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“They say that friends are the jewels of the heart.

 No powerful king, no crowned queen

 can say to have a kingdom on Earth

 more precious than a friend”

I wrote this little thing so many years ago….I still keep it true to my heart when i think about how fortunate I have indeed been in my life for having met so many great friends.

They had accompanied me in different moments of my journey. Each of them giving me what they could and what I needed. To each of them I was always trying to give my best.

But even though I cherish so much the essence of this bond any gesture directed to me from any friend touches my heart deeply, as something that i found always unexpected.

Like unexpected have been the two gifts i received: one arrived at night from a real life friend. The other one this morning from a virtual one. 

Leaving me in both case…. speechless.

Last night I had already put my daughter in bed. The house was quiet, lights dimmed. My dog already snoring

I thought I had a good B-day, no matter how alone I might have been I didn’t feel alone. 

Then a soft knock at the door happened.

I wasn’t expecting anybody. The dog was already up, in guarding mode when I opened and I there was my girlfriend Pat.

She smiled and hugged me and handed me a small package and a bright yellow card. She said she couldn’t stand the idea of not giving me anything for my b-day, even if  nothing big. She had been out of town all day and was running home to her girls.

I was really surprised.

The little package was a bar of my favorite dark Belgium chocolate with a whopping 85% of cocoa…lol…she knows me good…and the card was just as sweet…….

We hugged. We knew so much of our lives… I remembered in a flash how we bonded during her nasty divorce, and how she helped me during mine. How we supported each other managing our jobs, carpooling, picking up each other kids, doing groceries for each other. She is the friend who run to my side when i got badly sick last winter. Didn’t i already tell you how fortunate I am with my friends? She is a nurse…lol.

And also…babysitting dog and girls, lending money and moving furniture, fixing broken vases and vacuum. Oh, so much  more…

In that hug there was all of this…..and even if it was a quick one, it was a true one.

She left quickly as she came and i went to bed with an extra smile on my face. Isn’t a smile the best gift a friend can give us?

That’s what friends are for…….:-)

Then this morning i got an even bigger reason for another huge smile on my face … 

I asked this person, before revealing her name here, if she was ok with me putting her in the spotlight…she told me she is not used to be praised so I will make it sweet and short.

This person is Mom.

Mom wrote me an email this morning telling that she wanted give me some money as B-day gift because she knew how worried i was about the money i spent for my trip to Italy.

I won’t say how much she offered…even if only one cent I would be stunned and speechless the same way i am right now……

It’s the fact that she thought of doing something so generous and kind and warmth to basically a virtual stranger like me that it is amazing.

Mom and I exchanged many comments and laugh here at SC….. we respect and cherish each other. Honestly, i wasn’t expecting such generosity toward me…i can only imagine how much love she can pour over her family and dearest friends if she can be so loving to me…  

I told Mom to please keep that money, that i couldn’t accept it and that the gift she wanted to give was already arrived to my heart.

She answered that she would be keeping this money apart with my name written on it so in the future if I might need it it would be there for me, no matter when.

Mom, I want to tell you, in front of Soulcast too, how much I am deeply touched by your gesture and your words and I want to thank you again.

You indeed have a golden heart.

I like roses. They are my favorite along with hibiscus, Oriental lilies, orchids and jasmine.
So when he said: “Today we are going to the Botanical garden. There is an English garden too”
I said: “Great. Lets go”
The day was just slightly veiled by sporadic clouds. Gorgeous weather. We strolled along the many, winded green paths surrounded by bushes full of flowers and little signs telling the name and the origins of each plants. There were ponds where beautiful water lilies were lazily floating. Just like these ones.

And Gulliver was trying to catch a butterfly.

Then we arrived to the large area where tons of roses of different color and smell were all aligned in a circle. I went crazy taking pictures of them. I think i took a pics of any single shade of rose.
These are the ones i like the most.

Oh, and this beautiful hibiscus too…

And then he said: “Now to my favorite spot. The Japanese Garden”.

**Unique, these pictures are mostly for you because we were laughing thinking of your Japanese Garden photos… saying stuff like “She will be so jealous when she see these pictures”…lol……Again, guys, we had Soulcast in our mind even there…..;-D**

The scenery was just beautiful: thick bushes and shady, tall trees, street lanterns, Japanese trees, the sand garden with the stoned path for meditating, the waterfall. No koi fishes in the ponds, though.

