Day 21, the absence

The silence wakes me at 6:30am. I think, it must not be 6:30 yet.
It wakes me again at 8am and I think, no it can’t yet be eight. I stay awake in the dark room listening.
Finally, I get up and go into the living room where the morning sun, reflected off the buildings across from us in the piazza, brings brightness into the room through our large french doors.
It’s as if it’s snowed in the night and everything is covered by a hush, by white, except when I peer through the curtains, nothing is pristine like that, just lacking.
Is this Sunday? It must not be Sunday.

In Italian, when you want to say, “I miss you [or anything]”, you don’t say, “I miss you”, you say “mi manchi”: “from me you are absent” or perhaps, “from me you are missing ”. It’s one of the verbs that took me awhile to get right, wanting instead to use it like an English expression, as if the verb was all about what I am doing/feeling (I am missing…), and your absence is implied; when instead it is about you and, mostly, your absence. I notice that you aren’t here, and from your absence my longing is implied.

Missing from me today are the church bells.
Absent from the piazza is everyone who would have come to the 7am mass. Absent from our large french doors are a glimpse of the old bicycle that might normally lean there against the arched stone doorway, with sometimes a brown hat in the basket. Absent from the benches are four or three with hair combed, maybe a tie, all close together chatting. Still absent are shawl-covered shoulders waiting for the later mass, shiny shoes and a sparkly dress, or the high heels and fresh up-do. Absent is anyone who would have stopped into Annamaria’s bottega for a last-minute ingredient for Sundays’ lunch before she closed for the rest of the day to rest only ever a half-day a week. Yesterday, even with the church doors closed, the piazza seemed much like it always does on any given morning: just without the kisses. From us they are missing: the two kisses, the brief embrace; a hand resting on an arm.

Just last week the bells were still ringing every morning and every afternoon at 3. I’ve only now, this moment, noticed that this week they haven’t been. Has another restriction been added? Is the young priest ill? Or maybe he’s just given up. I wonder if everyone will celebrate mass at home with the Pope. Will he speak today again of this boat we’re rowing all together? Will it be of any comfort to anyone’s solitude to know that they are one in the boats-full of ones at sea behind closed doors? I send out some messages just to be sure.

Is this Sunday? It must not be Sunday.
We will be absent from the large table at mamma’s house today, from the sometimes quiet ritual (when we are just five) and sometimes lively ritual (when we are 6 or 12 or more) of sharing the largest meal of the week. From us will be lacking the ravioli or fusilli , the sugo di domenica; the brasato di vitello or corniglio al forno, the insalata verde. Missing from us will also be the ciambellone, though for this G. will make an excuse to go and get a large slice to bring home, knowing this is her excuse to see his face this once this week; her way of saying, I notice that you aren’t here.