26 February 2022

– You know what the only difference between Tbilisi and Rome is?
We burst out laughing.

Some minor exchanges eventually engrave themselves on memory, as if there were a special place for them – not in the moment, but on the scale of events. Suddenly, you remember everything: the angle of light from a reading lamp, the dark rectangle of a cold, white balcony door, the ever-so-slightly rough texture of an armchair, a dusty bookshelf in the corner of your rented flat with lovingly collected books you would have to leave behind. The older I get, the fewer of these moments I seem to have. Still, this was one of them.
In some sense, it felt like the full stop of my youth.

We laughed – as loudly, as heartily as we could that cold February night. Sometimes laughter has something of wishful thinking: as a cleansing bell, it is supposed to create an elevated version of reality – and signal a shared belonging.

Three hours on the call across borders that had suddenly grown heavier and louder in those first days of the war. My husband was taken in a police car after only half an hour on the central street. They took him to a faraway island – a side effect of living in a seaside city with more than a hundred rivers.
My friends called me from Germany. A couple: he’s Georgian, she’s French. As for me, I felt surprisingly normal, for the first time in days. A bit insecure about my spoken English, as always, but alive.
My husband updated me on his whereabouts until the moment he had to give his phone away.
+37.4. My body temperature had nothing to do with the world outside.

In February 2022, I decided not to brush my hair until “everything is over.”

The next morning, I would cry; but by sunset, we would walk together with our friends by the sea. The yellow historic walls under the blue winter sky of my favourite city. The cold air was still over the white ice of the quay, but the sunlight was already burning-bright and warm in colour.
But it will be tomorrow evening.

– So, you know what the ONLY difference between Tbilisi and Rome is?
– No, you tell me.
– In Tbilisi, the taxi driver will lecture you on its history. In Rome, every taxi driver expects you to know it already.

We laughed.
And in that laughter, for a few fleeting seconds, I felt the ordinary world push back against everything that had suddenly become historical events.