Writing this post won't be easy.
The first Monday after the reopening weekend.
How are we feeling?
We don't know, too many emotions are chasing each other in our hearts, and as you well know, it's never easy to put a name to emotions.
A month ago we were in full lockdown.
20 days ago we were told that we would reopen [perhaps] on 1st June.
Last Sunday we were told we could open from the following day.
On Monday, knowing we could reopen, we felt happy, but breathless.
If there is one thing we have learned in these past few months, it is that at certain times the future becomes an empty space that you still do not know how you will have to fill.
And like a dragon materialising in front of you, our future has filled with fear, anxiety and tension.
But in these cases, as always, the best medicine is not to think and to just get on with it.
“Done is better than perfect, say the wise.
So last Monday we started tidying up our garden again.
Pot after pot, plant after plant, candle after candle…
We have restored a few items that the lockdown had taken away along with the time that would have been needed to maintain them, which was not granted to us for 50 days.
The little heater in the corner at the entrance and several small gaskets inside the bar needed our intervention...
Like the grass sprouting between the garden paving slabs that betrayed a neglect which was not our fault, but which we had not been given the time to manage.
Then little by little the magic began to take shape.
And that garden which, after 2 months of “abandonment”, was like a frightened ugly duckling has started to transform back into the fairy-tale corner we have known for years.
And emotions too began to change, and to take a name.
Fear turned into trust.
Anxiety has turned into Calm down.
The tension turned into love.
Everything was back to normal.
The phone started ringing again…
The voices of the suppliers as they deliver the goods…
The energy of the kitchen coming back to life…
The briefings, the “break a leg”, the “pats on the back” with the front-of-house team before service.
Everything was back to normal.
And the weekend has flown by.
Beautiful, intense, evocative and full of so many new emotions: this time, however, they were yours every time you step into this garden.
It is said that when children watch Walt Disney cartoons they know perfectly well that the dragon does not exist. But they watch them to the end anyway because they learn the most important lesson: that the dragon can be defeated.
I've realised what we've done in these first 6 days.
We have defeated “our” dragon.
Welcome back Lavatoio.