Then….all of a sudden everything turned windy and grey.
In the matter of few minutes big black clouds gathered ominously upon our heads. We kept saying “Oh its coming, its coming”
But we just didn’t want go back.
That was our day at the Botanical Garden, dammit. No stupid storm was going to ruin our fun. We were the only ones left in the garden.
I said: “Water, trees, storm. Lightnings. This is no good”
He didn’t care at all: he was like a fish in the water (how apt….lol…). He likes this kind of electric manifestations of Mother Nature. Me? I am terrorized by lightnings..
.
And then the rain started. Big, fat, heavy drops fell on our heads. We had no other choice than starting to walk fast and faster toward the exit.
We were quite distant though so when we finally arrived at our car we were completely, positively, amazingly, totally soaked.
My hair were dumped, his ponytail was dumped, my jeans soaked, his jeans soaked, his glasses all wet, my leather sandals had turned dark brown.
He looked at me and said ‘You could participate to a wet t-shirt contest, darling. And win it”

But it was just too fun. We couldn’t believe how soaked we got..
And then, with a grin on his face he said:
“So…uhmmm…….would you mind to go to some place, soaked up as we are? Or do you want change your clothes first?
“No way. Lets go now. But where?”
“I want to buy me a toy”
Can you guess what kind of toy was he talking about?
I was wide eyes open by the surprise, i have to admit….:-)

So we went to this shop and browsed along the aisle full of any sort of fun and interesting toys…..uhmm……toys in miniature and full size, toys of any size, color and shape, with batteries, without batteries, with strings and leather and plastic parts. Very fun place, indeed…….
Still didn’t get it?
At least could you guess this?
What do you think it happened when we went back to our room (with the brand new toy) to change our clothes?
I think you can guess this immediately.
Yes, i took a nice shower. That’s it…..
Wha??? What were you thinking?……;-P
Aren’t you a bunch of super smart people, you Scasters?

There was a place he wanted to show me.

I don’t know how any time this small park has been the object of pictures, comments and conversations between us or in his posts.

So we drove to The Park.

We left the car in a small area facing the beach where some brave family was fighting the wind, the incoming clouds and the cold water and we walked up hill.
I finally saw the two divergent paths. We chose the one less walked. Up to the stoned steps. (Hey, those are quite a lot )

We reached the low iron gate that marks the entrance. He was right, the park was really beautiful. Green, full of trees, secluded and so quiet. A side of it was facing the lake and I could see the underneath beach, the sand, the degrading green.

I saw the grass, the flowers.
And The bench.

The reason why we were here.

The breeze coming from the lake was so nice. So I sat on the bench and closed my eyes, inhaling the nice smell of the water and the gentle breeze. It reminded me of home. Specially because of the sound of the waves crashing on the beach. I still couldn’t believe it was only  a lake.

Then we sat on the grass and had a simple but delicious picnic with the food we had bought earlier that morning at one local Asian market. Mini veggie cakes, spicy chicken legs and Maki rolls ……oh, so good.

I had a bottle a water and he had ……Gatorade!!
(Yes, I got the proof, people……..its true…….he does drink Gatorade….a lot of Gatorade…lol…. )

After lunch, we laid down on the blanket. We lazily chatted remembering the many times we had talked about me coming here, he holding my hand and leading me to this place, me seating on the bench where he had written so many stories and posts and poems and letters.

“How come ants have always to do everything together? At the same time?”
“Collective brain. They are scary creatures”
“Yeah, i don’t like ants”

Silly words led to silly kisses. Silly kisses led to sweet ones.

We were passionately kissing and slowly turning the picnic in something completely different …i mean….the park was absolutely empty, secluded ….the trees and the bench wouldn’t have bothered some expressions of affection….:-)

But then…… reality snapped us back as soon as we realized how close some people had arrived to us.
Yes, those sneaky two granpas and their grandchildren have been silently walking toward us all the time of our pastoral kissing session.
Not a peep. Not a sound. They approached us silent like guerrilleros in the forest. Only when they got really close to us they finally talked and made some noise.
Oh, so nice of you, Mr. Rogers!

I turned my head and immediately tried to cover up my back.
“Shut, did they see me?”
 
It was too late for me to cover up anything anyway.
Fact is I was wearing very low cut jeans and while laying down i had literally half of my southern cheeks out in the open…enjoying the breeze…..lol…

He hadn’t see them coming either…his hand was still caressing my lower back when i whispered in his ear.
“I  think they saw everything”.
He tried not to laugh.
“Great. Of all the people that could have come here….. two granpas and two innocent boys”.
“Oh, you made papa’s day, baby’”

We started to laugh even more. Me seated now as most ladylike as possible…..:-D

The small group passed in front of us looking stiffly straight in front of them. They silently disappeared in the right green area as silently as they appeared from the left one.

Oh, drat. The magic was broken…….but we had to go anyway.
We decided that we would have “seriously used” the bench next time i would have come in Chicago.

“Maybe at night. Maybe we can go and lay on the beach too”.
“But the park closes after the sunset, baby”
“What?”
“Yes, its the rule”
“Rules are made to be broken”.
“No, rules are made to be followed. Think of them as the bones of the society body”.
“Lets say then that its a very stupid rule prohibiting to stay on the beach at night. In Italy we can go to any beach at any moment of the day and the night”
“Lets move in Italy then”

While we talked we cleaned the area, tossed our trash and folded the blanket.
We still had so many other things to do, places to visit, people to meet.
We kissed again on the bench though.
I told her bye bye, Arrivederci.

