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   September
   October 8, 2022
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   Written on my iPad, and my laptop, and
   whatever device I could lay my hands 
   on in the course of two weeks
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  It's been a long summer, and for some reasons even longer than
  I expected. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining: I used to
  love summer as a kid, when I used to spend, every year, three
  months close to the sea; and I love it now, even if my moments
  of freedom are much shorter than those I grew up with, and the 
  season has become a patchwork of work and rest, traveling and 
  staying at home, sea or lake or mountains, and spending time 
  with the family or alone... Perhaps this is one of the reasons 
  why Summer never seems to end!
  
  Another reason is that, right when I was expecting the new
  season to begin, I found myself projected in a different place
  and, apparently, time of the year... But let us start from the
  beginning. 
  
  London's weather was already getting colder and, after a very
  dry summer, the first week of September was bringing us a decent
  amount of rain. My niece was visiting and El had just left to 
  visit a friend in Otranto, Italy. After just a couple of days
  into this new routine, El called me saying she was not feeling 
  well and she had decided to take a covid test. And after just 
  a few minutes she called me again, saying she was positive. 
  Thus, in the very same days when people from all over the world
  were flying to London for the Queen's funeral, I was flying away 
  from it directed to Otranto, with the aim of carrying El to 
  another place, assisting her, but above all be close in case
  anything bad happened.
  
  For the first few days, my concerns about El's health, together
  with uncertainty about the future and the fear of not being able
  to do my job well, were way bigger than the enthusiasm, or even 
  just the curiosity, of being in a new place. As soon as I saw
  some improvement in her condition, though, I started to take
  some time for myself, either in the early morning or at sunset, 
  to have a swim in the Adriatic Sea, from a small public beach 
  that was just a few minutes' walk from our place.
  
  Despite the difficulties we had during that week, I have very
  good memories of it. Perhaps because the following one got
  unexpectedly harder, with El's frustration of not seeing her
  conditions improve after she got negative, while having to 
  move from one place to another. At the same time, my dad was 
  hospitalized due to a pericarditis, and at the end of the week
  El and I had to fly back to different destinations. 
  
  But, you know, I think there's something more to it, something
  that does not make that week better just a posteriori, as a
  comparison to the following one. Perhaps it was because, at
  last, I was back into the sea. Perhaps because that happened
  when I least expected it, a summer whiplash in an unforeseen
  place. Or maybe because, in those moments, I felt I was in the
  right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.
  
  
  During the last swim I had in Otranto, another man in the sea
  started talking to me. I am not sure whether it was me being
  a good listener or as talkative as him, what I know is that we
  went on swimming and chatting until we were far away from the 
  shore and our fingers were all wrinkled. It took us a while to
  get back, and saying that in the meanwhile he narrated me his 
  life is not an understatement.
  
  Paolino -that was his name- was originally from Naples and he 
  ended up working in the northern part of Italy (actually quite
  close to where I was born) for years. He decided to move back
  to the south, looking for a more quiet life, after he had a
  heart stroke. Retrospectively, he saw it coming: he could 
  precisely remember all the symptoms he had that morning, while
  commuting to work, when he decided to turn his car around and 
  head to the closest hospital instead.
  
  The following morning my sister called me. She said our dad
  was not feeling well, even if his GP had seen him and said 
  it was nothing serious. She then started describing me his 
  symptoms, which were exactly the same ones Paolino told me 
  the day before.
  
  
  I guess I was indeed in the right place, at the right time.