I forgot about New Jersey last night. On a typical night I am awake around 3:00 a.m. Tizi wakes me up, or I wake her up. We’re very quiet about it, being awake at 3:00 a.m., very considerate, very careful not to disturb each other, even though I have already disturbed her, or she has…More
Tag Archives: covid
Covid, Quarantine, Italy–getting ready to not go home
My last name ends in yogurt. Tizi is on the phone with a health-care professional up the hill, at the hospital in San Marino. It’s the day before our departure. Both of us have just tested positive for Covid. Over here they call it a tampone–the skewers that go up your nose and into your…More
When Images Speak, and We Listen
The reminders come. We see Nicola, the son of one of Tizi’s cousins. He’s in the travel business. I ask him how things are, if work is picking up since Covid. He says, Yes, and now there is the war. Later, his sister’s husband, Tomaso, who is in the food business, when I ask how…More
Safe and Sorry–faces on the screen
JFK was assassinated on a Friday. The World Trade Center was destroyed on a Tuesday. Coronavirus is every day. In 1963 I was in the 6th grade. My teacher was Mrs. Kauffman, a sturdy older woman I remember as humorless and purposeful. That fall I had a crush on Mary Pat Frost. On WKNX, the…More