the long chilling winter will come nonetheless, the roofs must be ready to offer a warm repair to the young ones.

When September comes, the homes must be ready, and that's why they are raising the brown walls, the father nailing the door, the mother placing on a plastic table a small flower pot saved from the house of the past, looking for where to store dishes and glasses and the other bare essentials for the emergency but cozy future that is coming, when the kids will again start doing homework unwillingly, and watch TV, and send SMS's to their friends. Normality, ordinary routine, must be conquered again from the foundations to the roofs and satellite dishes.

Discovering - rediscovering - the ancient know-how of carpenters, native Americans, backpackers, hut-dwellers, choosing the best spots, far from walls, near to water, sunny, well-drained - for protection against rain and snowfall, and the tremors, 'cause the earth can shake again tomorrow, next month, in 100 years, but the spared lives are just too precious to trust them to concrete, bricks, tiles. The wood of our friends the trees, once living as we are living, will recognize and protect other lives, shield them from the sun, protect them against the cold. We will in exchange plant new trees as our fore fathers did for time immemorial - an immemorial time that was not in our memory before - we will be picking the cherries that will become ripe this year too from the trees of deserted gardens, and next year we will look after the abandoned orchards where no tomatoes were planted this year.

The tribes of the wooden huts are learning their lessons on how to build simpler lives. What matters is not what properties we had - all gone or worthless now - but what we ARE, what we can be and do, and - we are discovering this new state of being - what we can share. Neighbors helping one another in raising the wooden cabins, the older children looking after younger brothers and sisters and neighbours' children, and when night comes, your neighbor dogs will bark to defend the tribe living in tents, campers, garages or cars. A new Thanksgiving Age will be coming for the earthquake pilgrims.