(Falling behind! Seriously starting to lose track of time. I feel like I am in an eternal Sunday:

a sort of non-punishing version of the Groundhog Day).

I wake up in a great reset mood, and look back at the Day-7 picture of that table I spent my low day at:
– uninteresting papers everywhere,
– my laptop leashed to power like a dog that isn’t going anywhere;
– reading glasses that never left the bridge of my nose;
– traces of too many shots of espresso (of which I only truly needed the first, and only enjoyed the second).

I see myself in that picture: frowning, shabby, slouched over my worries.
Unattractive picture all around.

This morning I get a hold of my inner camera and re-take that picture, using all available settings:

* * *. *. *. *. *

PANORAMIC: Same room, starting from the table itself.
I open the angle to include
– the “princess bed” next to the table – the family’s #1 choice of the bed-ridden- ;
– our nurturing kitchen (conservative estimate: 1000 different tummies filled in this past year).
A wider angle, and I can fit in the whole villa, with all its kitchens and windows and beloved residents plus a variable number of international guests soon to return…

Increase the altitude of my imaginary drone, and I see the village, on top of this hill overlooking the renaissance capital of the world.
Keep rising, and I see all of Tuscany, the most diverse region of this country.
Up and up, I can make out the contour of a boot. That’s my beautiful nation, surrounded by a frame of Mediterranean blue.
Europe; Planet Earth. The Galaxy.

All of this for what? Nothing.
But the Milky Way sure puts a messy table into perspective.

* * *. *. *. *. *

TIME-LAPSE: I set it off and let it go for – say – a hundred years; only backwards. So all modern objects and neurosis can disappear.

This same table once was a church door from Positano.
How many hands must have pushed it open before it laid on it’s back and started serving pasta!

The princess bed: my great-grandmother, widowed early in life, had it made and placed in the large domestic kitchen where all the servants spent most of their days. She would leave her posh quarters and head to that unrefined haven where she would lay in the daybed to read to herself or to the maids.
She was wealthy and lonely – they were poor and together.
But while they were honestly earning their living, she was just begging for company.

As dire as the situation looks today, I’ll take poor and together over rich and lonely, any day.
(Looks like I will, too.)

Then there was WW2. This very room offered shelter to many human lives, and perhaps a ghost or two.
(Just to scale back the size of Day 7th’s accounting apprehension.)

* * *. *. *. *. *

PORTRAIT: I choose a detail on the table to focus on. Ah, the Villeroy & Bosh coffee cup and sugar bowl. We started with a set of 24 and are down to 5.
We sure served the hell out of that set. Put it to good use: early sleepy mornings, late sleepless nights, plumbers and electricians, guests from all over the world: whoever accepted an offer of coffee in this home of ours, got an espresso served in our finest china.

Looking at the portrait, I can make out a blurry silhouette of a sleeping cat and, farther, the church bell tower.
As I take the photo, it starts striking three. Too early for tea.
I’ll make myself a coffee.