See you soon again, I wished.

And we left.

There is something I hate about love.

I hate the waiting.

For me, the undoubtedly proof that I am in love is only one: I start to wait.

I can tell you I have been in love in the past by the many times I have spent waiting for the men of my heart.

I have wasted a large portion of my pretty long marriage waiting for my ex husband. Waiting for him to come home, waiting for him to call me, waiting for him to take a decision, waiting for him to understand, waiting for him to pick me, waiting for him to tell me goodbye.

He did all of the above: he went back home, he did finally called me, he took the decision, he finally understood why he wanted, he picked me (at least the first time), he told me finally goodbye,.

Life while we wait is no life.

It’s a suspension of micro deaths that occur against our own will.

It’s a floating disaster waiting to happen or a looming horizon filled with imaginary battle fields bursting in flames.

Waiting is holding the breath and continue ad infinitum the silly lullaby that might calm the furious beast called “Not knowing”.

We try to soothe ourselves telling that everything is going to be ok, the man will come back, the voice will talk at the phone, the world as we know will not end.

Waiting is desperately looking for distractions to fill the sudden void, the gap between the promise that someone made and the absence of the action that only can release our heart from the torture of waiting.

Because waiting s a double headed monster.

In “Erwartung” (The waiting) by Schoenberg the woman waits in the wood the arrival of her lover. The drama is intense but waiting for a phone call in the safe of our home has the same intensity and level of anxiety.

Who waits doesn’t have the sense f proportions.

Waiting is like being under a spell, being bewitched….it leads to immobility. I don’t do anything until he arrives. Or calls or writes.

I prohibit myself to leave the room, the computer, the house for fear of missing him.

The person I am waiting possesses all the elements of a magical creature: he can appear at any minute, he can talk to me at any second, he can materialize his presence at any hour.

I am in love? Yes, because I am waiting. The other person never waits.

In his bestseller “Fragments d’un discourse amoreux” (Fragments of a love conversation) Roland Barthes talks about the characteristic of the amorous waiting.

He says “In this game of keeping themselves occupied and distracted who waits always loose: no matter what they do or think or what they read or listen to…they will always find themselves in the same position they were at the beginning: waiting”

There is a Chinese tale: a mandarin was in love with a courtesan. She then told him “I will be yours only when you will have spent one hundred nights seating on that tool, in my garden underneath my window”.

The mandarin sat and waited but at  the end of the 99th night he got up and left.

He wasn’t in love.

So…what are you waiting for?

If you would ever  ask me …….i would tell you….I come from here….The smell of the rain outside the window, left open in a summer night.
White curtains lazily swaying in the hot air of an August afternoon.
White laces of waves sparkling in the distance.
My semi closed eyes that make all the colors float ….My mother’s voice from the kitchen…
“Devi riposare. Dormi un poco che ti fa bene poi ti vesti e andiamo a mangiare il gelato. Va bene?“
(Sleep. At least a little bit. Take a nap and after getting dressed we will go to eat a gelato. Ok?)

Ok, mom….i will sleep….See? i am sleeping already…
Sweetness feeling of being safe….a feeling so long gone.

Sea weeds, dried on the sand.
Scattered patches of gasoline floating on the still surface of the water.
Translucent fishes sprinting underneath the boat. Small little crabs running through the rocks.

“Nasconditi con me. E’ buio quaggiu”
“Hide with me…its dark down there”…

Smell of fishing nets, dirty boots, old boat covers cracking for the salt.
His skin is tanned to the point of bursting. His dark eyes are smiling in the dark..he holds me down, i feel my skin burning where he touches mine….

.”Non fare rumore. Vedrai che vinciamo questo gioco“ 
(Don’t make any noise. You will see…..we are going to win this game)

Hide and seek…..from who? Seeking what?

I am only a girl…….i am not supposed to lust and feel this stirring inside..
I think i am dirty and different……i don’t know if any other girl have ever felt what i am feeling now…
But if he asks me a kiss i will give it to him..
If only i could go closer to that burning, silky skin without touching him….just to feel that haunting warmth emanating from his tanned skin..

Sand underneath the feet. Sand between my toes.
Breathing in the openness of the ocean and for the first time being painfully aware of my limitless being.

Clouds. Grey clouds on the line of the horizon

“E’ settembre. E’ finita l’estate gia’. Attenta ai cavalloni. Ci bagnamo tutti“
(It’s September. The summer is already over. watch out, that wave is big.  We are going to get all wet”).

