Week 39 - We check in with Ellie, in words and pictures

 Edited BY


G P Kennedy


Ellie - Milan, Italy


I recently read that early humans followed the season cycle so effectively that they also hibernated in winter.


It was an article arguing about the wisdom of time past that could get us through the current stage of humanity's experience and inviting us to consider the lockdown as hibernation.


While this kind of hibernation has been going on for almost a year, the winter slumber forced by both a lockdown in Lombardy and the unusually cold wave in the past month has been a welcome state of existence here.


So all plants are inside and we are trying to make do with work and entertainment that can be confined within the house.




I've decided to start reading the Divine Comedy this winter, with completion to coincide with Easter.


This is actually a tradition in Italy, at least some decades ago, when public reading of The Comedy was done marathon-style in the three days before Easter.


You see, this is how long Dante the protagonist was lost in the forest that took him through Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise to emerge exactly on Easter.


I have three friends who are joining me on this adventure, remote, and we hope it will give us the wisdom necessary to face the months ahead.




Physically, the plants are not doing very well and as their guardian, I am trying to find ways to bring them back to life.


This dracaena, for example, is reduced to a little stump, due to stem rot.


There is hope that she will survive and make roots in the spring.


I'll keep you posted if I am successful, for the sake of the dracaena.






We are not completely confined. In the few moments in which we can go out, I saw a neighborhood fellow plant lover has come up with some creative rooting display on their windows.


When spring comes, I am definitely going to approach them. Don't you think you can always trust a plant-a-holic like this for wisdom and reliable information?















As it is getting dark, I am heading back with a cup of espresso "to go".


Yes, we are back to that phase. Ciao from the streets of the province of Milan!

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