Our system has to change and we will change it. For Love’ sake

I have seen this view hundreds of times, yet I can see its Italian charm only now. I am Italian too but now I am looking at my teenage and childhood life from outside. It feels almost like we are two different people and like in the film I have recently watched; I am allowed to watch moments in life of the person that used to live in this very same body. A recollection of memories that get scattered to my present-self unexpectedly and leave me in awe. I am soon left wondering about all the people I met through my parents and that don't inhabit these places any longer, yet all I see seems so imbibed with their presence.

Stillness. Since I was ten and through all my teenage years, my parents have always taken my sister and I to the same beach. A very extensive length of yellow sand between two chalets that never becomes crowded with people. Stillness. The beach is the closest getaway to the seaside from the train station annex to a big parking lot and therefore the destination of occasional visitors. The other categories of beach attenders were mainly old couples, about half of which were locals while the rest, loyal seasonal vacationers. My sister and I never made friends on that beach due to a set of circumstances. Since I moved abroad, I didn't have the chance to visit every year and when I did the time spent there was shorter and shorter.

This year I stayed for a week. On my arrival, my mum tells me that the old lady sitting at the right-hand border close to the boat deposits is no longer with us. She was a local and a veteran of that beach. I zoom out for a second and I try to recall the last time I have seen her. I fail to dig it up just like for all the other people that went missing over the years on that beach. Except for my mum’s local friend who was not even fifty when cancer took her life in less than a year. The image of her standing on the promenade is a punch in the stomach. That was the only time in my life I was listening to someone knowing there wouldn't have been another time. Stillness. Underneath the stunning sun and in the idyllic midday silence, that beach seems immune to time, while life and death intertwine in the background.

Yet the death on that beach seems more present and alive than the living to me. The Adriatic sea is a relatively shallow string of water between the East Coast of the Italian Peninsula and the Balkans. The water is as hot as a broth while this summer has marked a new historical record in temperature. I was a teen when I used to pass a wet hand on my stomach and neck before slowly advancing through the coolness. Now there is almost no relief in the water. I am floating in it with my belly facing the sky. Even my ears are covered by the water so that I am isolated from outside noises and I am left contemplating my own thoughts.

I think of my parents’ neighbours that we met while going on a walk. They run us through a list of all the residents in the building who have just installed air conditioning to cope with the “unprecedented” heatwaves, including themselves. Now they can enjoy proper sleep during those equatorial nights. In a ten minute heartfelt conversation, the words “climate change” found no room. Stillness. Once again, this place along with its people can give the impression of being untouched by time. Once again, I felt like the only one to notice the shadow of death in that conversation while I graciously tried to divert their attention to Her by saying: “And this will be the coolest summer we will remember in decades to come”. The next day, we met the husband of the couple and he told me that my words made him think. I guess I was successful at puffing someone's sacred bubble of vacation relief.

Stillness. I think of the smiley people playing and bathing in the sun; it seems there are way too many bubbles to puff. I feel as frustrated as impotent. I get my eyes on the mountain cliff where the old town lies and that once used to shelter villagers from pirate attacks. It’s a beautifully picturesque view. After 6.30pm the sun sets behind it, covering our beach with the mountain shadow. I wonder whether water bombs and storms as extreme as those that have affected the North of Italy in the past years might cause the cliff to crumble down, along with its old stone houses, covering the downtown and our beach in mud. That thought felt too plausible and not remote enough. I felt even more impotent. Death was also underneath my body; my dad always tells the story that when I was a child, on the shore one could just take a handful of sand and find clams and cannolicchi. I have no memory of that while I do remember the sea rocks being covered by mussels that have now left the place to bushes of mucilage.

My other parents’ friend and neighbour is rumoured to have been looking for apartments on sale in the Alps while wanting to get rid of his summer flat, in our same building. He seems to be the only one aware of climate change; cynically trying to escape its effects before everyone else realises and the value of his apartment loses market value. Death is looming all around me and I question all my efforts as a degrowth activist. I suddenly feel under the Upper Hand. “Shall I just enter the bubble of indifference and ignore the omens of death all around?”. Since I reunited with my parents in Italy, I have turned off the news over the genocide in Gaza but death seems to chase me also in the place where I used to celebrate life with my family. I want to evade it all but at the same time I even feel guilty for the luxury of vacationing. On the other side of this very sea the water is coloured in bloody red while my country is complicit in that genocide. I stay in the water. I look at the old town and suck its beauty like it was the last time. I thoroughly observe all its details so that I can save the picture of it in my mind.

I get out of the water and go to shower off the salt. The shower doesn't release any water since the Municipality has rationed it on the beaches due to the extended drought that has been affecting the area. I walk to our umbrella and I sit next to my parents. I look around. I have never felt so much love for that place before. It might have been the last summer of Stillness. I spent the rest of the time in Italy trying to switch off the idea of death while channelling that tension against life in being fully present in the moments shared with my family and friends. I shouted out lyrics and danced non-stop every time I could in the places and with the people close to my heart.I congratulated that guitarist; he gave the impression there was no other place on Earth he wanted to be while he was playing in front of those one hundred people despite having performed for thousands on major stages across the country. His passion and rousing touch reminded me how things feel when perfectly in place. I entered a bubble of love and I got a reminder of the life that is at stake in the face of the climate and biodiversity crisis.

Sometimes one fights for what they think is right and how they believe the world should be. That can feel far-fetched and exhausting. Fighting for what one loves is a long-term lymph that runs through our bodies and never leaves. It just needs to be rediscovered. I travelled home to Copenhagen with this new perspective, ready to commit to Degrowth group’s activities again and take to the streets for a Free Palestine whenever possible. Our system has to change and we will change it. For Love’ sake.