When on 8 March 2020 lockdown was declared in Lombardy, I had a national flag in a drawer waiting for 17 March - the birthday of unified Italy - to be hung down from my balcony just for one single day. Suddenly it seemed to me very natural to begin the ritual early, fixing it carefully and looking at it while it was moving softly in the mild evening breeze, amidst the surreal silence of the neighbourhood riven only by so many, too many ambulance sirens: a suspended time, a time of fear and resistance that I was sharing physically with my fellow citizens, and virtually, with my relatives, friends and colleagues living far away.