The Virtue Of Banality

Eur lake. Rome, 19 May 2020

“We only have this virtue:
start everyday life in front of the earth,
under a silent sky
waiting for an awakening..”
So wrote Cesare Pavese in his poem “End of fantasy” of 1933.

And, after these long days of confinement in our homes, starting our days free really sounds like a virtue. The “awakening” to which Pavese refers is that of fantasy, of poetry.

I noticed last week, when I went to walk my 10 kilometers near home, how people walked in a different way, slowly, enjoying the walk itself and not as a way of moving from one place to another.

For the first time, yesterday afternoon, I brought the camera with me, to return to see, after two months, again through a viewfinder. Nothing mystical, mind you, life will soon return to normal as before. People forget quickly.

But seeing the water of the lake, the gushing waterfalls, the intense blue sky and then the seagull flying in front of me, gave me the sense of Pavese's verses: to begin life every day, waiting for the awakening of our imagination, because every difficult moment happens in life to remind us of something, which is not only the importance of life itself, but also the importance of small gestures, a walk or a hug, or to observe a flying seagull. And being able to observe it with different eyes is a virtue, let's not let it slip through your fingers just because now you can see it again, trivially, as if nothing had happened.

We learn from lessons.

 

Cesare Pavese: “Poesie del disamore” (Einaudi, 1992)

Italian version