Cara Amanda, Anche se l’idea della mappa mi sembrava bella, farla è stato doloroso. In verde, quello che è in teoria consentito. In rosso, ciò che è inaccessibile e di cui sento di più la mancanza. I percorsi si sono ridotti a tre, con destinazione supermercato. Mentre normalmente preferisco i negozi sotto casa, e per fortuna ce ne sono ancora diversi, adesso li alterno alle gite al supermercato, un posto che detesto, solo per camminare in luoghi diversi. Alcune amiche stanno sul tragitto casa-supermercato dunque a volte ho fatto qualche deviazione proibita, anche sui tetti accessibili dal terrazzo.  Poter usare lo studio al 5° piano è un privilegio impagabile.Da quassù seguo i messaggi che appaiono sul grattacielo la sera e che sono già cambiati 4 volte: dopo il cuore ci sono state le scritte LOVE, HOPE e adesso LIFE. La signora a cui sono andata a chiedere nella portineria dell’hotel Ambassador dice che sono i custodi stessi ad organizzarle e le accendono poi un piano alla volta. Sono coinvolti 12 piani e una cinquantina di camere che restano illuminate dalle 18 di sera fino al mattino.

Ciao Simo, The first thing that the City Lab invitation to share your neighbourhood map made me realize was that I miss the feeling of a neighborhood. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade being in campagna for anything during this quarantine, but being an architect, the built urban environment is always of interest. I’m really curious about how our cities and our physical environments will adapt, along with the psychological and societal changes we will experience. But alas, I live the city life vicariously through your diary entries these days, and instead try to note changes in campagna on my percorsi a margherita.  

I say percorsi margherita, because it’s what Francesca called them when I was describing walks like a loop, where you end up back where you started, walks like the petals of a daisy. She said she heard it from the old woman at the top of our hill who asked her where she was going one day and she described a loop. So maybe this ‘percorsi a margherita’ phrase is a super local way of describing this kind of walk but wherever it’s from, I completely love it. I drew each ‘petal’ in a different color and saw that every day I have a choice of 8 different loops, each between 45-75 minutes, each with their own interesting landmarks of certain trees or structures.  I even have a train line, which is free of trains on Sundays and walking the tracks also becomes a possibility. These daily walks are my meditation time and how I monitor what is happening in my ‘neighborhood’. This includes how many people (if any) are also walking, who is working in campagna and what kind of work is being done, what vehicle traffic there is and is mostly cars, tractors, or ape? And then there is a different noticing and monitoring of the natural world on these walks. These days I’m mostly distracted by foraging wild asparagus. The silence is broken up by bird song and scattering lizards and geckos under the ivy and dried leaves.  An occasional snake. Cats sunning on stone. Sometimes the fleeting tail of a fox jumping a wall. Theirs is another neighbourhood, parallel to mine.