#11 Nel blu, dipinto di blu (English)

It’s Blue Monday today, the most depressing day of the year. Right, that’s a nice way to start a blog, isn’t it? But don’t worry, because that’s not what this blog is about at all. The title of this blog however does refer to the colour blue: Nel blu, dipinto di blu, a well known Italian song. Perhaps you doubt whether you know this song, but I am a hundred percent sure you do. Because when I start singing it now: Volare, oh oooh, cantare, oh oh oh ooh, nel blu dipinto di blu, felice di stare lassù, a very familiar melody pops up in your head, right? As Domenico Modugno sings it: flying and singing in the blue, the painted blue. Exactly, the blue from the original song from 1958 – which had Italy rank not higher than in the third place at the Eurovision Song Contest that year – refers to a bright blue sky. 

Around 15 degrees and hardly any wind are keeping any chance on a January blues far away

Exactly like the luscious sky in Rome these days: very bright and very blue. Lovely! From the moment I got back after the holidays, the sun has been showing itself from its best side. Around 15 degrees and hardly any wind are keeping any chance on a January blues far away. I’ve been starting my days with either a walk in the park – I even managed to get lost for half an hour in the glorious Villa Pamphilj which is only meters away from my place – or a cappuccino at the little bench of my local bar. Enjoying the weather as much as I could, I’ve been inhaling that fresh air abundantly last week. La dolce vita as it should always be, right?  

The car window opened and a low voice belonging to a man was hearable over the noise of the traffic. Of course, I knew these types just too well.

Not quite, as I discovered soon after. Last Tuesday I was waiting for the bus that – as always – was running terribly behind schedule, but with my face in the sun I couldn’t care less. The next moment I was rudely awoken from my daydream by a honking car stopping right in front of me. The car window opened and a low voice belonging to a man who outshone me considering the size of our sunglasses was hearable over the noise of the traffic. Of course, I knew these types just too well. Surely, he wanted to ask me where I was going, and whether we could drive up together in his car. I was not falling for those smooth tricks in any case and stubbornly I kept gazing into the sun, ignoring him completely. “Eela Anne, sono io, Alessandro!”. Oh oops, it was my flatmate who I had not recognised at all, due to his diva style sunglasses. Plus, he usually takes his motor, so I had actually no clue he also owned this beautiful, shiny car. Feeling grateful for the offered ride, I immediately started chatting away about the lovely weather, and how spoiled we were with all that sunshine after such a horrible fall season. Alessandro looked at me in surprise, have I not read any newspapers yet? Eh, no? Well, due to that heavenly blue sky an emergency smog alarm was announced the day before. Precisely because of the fact no rain had fallen for a while, all those tiny pieces of dirt didn’t come down and as a consequence, heavily polluted the air. Apparently, the air quality had been drastically decreasing for days already, reaching a low point now. Therefore, Rome’s mayor had announced contingency measures Monday night, prohibiting all diesel cars and older petrol cars to go on the road for a great part of the rest of the week. Call me ignorant, but when hearing about an ‘emergency smog alarm’ I always thought about those Asian cities with skies so grey and polluted that sight is limited to two meters, not about the glorious blue sky above Rome. However, I had learned something new at least and with regrets I thought back about all that ‘fresh air’ I had been happily inhaling thinking it was healthy. 

“Cicha!!!”, she yelled from my bedroom only minutes after she had started. I hurried to my room, what on earth was the matter?

A couple of days later – I was working from home – Ursula finally came by again, our cleaning lady, an amazing Polish woman full of wisdom who has been living in a village close to Naples for over 25 years. Due to the Christmas holidays, she hadn’t been here for over a month and the house was indeed a little less impeccable as usual. In the morning, I noticed all these long blond hairs being very visible on our black carpet and I realised that was a bit embarrassing. For the first time in my life, I understood those moms who – out of a certain shame about the state of their house – mop and dust the day before the cleaning lady comes round, and a little reluctant I hoovered the house that morning. If you’d asked me, the house was then pretty neat again. If you’d asked Ursula, the house was in a state of emergency. She nearly got a heart attack from the thought how on earth she would get our house clean in only three hours’ time. I’d like to stress here that Ursula’s weekly cleaning session comprises the same activities as those that many of us consider to be needed only once a year during the big spring cleaning. I reassured her that it wasn’t that bad at all but Ursula knows how to tackle a challenge and went full for it. “Cicha!!!”, she yelled from my bedroom only minutes after she had started (to be pronounced as Tsjitsja. That’s how she calles me and I have no clue why or what it means, but she has reassured me it’s a sweet nickname). I hurried to my room, what on earth was the matter? “Why, my Cicha, do you always have to put your handbag on the floor?” Eh, I don’t know, why shouldn’t I? “Don’t you know that all your money disappears this way, that it flows away into the ground?” As she saw my questioning glance she explained this old legend that says that when a woman leaves her handbag on the floor, she loses her money. Whether this was an old Polish or Neapolitan wisdom, she couldn’t remember. Smiling, I told her that I’d love to believe her but that I had to claim full responsibility myself for all my ‘disappearing’ money: unfortunately that happened every time I swiped my debit card again in the Roman bars and shops. 

Immediately, she wanted to start negotiations as an accomplished business woman, as one of my ‘lost’ coins turned out to be a very rare one

Surprisingly, Ursula turned out to be right. Half an hour later she triumphantly tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to come with her. I followed her into the kitchen where she had laid out several coins she had found in different corners of my room: under the bed, behind my desk and under the pile of clothes and handbags. I had ‘lost’ a whole one euro and eighty-five cents to that merciless money absorbing floor, the amount for two delicious cups of coffee in the bar in our street. Immediately, she wanted to start negotiations as an accomplished business woman, as one of my ‘lost’ coins turned out to be a very rare one. No matter what, she wanted to add this unique piece of fifty cents to her ample collection. While smoking a cigarette on the balcony, she told me all about her 500 beautiful and limited edition euro coins she had been collecting over the past fifteen years. Una vera passione, she called it, a true passion. Especially the coins of Greece, Vatican-city and Slovakia were the ones she was after. Curiously, I asked her about the Dutch euro coins, our King Willem-Alexander prominently pictured on them. She looked disapproving, shaking her head. They were not her taste at all, she said, no pieces of art. Plus, not very scarce, so not worth anything more than the value they represented.

I witnessed how another panic attack started to come over her

After her short break, Ursula continued the cleaning, and after three hours of very hard work I got the impression she was slightly satisfied about the miracle she had performed in our house. But then she laid her eyes on the windows, and her face clouded with horror. Due to the hours that had passed, the sun had lowered and was now shining brightly on our windows. Scandalous! They were so dirty you could barely look through them and I witnessed how another panic attack started to come over her. She could in no way leave the house and those windows in this stained and unwashed state?! While calming her down, I directed her to our front door, trying to comfort her. Because the reason for that slightly obscured sight was in no way the state of the windows. Surely it must be the smog! Had she not read any newspapers then?