When the wave hit us, he turned his face and walked away.
Whispering trees leaves are swaying in the dark.
Crickets are singing their drunken tunes in those long summer nights …
This is my childhood…smell of fresh grass in a wheat field …watermelon seeds spit in the water…laughter, ice creams and guilt….

But our childhood was slipping away in those unrecognized minutes of bliss..

I squeeze my tights during mass to feel that i am alive.
I touch myself in bed at night, folding the pillow against my legs and thrusting…trying not to make a noise, trying to feel a pleasure that seems so painfully eluding me..

How it will happen, when? And who will be with me?

Books that went read twice.
Notes left on the margin of the pages. With a pencil. A pen is so cruel on those pages…
Sylvia Plath and Jimenez. Tagore and Neruda.

My growing body shapes a different space around me. Boys look and lust. I hide and feel my usual, guilty being. Those boobs are growing terribly big now. Should i stay home today? Not going to the beach?

Will he still like me?

Solitude and resentment. My body doesn’t seem belonging to my dreams.
Whispered sins in the humid dark of the church’s confessionale. Holy black tunics barely touching the floor (do nuns fly?) and white rosaries hanging between the porcelain skinned fingers….they smells of nothing….

But I will do anything you ask me, God… are you listening?

The merry-go-round broke one day. We girls kept seating on the rounded plank without moving around anymore…..our legs hanging, useless.

The time seem so long. So amazingly long. One hour lasted one day. Those afternoons were holes of open deserting time that  we had left alone to fill with our imagination.

I remember my boredom like a virtue.

Books were my salvation.
 
The garden of Vinzi-Contini. The stories of the Nazi raping my country…the Fascisti allowing the violence..the Resistance fighting…

My father told me he was starving and he turned in a thief…a child thief…stealing around everything it might be good to eat..
One night….he heard his heart beating furiously while German feet approached…guns went pointed to his neck….. he got lucky that night……a skinny short kid with a bag semi full….they let him go but he had to give them the exhausted chicken he had stolen from a farm.. …he got back home empty handed but alive..he was only a child…

Even monsters have a heart after all?

I watched movies about that period…Anna Magnani and Roberto Rossellini.
Roma, this Italian city laying like a whore over the hills of her sins….
The Italian whore of our cultural devastation. We opened the city to the Americans way too  wide after that Liberation day….April 25th  ……we don’t go to school on April 25th…..

The open cruel space of the Vatican welcomed us. Silent, gelid and superb stones caressed by hands, during centuries of greed and hubris…
The cracked bricks inside the Colosseo are less holy but equally bloody….. Listen…..they are still crying in the night….the lost ghosts of those unfortunate gladiators, Christians and political losers..
“Ave Cesar…..morituri te salutant“….(Ave, Ceasar……we, who are going to die, salute you)…
.
The Spanish steps and Audrey Hepburn on a Vespa makes us smile.
My mother is watching the movie with me. Now i know she was hopelessly running back to her youth, feeling resentful, angry, depressed.
Ingrid Bergman …she looked like her when my father used to love her.

The smiling women my father was pretending to meet as for a coincidence….as they were only old friends of his.
“Chiamami zio, non papa’, capito“
(Call me uncle. Not daddy, ok?)
“Why, daddy?”
“Just for fun”

Blond hair and green eyes. My first boyfriend. The lust is a blossoming body and the shame of its glorious necessity.  Large green eyes wide open looking mine….do we have to close them when we will kiss? One kiss and i will not see him anymore…He was smelling like heaven. Or chewing gum.

Sartre and De Beauvoir.
The circle of my youth.
Reading, kissing, petting, reading, crying, touching myself, not understanding. Growing .

Majestic rooms at the university campus in a rainy Spring day where Philosophy class seemed long like a fatality.

Leaving the books on the park bench of Villa Torlonia in Roma…..laying down in the sun..smelling jasmine, roses…buzzing insects all around us..

“Siedi qui vicino” (Seat close to me)….

She is my lover, my sad sweet lover…

“Sei cosi’ bella”
“You are so beautiful”
We have to live like this forever…you and i…lets go to live in Sweden or Amsterdam…following the path deeply hidden in the green forests around Oxford or Gutenberg ..Ireland? Oh but i prefer Spain, Portugal, Tunisia……
No, lets live in a comune….in the country…… a communal farm raising fat chickens and growing organic zucchini..

“Verrai via con me? Sarai mia per sempre?“
(Would you come with me? Would you be with mine forever?)
Yes, i will.
Si’.

