THE BELLS FROM THE Church of Santa Maria Segreta announced the 4 o’clock hour with a brassy clanging that reverberated throughout the Piazza Nicolò Tommaseo, a small park with a courtyard in central Milan.
It was the last Sunday of the summer, and the weather was perfect: blue skies, warm air with a light breeze. I reclined into one of the many park benches and observed the local denizens going about the waning hours of their weekend.
The seat I occupied was along a row of benches in which I somehow coincidentally met the age demographic; i.e., it was where the old folks rested.
Two more rows of benches were situated perpendicular to the Senior Citizens lineup.
The row to the left was populated by some teenage ragazzi (boys). They apparently got the memo to dress alike, wearing black T-shirts and jeans. They smoked and vaped incessantly as they scrolled on their phones, occasionally sharing some amusing video. They jostled one another and pretended to be unaware of the four ragazze (girls) directly across the square.
The girls, on the other hand, did seem to be completely oblivious of their male counterparts, as the four young ladies blasted some electronic dance music and performed an impromptu Courtyard Karaoke, singing along animatedly, replete with choreographed arm gestures.
Eventually and perhaps predictably, one of the boys finally got up the courage to amble over to the girls. I could almost hear David Attenborough narrating this behavior as he might that of some exotic male bird strutting and dancing to impress a potential mate.
While the burgeoning adolescent romance played out, a number of smaller children were practicing their bike riding (sans training wheels), or climbing trees, or kicking around a soccer ball. In all of these activities, the kids were accompanied by their dads (presumably).
I could only imagine the mothers in these families instructing the fathers to get the kids out of the house for a few hours of peace and quiet before the Monday workweek blues kicked in.
IT IS DIFFICULT to walk more than a few blocks in Milan without running into one of their urban open spaces. These areas might be anything from a couple of park benches under a few shady trees to a courtyard dedicated to some national hero* or saint to a sprawling, verdant sanctuary of ponds, trails and meandering, rolling lawns.
I envisioned the afternoon activities at my park — Piazza Nicolò Tommaseo — to be repeated throughout Milan (and every other city and village in Italy) on this afternoon. And it is not hard to believe that it has been playing out this way for millennia. The social norms, the clothing styles and perhaps the technology has changed, but humans, being social creatures, continue to do what they have done for just about ever.
*This particular park’s namesake, Niccolò Tommaseo is one of those national figures. He was a 19th Century journalist and author most notably acknowledged for compiling the Dizionario della Lingua Italiana, an eight-volume work.
Sherry & George 