Viareggio

If I cannot travel, I might as well reminisce.

Viareggio is a quintessentially Italian seaside town on the Tyrrhenian, equidistant from Pisa and Lucca (https://johnpavolotsky.wordpress.com/2019/11/30/lucca/), our base for a 3-day visit to Tuscany this past October.  The vibe is art deco.  A certain timelessness pervades Viareggio; it seems that little has changed, and but for cataclysmic intervening events, little will.

It is Sunday, sleepy and overcast.  The sea air is still warm.  So is the water, but few are swimming.  The beach is emptier, but the promenade is still busy, with families strolling and, of course, enjoying gelato, while others are just enjoying the scene.  Fall is in the air, and winter is around the corner.  The water will become colder, the beach emptier, the promenade perhaps less busy.  The air will become crisp, the sky more clear, as the natural rhythm of the town undergoes its typical seasonal transformation.  Winter will turn to spring, as beach clubs reopen, and summer will follow, with its crowds, trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the bigger cities in Italy.  International tourists, from continental Europe, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, will descend on Viareggio, followed by perhaps more adventurous visitors from the United States, in search of a place off the beaten path, warm water, fine sand, friendly locals, a slower pace, and a break from the museums, galleries, and historical landmarks.

I can only imagine Viareggio now.

The last few months have, at least temporarily, shattered our paradigms.

Traveling, even locally, has been replaced with “shelter in place” or true lockdowns.  Stores shelves are partially stocked and with respect to some staples, like paper products, not stocked at all, due to rampant hoarding.  Staring at full wine shelves, a fellow shopper, wearing an post-apocalyptic (but quite sensible) combination of N95 mask and sunglasses, asked why shoppers could not have bought more wine and less toilet paper.  I was able to pick up a very nice local Pinot.

The home office is now the office.  In fact, every available table has been sequestered and transformed into an office environment.  The home gym is now the gym.  Home schooling is now schooling.  Distance learning, to some the future of education, is here now.  I am quickly becoming an expert on Zoom, conducting my first virtual negotiation exercise for a (now online) class that I am teaching.  Almost overnight, I have become the Chief Information Officer of my household, troubleshooting videoconferences and connectivity issues and planning IT infrastructure purchases.  Planned projects around the house are harder, if not impossible, to ignore.  This week I attended my first virtual birthday party.  Music and art instruction have gone virtual as well.  One day blends into the next, almost seamlessly.  It is the first day of spring, but many may hardly know or appreciate that.

It could be worse.

On the plus side, most likely my dog can hardly believe her good fortune.  Longer and more frequent walks.  More attention and time with her favorite family.  No more castigations for barking during conference calls.  Every cloud has a silver lining.

With the current mitigations, as well as thoughtful and purposeful action (and, more importantly, restraint), I am hopeful that we can bend the coronavirus pandemic curve sooner than later.  In the meantime, I hope that, through this unique (and uniquely tricky) time, we will become better at conserving scarce resources, empathy, planning, using available technologies, and learning new skills to help us deal with a future that will be quite different from the more recent past.

Comments welcomed.