A late April evening, the first warm wind blows through my hair, the moon is full and illuminates the contours of the nearby mountains.
Before going to sleep, I stay a little longer in the garden, surrounded by the deafening silence that marks the days in these months of Lockdown.
Stop still. We paused everything, we blocked our favorite song while we sang at the top of our lungs.
At first, it was almost scary not to hear the noises of cars, the whistle of the train leaving the station or the slamming of the neighbors’ door coming home from work.
But as Frida Kahlo wrote, “at the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”
I tried to welcome those silences, to appreciate them, mindful of how incredibly human beings can adapt to situations. A bit like the roots of trees… they go around the obstacle and, deeply rooted, they continue to grow.
During that late April evening, two eyes took my mind off myself. Scared and a little disoriented, a deer had stopped beyond my gate. It peered at me, but after a few seconds it ran away towards the hill and lost itself in the darkness.
It’s true, it’s not so strange here in Abruzzo to have close encounters with deer, bears and roe deer, but it is if we think about how Nature is recovering its spaces, continuing to put on a show.
While man takes a step back, the Green starts to grow almost overwhelmingly on the sidewalks and among the pebbles of the crowded streets.
Throughout the world, the Lockdown has brought a decrease in air pollution.
And thus from the windows of the Punjab, north of India, the world’s largest mountain chain, the Himalayas, is visible after thirty years.
On the Brazilian coast hundreds of turtles, an endangered species, run free to the sea.
After 50 years, the dunes of the Canary Islands have returned to their former glory. It looks like the Sahara, a dream landscape, which has been put to the test until now by the continuous and incessant presence of humans.
In the Bosphorus, in a stretch of sea furrowed by oil tankers, dolphins are now playing.
The Earth, therefore, turns even without us and Nature takes its course reminding us that on this wonderful Planet we are only guests.
Now that everything slowly returns to the rhythms of before, probably the dolphins will disappear from the ports and we will not see so easily the ducks walking around the city undisturbed. The hope is that this period of isolation has had a beneficial effect on our minds and the hope is to be able to tiptoe back and enjoy the beauty that Nature gives us every day.
… Ah I forgot! I’ll be back too! Ready to accompany you in new exciting adventures 😉
Take a look at the EVENTS section of our website, the calendar is enriched daily with our wonderful Green Experiences!
See you soon!
Consuelo Crapanzano
Green Guide & Experience Designer