We will wear the same clothes, let our hair growing wild and longer, you will be always this beautiful for me..you will never get old…
You and i will become famous…me a writer and you a famous reporter…Oriana Fallaci and Susan Sontag…Kafka, Hesse and Mann, Hemingway…kiss me…

Cars stopped in the meadow…night and bongos…smoking weeds, having a trip, crying, laughing, reading.
Watching foreign movies with subtitles, walking along the ancient ruins of old, broken, abandoned cursed churches…….the witches used to dance there under the moonlight …read the Satan verses left on the walls……listen..somebody is still around ..ghosts…damned souls..
.
Then driving back to the city… .having a chic cappuccino in Via Veneto…..listening to sad songs, smoking weeds, swearing.
My make up is melting…. sweating, body slamming….. never again…. hating, loving, hugging, kissing….. she is my lover, she is my baby, she is my world. You took her away from me.
Fucking, hugging, kissing, fucking harder, new men each week, feeling powerful, feeling so lonely.

The circle of my friends, the circle of my life.

Then me and him stopped the world momentarily that summer nigh…and we made love to each other and that devastatingly beautiful starring sky..making sweet love, making lots of sweet love…..waves crashing against the shore…Platone and Aristotele…..

Talk to me, my love……..

Revolutionary poets and streets parading.
My body is only mine.
Sleeping on a cold bench in that station in Roma, it was a hot, hot August, surrounded by other 10 girls, legs and hands, smiles and laughs…
Politics was my opium.
I lost my religion at 13…stepping out of a mass..i was still looking the same on the outside……Politics became my Bible..

My vanishing Catholic guilt, my sister, my dysfunctional family, my selfish me. A tangle of messy feelings..the flavor of a life..

Reading, reading, reading, reading.
Music. Books. Notebooks, diaries. Pencils, ink pens, notebooks, the same black one that Chatwin used for his traveling journals…i will go in Morocco, India, Nepal, Syria…you will see…i will see China…  doodling, sketching, drawing, coloring. Doodling…losing myself in them…

As i talked, you followed the profile of my nose..

Sailing….sailing away…..following the pearly saliva left behind by the thinking fishes in the deep blue ocean….the moon looking for them with her pale fingers unfolding the surface of the water…our boat rotating like a pangeatic alga in the peak of a planets revolution…

I was innocent still……no more innocent already…
Where that girl has gone?
What different turn in her life would have determined her present?

Who knows?
Who ever knows why our life is shaped the way it is?
Don’t ask……
Its really useless, like that broken merry-go-round…

Years passed by.
I didn’t see it
They changed me.
Worlds changed, beside me.
The peculiarity of one life
melts in ordinary stillness,
in the stupor of a slow acceptance
of mortality.I will never be that me again.
but I will be young to infinity, within.So here i arrived, and stopped.
Hair moving in the breeze
Feet running away while hands approaching.
I will catch you
I will catch you again.

I opened the door and they were there.

My daughter holding the hands of that little girl.

The little girl was smiling and giggling and holding tightly to my daughter’s hand.

Her piercing blue eyes, her strawberry blond hair, her pale skin. How amazingly similar she was to him.

My daughter had told  me “‘Mom, daddy is down stairs but before leaving he asked if K. can use our bathroom. She really needs to pee” 

I felt a sudden tightness in my stomach. Where? Here? Is she coming up here?

My daughter seemed amused by my  look. “Oh mom, i always wanted you to meet her. She is my little sister, after all. You have to meet her”.

So…. I said yes.

After all, i already had said yes to that little girl almost 3 years ago. I had already agreed to meet her.
I’ve talked about that first encounter with her here in my blog.

After that day I haven’t seen that little girl again.
If not in some pictures that my daughter once in a while was bringing home from one of her week ends at her father’s house. On my daughter’s desk there is a cute frame with a picture of them happily smiling at the camera.

Try opening the door and seeing the past looking at you, so vividly and so lively.
Try not feeling a knot in your stomach. Even though a little one. Even now that you had definitely done with that past.
Still…. something stirs inside while you open the door and let the little girl in.

In your present.

She says (with her high pitched cute voice) “Is this your home?”
I say “Yes, hello, K. Let’s go to the bathroom. You must really go, isn’t?”
She smiles at me and follows my daughter.
I remain on the door but i can see them.

My daughter is so sweet with her….she helps her pulling down those little panties of hers, she picks her up and makes her seat comfortably on the seat and watches over her.
“You have cool stuff” the little girl chatters away.
My daughters asks “Wanna see my room? And my dog?”

And so this big mass of strawberry blond hair…these little feet in cute little flip flop walks in my daughter’s room and seats on her bed.

My dog arrives, happy to have a little being at his eyes height, smelling good and ready to play. She gets slurped on the arm but she giggles.
My dog likes her and wags his tail.

But i say: “Its time to go, you two. Your father is waiting for you”
It comes out of my mouth so naturally that i don’t realize how weird is that sentence after all.

My daughter smiles at me. She seems to say “Thank you, mom, for having met her”.
I hug her tight and tell her that I love her.

“See you Sunday night, baby, call me”

And i say “Bye bye, K”
The little girl say “Bye bye” waving her hand to me. I see them going down the stairs. Big sis holding little sis’s hand, talking to each other.

