Geodisney

Gaia is three years old and she knows it. Gaia is really sweet, very smart, and extremely loving. Gaia is curious and she asks between three hundred thousand and two million questions every day: not necessarily without repetitions. She is pleasant to spend time with, to talk to, and to play with. I love her in such a magnitude that I never imagined was possible. Almost every day now, Gaia climbs on top of her desk and stands on it. She calls me to her room and she then proceeds to throw on the floor every single object that she can find on top of the table. She wants me to get mad at her. If I calmly ask: "why are you doing this?", she tells me: "I want daddy to get mad". It's not like she leaves any space for doubt. If I try to gently put her back on the floor and tell her that I do not think this is a game: "that a game is something we should both enjoy, and I do not enjoy that you throw stuff on the floor", she just goes back up and does it agai...

The supermarket Is still only five minutes by car from home, but inside it's not what it used to be two weeks ago. It looks a bit like being in an apocalyptic movie. A cheap one. First of all: the silence. The underground parking lot is almost empty and the barrier at the entrance is already lifted, so that I don't need to push the button to get the ticket. Thoughtful. I get out from the driver's seat and start walking towards the entrance, while waiting for a zombie to come out of nowhere and chase me back into the car. The ambiance music is appropriate and just waiting to escalate abruptly for the danger scene. Amusing. I go up the escalator to find a non negligible amount of red and white tape that tells me where to go. Well. Mostly where "not" to go. I follow. The post office is closed and so are all other shops and restaurants of this tiny Swiss mall. The supermarket is open, as announced. Apparently I have to queue just to enter. There are signs on t...

There are videos circulating in WhatsApp and YouTube. Facebook too, maybe. Twitter? They have medium-long texts, nicely divided into frames, with calming pictures in the background and a soft male (or sweet female) voice that keeps the pace. As for the images, it's usually a mix of running children, blossoming flowers, two women of different ages on yoga mats on top of a hill at sunrise, people laughing heartedly, people crying, waves of the ocean, impossibly green forests, aerial views and views of the earth from space, extreme zoom-ins into the green left eye of a beautiful woman and extreme zoom-outs of planers, stars, and galaxies. Apparently this virus came to teach us something. Or it came because we had lost our ways (who knew?), we were not kind to the planet nor to each other. And we are getting what we deserve. Or a mix of the two. The virus came because it wants us to be more polite to each other. Spend less time on our phones. It really wants that we talk more ...

For some days, now, I haven't been sleeping at nights. I have statistics in my head, projections, exponential curves and numbers of deaths coming from all around the globe. I think of stock market dives, draconian measures of isolation, closed shops, closed parks, closed borders and empty airports. I think of the hospital beds we don't have. I think a lot about the word "triage". I play endless conversations with myself. I think of what it might be in one week, in two weeks, in six months. But mainly I think of what it might be in one or even two years. And numbers keep coming in, every evening, and people say things like: "wow, that's the highest death toll ever for one single day!" And then comes tomorrow and the deaths are more. Maybe double. And I know they will be more. Of course they will be more. This breaks my heart, but that's not what keeps me awake. Most people think of tomorrow. Of how tedious it is to stay at home, of how one misses...

Sto scrivendo un libro. È un libro di racconti e ogni titolo è un nome di persona. L'ho iniziato più di cinque anni fa, sullo "smartphone", prendendo una serie di appunti sulla gente che incontravo nella mia quotidianità e che non conoscevo e che sapevo che non avrei conosciuto mai: la zingara dagli occhi furbi che si guarda intorno dentro al bus 18, il cardiochirurgo più famoso della Svizzera, il prete della missione italiana di Norimberga, il rasta che si siede sotto al ponte di St. Francois e ogni tanto cerca di convincerti che gli servono due franchi per il biglietto del treno (ma che alla fine lo ritrovi sempre lì), il ricoverato-fumatore in pigiama di cotone fuori dall'ingresso principale dell'ospedale universitario... Persone reali che sono diventate, piano piano (molto piano) persone immaginarie. Le ho scritte e le ho riscritte fino a fondermi con loro. Fino a renderle una versione di me stesso in un arcobaleno infinito di possibilità. L'unico filo c...