One year old

This article is published in number 2 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until January 20, 2021

It will be a very good year, as long as it is not new. I remember last New Year, the toast and kisses in pairs, smack smack on the cheeks, in turn to everyone, one after the other: happy new year, happy new year, and we saw it. Definitely new. In the past I cultivated the doubt that years used were given to us. As they say: used but well kept. A coat of white and voilà, happy new year. But he was old.

And that was fine, looking back now. What a silly Jeremiah: nothing ever changes, we said, we were a people of Sandra Mondaini: what a beard, what a bore. Nothing ever changes, maybe a government reshuffle, a salary adjustment, the most breathless of dilemmas in late spring: this summer sea or mountain? In Italy or abroad? It ended there. Berlusconi or Prodi, everything is the same. Messi or Ronaldo, everything is the same. The children were one year older, he didn’t even notice. A long and slow drag until Christmas, the usual menu, the usual gift, the beige sweater instead of the green sweater: here it is the maximum twist! And then on the 31st, happy new year, smack. I don’t want a good new year, I want an old year, a 2021 that, however, is a 1997 or a 2009, he just changed his shirt. Then it will be good, it will be excellent, no lockdown, no mask, no deaths, no full hospitals, give us a year as they were the healthy years of the past, boring but outdoors, hugging, listening to songs and not virologists. And I know, I am sure it will be a good year old, because man is a wonderful beast, and in ten months scientists have found the vaccines and European politicians have found the money: we will heal, we will leave again, we will still be those of yesterday.

To subscribe to Vanity Fair, click here.