I close the door.
The small knot in my stomach is starting to fade away.
 
And i think that this little girl has had such a great impact in my life.
She arrived in this world and changed my world forever.
Like i did 3 years ago, even today i think i can’t hate her. She is just a cute little girl.
Looking so amazingly like her father with his same piercing blue eyes, his same strawberry blond hair, the same pale skin.

Today I could be her adoptive mother if 3 years ago life would have taken a complete different direction.

But it did not.

And so now i am going to walk the dog. And I smile.

“Little wonders“

let it go,
let it roll right off your shoulder
don’t you know
the hardest part is over
let it in,
let your clarity define you
in the end
we will only just remember how it feels

our lives are made
in these small hours
these little wonders,
these twists & turns of fate
time falls away,
but these small hours,
these small hours still remain

let it slide,
let your troubles fall behind you
let it shine
until you feel it all around you
and i don’t mind
if it’s me you need to turn to
we’ll get by,
it’s the heart that really matters in the end

our lives are made
in these small hours
these little wonders,
these twists & turns of fate
time falls away,
but these small hours,
these small hours still remain

all of my regret
will wash away some how
but i can not forget
the way i feel right now

in these small hours
these little wonders
these twists & turns of fate
these twists & turns of fate
time falls away but these small hours
these small hours, still remain,
still remain
these little wonders
these twists & turns of fate
time falls away
but these small hours
these little wonders still remain

She called me at the phone.

I didn’t immediately recognize her voice. Strange,  I hated that voice so much in the past.

I hated her with every fiber of my body and soul. I hoped she would die.

Her voice brought back in a flash all those negative feelings.

But, after the surprise, i politely answered and told her “Yes, i can meet you”.

She arrived punctal, as to a doctor’s appoitnment. Same to the one i remembered, as no days had passed by since that day she crashed against my life and ripped my happiness like a ripe fruit.  

Same long, unfeminine body. Same long face that made her look like Vanessa Redgrave. She knew it very well…….she made everybody well aware of that quite stunning similarity….I haven’t been able to watch another movie with that actress without being reminded of her…

Same long, unshaped skirt, as to hide her body. Same blue eyes.

I did changed instead. In better. I shed pounds,  i let my hair grow and change their color, i changed my style. But see, i had to change. I had to do it because she ripped that happiness from me and i had to react. So I did it changing my exteriority.  

I should actually have thank her, dont you think so?

We sat down and asked for our drinks. The same ones. She smiled, timidly, at me while noticing it. I agreed to nod at her.

I kept my shades on. I wasn’t ready to let her look in my eyes.She put hers down on the table. Around us people were drinking and talking and laughing. It was a warm beautiful summer afternoon. I was in vacation at home. I wondered how did she know i was back in Italy.

I had chosen the bar closest to my home. “You have to walk to come TO me. I will not move one inch more than necessary“. I have thought at the phone.

And now she was there.

Ten years had passed by. What she could possibly want for me? Still?

I wasn’t willing to make that meeting any easier for her. I was just there drinking my Aperol, nibbling on my olives. She was blabbering about the traffic, nervously moving her hands, complaining about how long she had hunted for a parking spot (good…)…..I could feel her uneasiness….i didn’t help her. I was tasting the revenge? You can say so, i guess….

I was waiting.

Then she launched the missile.

“I asked you to meet me because my psycoanalist told me so”

Yes, i always knew that blue eyes Redgrave look-alike had a long history of severe depression and emotional unbalance. Even before she landed heavily on my life. 

When my (then) fiance’ and I met her she had that small adoring circle of friends more than protective of her…..she was known around as the troubled one, the intellectual one, the very rich one.

i guess she played a lot with this character ..she was carrying herself enhancing all that romanticism connected to her condition. My fiance’, unfortunately, was a wandering soul extremely susceptible to such darkness and broodiness. So he found her irresistible.

After 5 years together we had left behind the extreme intensity of our extremely intense passion. We had a lovestory worth of a book. He felt like he had found in me his soulmate, his Muse, his Thule. He intoxicated me with reference to Saffo, Pindaro, Goethe. But life dried up our romantic juices even though not our deep connection and love.

But time was ready for her to become his new inspiration.

She was in therapy already at that time. After they met and then eventually married, she even entered in some clinic once. One year his sister (with whom i had remained close friend) told me that she had attempted suicide. 

I could have felt some compassion for her and for him, forced to be her nurse and her protector since then.

Sorry, I never did.

Guess the pain i had endured after he left me didn’t allow me such noble feeling. And after life had mercy on me and gave me another chance to be happy she simply slipped in the back of my memory.

l had ultimately forgave him. I still meet him and we do feel still a bond together.

But she got simply deleted from my radar.

Until that day. She was again there, flesh and bone and voice and looks. In front of me.

