Illustrious Director Feltri,
I know that only she will understand me since she has publicly expressed her aversion to vacations several times. I am a hostage of my wife, who keeps me at the seaside for a whole month. I will return to Milan after mid-August. But I have had enough vacations already. It all ends in traffic jams on the highway, in lines at the bar, at the toll booths, in the airports, in fights to conquer a piece of beach or a beach umbrella with its deckchair whose cost has further increased this year, so much so that the monthly expense is equivalent to renting a studio apartment in the city center. I return home more tired than before, more stressed than before, angrier than before, poorer than ever. I might as well not have left.
Vincenzo Gozzi
Dear Vincenzo,
the ones you listed are the reasons why I haven’t been on vacation since 1982 and since then I’ve lived considerably better. After two days at the seaside I had had enough of the beach, the sand, the salt water, the noise, the rampant rudeness in vacation spots, the endless queues even to buy an ice lolly, the obligation to pretend joy and happiness, in short, the whole package. Since I suffered so much from vacation stress, which is a fairly widespread malaise that doesn’t only affect you and that begins even before leaving, manifesting itself in a state of anxiety, I decided, with all due respect to the senses, to work 365 days a year and to erase the word vacation from my vocabulary. In this way I discovered the beauty of the city when it empties and becomes calm and silent. Every year I wait for the moment when the Milanese get out of the way, clearing the streets of traffic, to crowd together on our coasts, which extend for kilometers and kilometers, but who knows why we all find ourselves in the same square kilometer. Milan appears almost different, transfigured, without cars, pedestrians, bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, scooters, trucks, horns, people running, coming and going, walking frantically, filling the subway cars and also bars, clubs, restaurants, downtown streets, shops. This is the ideal time to enjoy the metropolis and rest while staying comfortably at home. The economic savings are also significant. And this is an advantage not to be underestimated. I’m not saying that you should never move from here, let’s be clear. But it’s better to move when millions of people aren’t doing it at the same time. In short, it’s smarter to go against the grain: everyone goes to the beach? Well, then I’ll stay in the city. Everyone’s in the city? Well, then I’ll go somewhere. Humans, however, can’t do it. They just can’t manage to slip away, to take the alternative route. They prefer to follow the herd, which in this period leads them to the beach, to do what everyone else does, so as not to be less, so as not to feel excluded or different, so as not to find themselves alone, a danger they flee from, their greatest fear. Solitude, after all, requires that we scrutinize ourselves, that we look inside ourselves, that we reflect. It forces us to confront that individual who lives inside us and whom we cannot tolerate. In the silence of the emptied city, here come to the surface truths that we have been pushing back into the depths of our minds all year, suffocating them with noises, commitments, various frenzies, controversies, arguments, appointments and deadlines. This is the reason why everyone escapes from cities: to avoid the risk of finding themselves alone. Alone with themselves. But it so happens that I am my own best company.
Yet summer, especially the period from mid-July to the end of August, is not without its inconveniences and disadvantages even for those who rebel against the fashion of traveling. I ran into one of these inconveniences just last Saturday, when I found myself wandering around for over an hour looking for a barber. A futile effort. I came home bearded and annoyed. And what about the closed newsstands? Not being able to buy newspapers in the morning is torture for me. I receive them in digital version, but I like to browse them, touch them.
I have an absolutely carnal relationship with newspapers, like a paper pervert. And then there’s the issue of bars. In August you find two or three open. The same goes for restaurants.
There is nothing to be done. This world is not made for people like us, who only want to work.