The Italian summer is reappearing and to make it so I fear that the usual script will also reappear. First of all the dramatic one: drought, arson which will devastate hectares of greenery, elderly people and abandoned dogs, kilometric queues on the holiday routes, everyone on holiday in the same days without having yet learned to dilute absences, no one who will do essential work in the metropolis taking advantage of the little traffic, suspension of politics, closed offices, locked shops, that sense of emptiness that will frighten and anguish.
Then, at the end of summer, a few torrents swollen with fresh rain will overflow, causing disasters. Similar to previous years. This is how it works in this country: things happen and are immediately forgotten. No one ever touches the future by following the lessons of the past.
The usual script
But there will also be the script of the pleasant summer: mussel feasts, watermelons, the silly names of the anticyclones, the barbecues, the intelligent departures to go on silly holidays, the summer catchphrases, the sexy movements in the villages danced by the puppets , happy hour on the beach with pathetic applause for the sun that will sink on the horizon, tattoos to bring back to town like hunting trophies, fifty-year-olds in boots who will feel like showgirls and their husbands, a bit Clooney at the amatriciana, driving jeepponi. And in this riot of the ephemeral cafonal, we will have the usual psychopaths who will spend their holidays at the edge of a fountain washing the car. Even the press is preparing for its usual stale summer blitz. Make way for the cracked chronicles. The tronisti with Tenax, the Silicon Valley starlets, the competitors of the fake reality shows will triumph. All perfectly in line with this ignorant country that has promoted gossip on merit. We are a nation with no more saints, no more navigators, no more heroes, but where those who show their backs on the island of famous boats become acclaimed myths. The summer of all time is back. Tor Pagnotta’s girls burned to the bone to look like garotas from Ipanema. Torpigna with the striped slip. All the TV in rerun. And the usual news that will show us the holiday fever in Riccione. As if we were in the 60s. Instead it is 2023. But there is also the beautiful side of the summer holidays.
The beauty of madness
Because summer is the season of madness. Writer Patricia Briggs noted that men say a lot of things in the summer that mean nothing in the winter. Very true. Often in the summer we pretend to be different from who we are, we make promises that will not be kept, in short, as they say in Rome “we expand”. But not for the love of the lie, we do it because it’s nice to do it, because life in winter is so hard, between climate and work, that a mad break serves to breathe hope. In summer we are as we would like to be all year round. This concept was expressed perfectly by Massimo Gramellini who, in a book by him, tells us about when he had a formidable crush as a boy. Between fires and guitars, by the sea and inside a sleeping bag. Because everyone, says Gramellini, once in their life, has the right to believe that the summer songs were written especially for them. The great Ennio Flaiano also wrote about summer: «There is only one season: summer. So beautiful that the others go around her. Autumn remembers it, winter invokes it, spring envies it and childishly tries to spoil it». What beautiful words. That’s right, the Italian summer has something special that doesn’t just have to do with the weather. Summer is a state of mind, a worldview, a philosophical consolation. In summer, the most important things in our existence happen. We fall in love, we meet friends who will accompany us forever, we travel, we discover enchanting places, we find time for rest and reflection, we don’t go to school, we make plans and above all we have fun. It is the season of our carefree youth that we will remember in old age with a smile on our lips. My dear friend Leo Benvenuti, the screenwriter of Fantozzi and Amici Miei, said with a melancholy observation that after all, life “is twenty useful summers”. He was right. Those twenty summers of our youth color the memories and balance sheets of our entire existence with sunshine and joy until the very end. Among all this, of course, think about health. Sunscreens and beta-carotene to avoid burning in the sun, magnesium and potassium to replenish mineral salts when you sweat, vitamin C if you smoke. Stay away from frozen drinks, they block. Head always wet or with a cap to avoid cuddling. Mosquito spray so you don’t go crazy. And above all, sleep, sleep, to recharge your batteries. Because then the summer ends and we start again. Better rested than sleepless.
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