“I reached a new level in my path to healing -. she was explaining to me - My doctor gave me as assignment  to write a list of all the people i ever hurt in my life. i was myself suprised when i wrote your name. Actually, you were on top of my list. See, I talked about you several times with my therapist. Now i have to clean my conscious from the pain i inflicted you. And I came here to say “I am sorry” . And have your forgiviness back. Can you forgive me?”

The Aperol was gone. My olives too.

I was completely taken back by this twist.

I left her finish that speech.

I remember that while she was talking, constantly arranging her blonde hair behind her ears, i was thinking “Revenge is really a plate better ate cold. I have you down on your knee asking me to forgive you. Hell no, its too easy. I should forget that you made loose my sanity as well? All those sleepless nights crying and aching, physically aching for him so much was missing him?”

Its an amazing feeling knowing you have the power to heal or to destroy someone.

But the euphory of finally being recognized in the pain i had endured, finally recognized on my right of being angry and hurt by he same woman who didn’t think twice of throwing me in misery started slowly to subsize.

Slowly another feeling was reaching the surface of my heart.

Compassion.

If i was agreeing to forgive her i would definetely see even the last wound closed and healed.

But point was, i didnt have any open wounds. Not anymore. She arrived too late.

So i thought: How forgiving her is going to help me?

I have already found my sanity again, all by myslef, i went alone to hell and back to earth, i fought and won all alone and had my life back.

No antidepressant pills, not shrink couch for me either.

Just blood and tears.

Still ……i thought i could do something good.

I could actually feel good about myself in forgiving her.

She was waiting for my answer.

I chose my words carefully.

“I think that if i tell you some of my life during my past 10 years you will see that there will not need for me to say that i forgive you“.

So i told her that after he left me, i yes suffered like a dog but i then found the man i eventually married, and he gave me the best thing in my life, my daughter. And mad me happy like i have never been before. My life was fine, i told her. Dont you worry for me. 

“I think this means that the pain you inflicted me has been replaced by happiness“.

It was all i could tell her.

She smiled. I could feel she was relieved.

The tension fell off her face.

We ended up talking together for another 3 whole hours. We laughed too, we shared our experiences.

And then she asked me something that made feel even better.

“You know, he has never told me any details about your life together. Or how he was feeling for you after he left you. I asked him many times. Yet, he has always answered vaguely. I always felt like he is hiding something. Can you tell me more?”

I told her no. I can’t. This is between you and him. I can’t tell you something he has his own rights to be vague about it. Too many years are gone by, by the way. 

I couldn’t share with her too much, after all.

She got from me what she needed. I wasn’t willing to open up again that box of pain and tears.

But strangely i felt a smile inside my heart.

It was exactly like in the last letter he wrote me….. it was true then…. he had truly kept his promise to hold me forever in the deepest part of his heart.

So i guess, agreeing in forgiving her she gave me back this unexpected gift….a closure from him.

She amazingly acted, totally unaware of it, as involuntary messanger of love between me and him. 

I too had something to smile about when i told her goodbye.

Isn’t life amazing?

When we are kids the world is too big for our understanding.

Things happen and you don’t see the correlation between cause and effect. You live in a magical dimension where anything might be real and really acting in your favor. Or against you.

Grown ups read us fairy tales to comfort us and soothe our fears.

Some kid get over this scary feeling thru games and plays and focusing to something on the outside: sports, friends, particular skills. They grow up, floating thru childhood, apparently unwounded.

But some of them seem to refuse to be so powerless.

They are made with a stubborn material.

They try to control the reality. And in starting this they are doomed forever.

I was one of those kids.

I always had control issues, evidently.

I guess my need was sprouting from absorbing the not so subliminal messages I was receiving from my parents.

Nothing in my family seemed written on the stone. My father was a volatile figure: he was rarely with us therefore he could have left us at any time.

My mom was an emotional mess that some behaviors of my father would crush in long bursts of depression or anger. My brother developed his own survival skills thru raucous friends and dirty magazines. My sister grew up as the most fragile and most vulnerable of us all and developed her longtime habits of depression and obsessive behaviors. She would lock herself in the closet and scream for hours.

As you can see, I was feeling pretty much left alone.

So I decided to take control.

The way I figured out how to have a hold of my life was the Ritual.

Rituals have always been, since ancient times, the tool thru which people had convinced themselves of being able to control their reality: they believed they could control weather, the life events, the love of another person, the healing of the sick ones, and especially the benevolence of  their moody Gods (religions had developed upon rituals, after all) if they would have followed the Rituals. Strictly.

So I had to find the perfect ritual for me.

I still remember vividly how I figured out.

It was a hot summer afternoon. Back from the beach, after lunch we had to lay down and rest. It was siesta time. The “sonnellino”.

