My Riviera

December 5, 2021 Leonardo Ambasciano

Going to the seaside? Or trekking through mountains? You don’t have to choose here, you can have both! The Church of S. Anna ai Monti with the Gallinara Island in the background, as seen from Via Julia Augusta, between Albenga and Alassio (Liguria, Italy). 2021 Leonardo Ambasciano (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

This is the visual story of how an Autumn road trip through the Italian region where my family comes from helped me clear my mind after experiencing the most hellish situation at home.

2020-2021 anni horribiles

November 12, 2021 Leonardo Ambasciano

Protect yourself and those you love and care about. No ifs, no buts. Photograph by Marco Verch Professional Photographer, from Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

On 20 August 2021 I got vaccinated.

I asked the doctor at the vaccination centre about adverse reactions. The doctor hastily explained the potential side effects to me. I was far from being satisfied but then again I am quite the realist. In 2006 I was run over by a car while crossing the street on a zebra crossing and with the pedestrian green light on – as a result, I think I have an intuitive grasp of the unmerciful nature of statistics. In any case, it’s not rocket science: better to bet on a vaccine doing its work than risking death or some lifelong organ damage by catching a nasty bug. I gave my consent and the nurse proceeded to give me three jabs on both arms that granted me immunisation against diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, and chickenpox.

Three days earlier, a 20+ year high-school friendship crumbled and disintegrated because the friend in question had embraced nasty no-vax beliefs.

One month earlier, I had my second Comirnaty (Pfizer BioNTech) Covid-19 vaccine shot.

Two months earlier, a relative told her oncologists that she did not want to be vaccinated against Covid-19 because she “wasn’t ready to die.”

And then, I suffered a complete breakdown.

But let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

The Future I Dreaded So Much Is Here. And It’s Scary (and Hot) as Hell

July 8, 2021 Leonardo Ambasciano

Another place, another time. Liguria, Italy. 2016, (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Leonardo Ambasciano. — **Another place, another time**. Liguria, Italy. 2016, (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Leonardo Ambasciano.

In 2019 I saw the effects of man-made climate change with my own eyes.

It was a scorching 40°C outside, well above the usually mild June temperatures of the Ligurian Riviera. The air was blistering hot, like the devil’s breath. The pitiful shrubs and the wilted flowerbeds on the sidewalk reminded me of something from a bygone era, like fossilised remains of a poor urban planning from another century. The few and far-between palms on the boulevard provided no shade at all. An elderly lady fainted a few metres from me, collapsing lifeless on the ground.

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