We called this number of Chronicles Finding stability into the vortex because that is what we are asked to do, in a vortex caused by an epidemic (pandemic?), economic, and media event.
We collected stories from different countries around the world asking doctors, humanists and others to write a page of considerations or a narrative on COVID-19. As you will read, they are rashly reflections, because in the vortex there are no certainties to hold on. There is also a writing that wishes to be a bit like – without any pretence – Quenau‘s Exercises in style, where the COVID-19 epidemic is rewritten multiple times using the classifications accepted worldwide by Medical Humanities and Narrative Medicine. And finally, we put resources where we can find stability in the vortex: meditation, breathing exercises, to calm the tumultuous emotions and thoughts that belong to the vortex.
The Decameron – with all the sincere hopes of not being in front of the plague of the fourteenth century – was written precisely to allow ten days of quarantine to pass. Ten young men, seven girls and three boys, to escape the black plague that rages over Florence, gather in a country villa and to pass the time. Every afternoon (except for Friday and Saturday days dedicated to penance) each one tells a story to companions, according to a theme established the day before by the Queen or King of the day.
Each of us can find his/her favourite theme, even to be carried out within the perimeter of the walls… For today physical, for tomorrow, we only hope mentally.