The nap after lunch. My siblings were already sleeping or dozing somewhere. I was laying on my bed.

And I had a deck of cards on my hands.

I remember starting to ponder about the apparent perfection of numbers. At least, the ones I knew at the time. I was probably 10.

I was in that age in which I still was liking numbers. A so short season…;-).

I remember casually laying the cards in front of me.

The geometric perfection of all those figures hit me.

Each of them was a symbol.

Each of them had a meaning.

The One was one. The King was the King, the Queen was the Queen….ace, spade club and flowers. They were looking at me. They were comforting me with their one-dimensional design.

I started to give each card a different meaning. I started to shuffle the cards and count them from the first until the tenth. I started to write on my notebook the card that wpuld have popped out. Then I would start counting from the 11th card to the 20th…and writing down the numbers …..and so on and on.

Ad infinitum.

Once I started, it seemed I couldn’t put the cards down. I had to count them. It would become more complicated and more intricate each day, since i would start the next day from the numbers of the day before…it was like Penelope’s work….endless….  

My mind was busy and therefore free from worries and anxiety.

Immediately I started to give to any numbers that would have been picked out the meaning I wanted: one day it would have been “If I add this and this and I have 30 the boy I like will look at me”.

The next day it was something like “If I subtract 50 to the last sum and I will have less that 100 I will have new clothes. Or I will go to the movie or I will have a good grade or  I will have a new clothes”.

But mostly was all about the boys……and singers…and movie actors …lol..

I would lay there on my bed for hours….my mother would come to hurry me up to do something and I would hide the cards.

Because nobody had to know about my ritual.

It was a mandatory requirement for its effectiveness….it would have worked ONLY if remained secret

I think I went on with this obsession for months.

I was feeling better in doing it. Observing the Ritual gave me hope in some kind of order in the universe. I had a place. The cards were telling me what would have happened.

Doesn’t work the same with horoscope, tarot card readings, religion?

We believe in a bigger order and in a hidden meaning and we feel less restless, safe, with a purpose and a meaning.

The Ritual fell off me suddenly, like suddenly started. I don’t recall any particular event…it just happened. One day I simply stopped counting.

I threw that useless notebook full of numbers.

I had found probably new ways to grab the reality around me. I was growing up.

Have you ever had some ritual in your life?

Do your kids have one?

“People have seizures. People faint. People have mysterious heart conditions that rear up and kill them at sixteen years of age. Do coaches then rise up and solemnly discuss about how all coaches should be heart specialists because of the great responsibilities of training potentially fragile athletes? No. They put the kid in shorts, and they put him out on the court.

If I’m driving my car and a friend in the passenger seat has a heart attack, am I at fault for not being a surgeon? For not having nitroglycerine on hand?

If I’m passionately screwing away at the advanced age of 97, and suddenly my entire brain explodes in one final orgasm that snuffs me out like a candle dipped in blood, will that sweet young thing beneath me be responsible for not knowing that that massive embolism was waiting for the right moment to end my lifelong perversity? Of course not. She has enough to worry about.

What goes on when people overfetishize safety is that they’re relapsing in the old frame of mind that what we’re doing is bad. It’s dangerous. It’s scary. It has the potential to get out of hand. That’s why we surround ourselves with rules, and we make a slogan into a mantra. Why we police ourselves and each other with an obsession aimed at making our love life and play into the sanest, safest, most consensual drama ever enacted in a relationship.

Well, life ain’t safe. I get up, and everyday I do things that place my body and life in danger. I take showers, and we all know how many people bash their brains out in the tub every year. I stand on rickety chairs to change light bulbs. I drive in New`York. I walk through dark Manhatten streets in a meat packing district in very queer clothing. I drink. I go to gyms, and I abuse my body, and then I sit in saunas. People die in them, you know. I eat meat. I eat sugar. I ride horses. I shovel snow, and I write, and I edit pornographic books under my real name in a conservative administration. I have joined the ACLU. If I wanted to, I could take up karate and I could go skiing. I could buy a motorcycle. This is all deadly stuff.

And life ain’t sane, in case you haven’t noticed. Any world where kids are born unwanted and people die from hunger, where tobacco is subsidized and artists are not, where one gender is dominant and one’s skin tone, and where rapists get out on bail and pot smokers get thirty-year sentences, this is not a fucking sane world. So who gets to judge my relative sanity? Doctors? Lawyers? Or other perverts?”

I didn’t write this. The writer Laura Antoniou did.

I just ask…… are you aware where is the danger?

Is it coming from the politic, the school board, the rap music, the chemicals in our food? The religious extremism, the crazy student with easy access to guns? The Supreme Court or the too noisy new neighbor?

The depression? The loneliness? The fat in that McDonalds?

In having too rules or too few rules? In keeping alive a troubled marriage or in risking everything and leave? 

Where your danger comes from?   How do you protect yourself?