I’m Riccardo.
I married Maria four years ago and we have a child, Ludovico. He is 2 years old. I live in Conegliano, near Treviso, a town nestled in the Prosecco hills. The very famous Italian wine. The whole world has been raising the glass full of it until yesterday. And even today, after all, “drink about it” it’s not a bad idea.
My wife and son are now at home. Maria works for a travel agency and Ludovico cannot go to the nursery with his friends, not yet.
Instead I am a bookseller.
I have been doing it for ten years. A nice slice of life. And for four years I have an independent bookshop. All mine. Another daughter, basically. Or maybe another wife, I should say. It depends on the days.
Among orders, customers, presentations, I work every day. With passion of course, but most of the time far from home. During the quarantine we rolled up our sleeves. Like many booksellers, I activated a delivery service that kept me close to the customers. Now who knows. We’ll see.
I like what I do. A lot. It makes me a prisoner of deadlines and payments, today more than ever, yet strangely I feel free. As a child I remember saying that I would be a physiotherapist. Or better yet, a footballer, as a good average Italian. Maybe I also got rid of that ‘average’.
Before this 2020, the most particular year in my thirty-seven years was 2016, when I decided to open my own business. A library. Independent. Saying it out loud still cuts my breath. A beautiful freedom, chock-full of responsibility.
An epochal change. Even then. Like now.
I may not know everything about what we are going to get tomorrow, but I think I know a few things about today. Today I know that I am afraid of my future: I have many question, and culture, my sector, is on its last legs.
At the same time, however, I also know that I am not afraid of living. To live, get underneath and face it, this scary future.
I really wish me, my family, all of you all the best.
