Giulia Ausani- Milan, Italy
"Really? The government is telling me not to kiss my friends?" thought Giulia when Italian officials banned baci e abbraci - the nation's greeting of a peck on either cheek. Looking back, this was her first sign of the surreal, dystopian world that was to come. "It's scary" she tells me over Skype "Life has changed so suddenly."
Italy saw the storm coming, but the dark clouds were ignored. The first two cases were confirmed on January 31, and although the government suspended flights to and from China and declared a state of emergency, life went on. Giulia knows this. She tells me that the beginning of the outbreak was littered with misinformation and bad governmental decisions. Authorities, politicians, and even some doctors were dismissing the new coronavirus as a normal flu, and people were very unwilling to accept the reality of a pandemic. Milan mayor Beppe Sala posted a picture of himself on Instagram on February 27th addressing the pandemic - exactly one month before Italy would see its worst daily death count. In the photo, he is pointing to his chest. Emblazoned on a white shirt were the words "Milano non si ferma." Milan does not stop.
The last movie Giulia saw in the cinema, just before the lockdown, was Cats. She went to a screening with her friends, tipsy and laughing, and enjoyed one hour and fifty minutes of this surreal kitschapalooza, not knowing that it will be the last movie she would see in the cinema for a while. “If I had known that that would have been my last cinema night before a pandemic, I would have picked another movie,” she tells me, laughing.
The Cats screening now feels like a hundred years ago and these days, reasons to laugh are harder to come by. Giulia lives in Milan with her parents, in the Lombardy region of Italy, a city that now crops up in conversation less for its rich history, art and culture, but more for the fact that it has become one of Europe’s hardest hit coronavirus regions. Working freelance as a culture and entertainment writer, Giulia tells me that she only had to make minor adjustments in her work life: trips to cafes and libraries have stopped, and movie reviews have disappeared along with cancelled premieres. Where it has really affected her though, she tells me, is in her mental health.
For Giulia, the pandemic has become a constant trigger. “I have trouble handling my anxiety,” she says. The first two weeks of quarantine, she had panic attacks every four days and was constantly anxious. It came to a point where she was unable to discern whether or not the shortness of breath she was experiencing was because of anxiety, or an early symptom of the virus, which of course, only fuelled her anxiety further. “You’re like, ‘Okay, I have trouble breathing. Is it because of my anxiety, or is it because I have the virus? What is going on? Am I contagious? Am I giving this to my parents? What am I doing?’ And it’s just a vicious circle,” she explains.
Her mind on overdrive, she can't stop thinking of the worst. Her parents have grown used to her frequent questioning - a new routine in the household. Are you feeling okay? Do you have a cold? Do you have fever?
Four weeks on, Giulia tells me that she now has a better handle on her mental health, and has learned “how to drive my brain out of the spiral”. She stays in touch with her therapist via Skype or WhatsApp. She has also decided to take time out from the news, only opting for the daily bulletin which details the numbers of cases, recoveries and deaths that day. She tells me that even hearing the statistics is difficult for her, but it’s come to be a necessary evil. “If I didn’t know anything, I think that would be even worse for my mental health.”
Giulia knows at least one person who has died from the virus, a distant family friend. She says that although the person isn’t somebody she was close to, the death brought home the reality of the pandemic, and has shifted her perspective. “Some of my anxieties before this pandemic now feel less relevant,” she says. “Now that death feels so surreal, so close, you start looking at your life with different eyes.”
She has a grandfather who lives nearby whom she keeps in touch with over Skype. “We video call everyday,” she says. “Yesterday, we were Skyping and at the end of the call I said, ‘Okay, see you tomorrow!’ and he said, ‘No, stop, stop! I have to send you a heart now.’ He now knows how to send a heart. It was very cute.’
But Giulia also has a grandmother living alone in the Emilia-Romagna region, an hour and a half drive from Milan, who she says she is more nervous about. She is a farmer, used to being outdoors and finding the governmental order of a lockdown difficult to deal with. “Everyday, she calls me, and the first thing she says is, ‘So Giulia, do you have some good news for me?’ she says. “Sometimes she cries, and it’s heartbreaking.” Without formal education, Giulia says that her grandmother finds it difficult to grasp the numbers that they have come to anticipate everyday. “Everyday she looks at the numbers of deaths and says that it’s not improving. She’s kind of desperate.”
Her family had to cancel the annual Easter visit, too, which in normal circumstances would mean a big Italian lunch eaten al fresco. Now, all plans have vanished for the foreseeable future, replaced by phone calls with promises of what they will do once it’s all over. “We tell her, ‘We’ll take you to a nice restaurant so you won’t have to cook,” Giulia says, words that would usually lead to protests from her grandmother (‘No, but I want to cook!’).
As I write this piece, the travel restrictions in and out of Wuhan, COVID-19’s ground zero, has just been lifted. After 76 days on lockdown, trains and flights are operating again. Shops are beginning to reopen, barber shops are back in business, and people have begun taking advantage of the warmer weather to play outdoor badminton. Many are still wearing masks, and authorities are still armed with disinfectant sprays, but aside from that, it looks as if normal life is finally beginning to return in the city. I ask Giulia if this gives her hope. “Yes, it does,” she replies. “I know that we will survive this. As a society, we will get through it. It’s just we don’t know how long it will take.” She pauses. “I want to be hopeful though, otherwise, I’ll go crazy. It’s the only thing we can do.”
Giulia has been listening to Dua Lipa’s new album, Future Nostalgia
