It’s just about that time again, given the circumstances of the world and this particular country. Italy is headed back into lockdown again as of Monday, and that means life will become blah blah blah one year on and blah blah blah with no towns this year collectively singing ‘Volare’ from their balconies. I don’t even have the energy to synopsize all of it for you because you already know. It’s just another day in a series of This Is Life Right Now. 

I’m also too oversaturated to read anyone else’s one year on retrospective about what COVID has meant for us all. Much like military books of fictional writing, I do not wish to spend my free time trained on a topic that I’m fully immersed in all day. 

But I read things written in Italian, and as such I learn new vocabulary words every day. If I am being honest, I also forget most of those words soon after looking them up on my phone or computer. It’s not until typing in the same word three or four times that I finally manage to not feel dumb and actually retain the vocab. The 43-year-old brain simply does not fire like it used to. 

But I remember last weekend’s big word: it was “riccio”. After asking an Italian what that was and hearing the explanation (it’s a small animal with many spines), I understood it to be a porcupine. So you can imagine my guarded horror when I saw a woman approaching with a yellow bucket containing said riccio. How did she get that thing into a bucket without quills being shot at her? Wait, do porcupines even really do that or were the neighborhood kids full of crap? Are porcupines indigenous to Italy? Am I qualified to be trusting my instincts regarding a porcupine? Most definitely not. 

“Look at him!” she said in Italian, “he’s cute!” Apparently he was discovered on the patio enjoying a meal from the family dog’s dish before being scooped up. 

The riccio was to be relocated from her property (especially out of fear for the dog) and he was let out onto a free space of grass. From where we stood, it looked like one of those stiff brush things that folks use to clean the soles of their boots upon entering a house. Brown, immobile, and certainly no legs or head to be seen. Just “leave me alone” vibes coming from the grass. 

By this time, I’d broke down and turned to the gospel of Wordreference.com. Lo and behold, that’s where I scored one of the rare learn it one go vocabulary words. It’s a hedgehog…and much like a porcupine it’s another creature that I’d never seen in person (unless you count this old Saturday morning quiz show I watched as a kid).  

Playing dead in front of us below our curious eyes, it was clear that this little guy was not thrilled to have an audience. You couldn’t even see his little body breathing for a good few minutes, so still did he lay in that hyper-defensive posture. After a few moments of admiring his strangely beautiful yet spikey exterior, we knew it was best to give him some space. Life is hard enough getting by with the tools that nature gave us—who were we to make things more difficult?

We all returned to our mundane domestic human activities located several meters away. After a while— perhaps another ten minutes, he transformed into a sentient form. The hedgehog first nosed around (I could now see why the lady called it cute) and soon he was making way for a leafy, more camouflaged perimeter. We watched him as he moved north, so tiny and seemingly slow in his movement. As clunky as his makeup seemed, I wondered how hedgehogs had made it this far at all.  

Our level of attention soon faded from the animal as we payed greater attention to our menial tasks. And that’s when time slipped on and so did the hedgehog. He was suddenly gone from view. It was like a Houdini trick; from where we worked, it didn’t seem like there was anywhere for the guy to go in terms of exfiltration, but clearly he knew how to do it. The guy was going to live to fight another day. Just another bowl of dog food away from being discovered by another human. 

In the following week, I continued to think about the hedgehog. I thought about it after learning that some of our southern U.S. state leadership make unilateral declarations declaring an end to COVID so off go the face masks. Jesus Christmas. The odds are in favor of the balled-up Riccio if our species is relying on pandemic-scorning humans to make the big decisions. I know I’m being political, but remember that I’ve got a year of COVID over my face and nose. I believe in everyone doing their part to help everybody else. 

In those moments while we were getting a closer look at the riccio, there was something about him that I immediately identified with. It was seeing him all balled up in the grass– at first blush, an absurd form of hiding in plain sight that really does serve him as an effective self-defense mechanism. I can tell you for sure that there have been moments over the past year (and certainly long before) where I’ve fantasized that my best recourse is to do exactly the same: just lay down and roll up into a ball (in bed– not the grass) until conditions around me improved. 

While the notion seems nice, I honestly can’t say that I’ve actually opted to go that route of immobile panic. More often than not, it’s charging myself with coffee or something stronger before I charge off into another round of “Here goes nothing.” In truth, nature has endowed me with a few coping strategies that are more effective. Like reaching out to others, or reaching for my massive Maglite that I keep in the kitchen for eventualities that I hope will never come. I’m also not like the hedgehog in that I have a soft exterior that does little to help in defending myself from the perils that comprise my ridiculous adult life. With a decent mental and physical constitution permitting, I’ll leverage other tools to ensure my personal endurance.

And so, this is how I find myself sizing up today and the next lockdown just around the corner. Mascherina placed on my naso and bocca, and I guess a bit more of limiting my movements and trying to stay focused on the immediate tasks at hand. Around here, from what I see, that’s all anybody’s doing right now. We’re no better than the ricci. Even if next year looks drastically different— and I so very hope that’s the case— we’re still occupying this planet much like the other creatures running around. At least here in Italy, thank goodness the human food options go beyond what you get in the dog’s bowl.