Category: Freedom

Lezioni di fioritura

Freyalu

Il sorriso poggia su lineamenti esotici e sembra riflettere le nostre aspettative: comunica empatia. Dal suo tappetino, seduto a gambe incrociate, il maestro di yoga Andrei ci osserva una ad una. Ha spalle larghe che sovrastano bicipiti ben definiti e una schiena eretta che dona eleganza alla figura. La lingua è una barriera neanche insormontabile perché ho una conoscenza base del russo e anche lui qualche frase in inglese è in grado di assemblarla, “slowly, slowly… take a deep breath“. In ogni modo mi piace l’immersione totale nella cultura e nella lingua, così come sapere di essere la mosca bianca in mezzo a un gruppo di agili venti-trentenni ucraine. Qui sono la babushka e di questo sorrido tra me e no, non lo rivelo a nessuno ma se anche già fosse noto, che bella medaglia: gli anni mi hanno depositata così, qui e ora. Narcisista certo rimango sempre ma ormai ben disposta a cedere lo specchio a chiunque lo reclami: allora me ne starei lì in un angolo a osservare e magari a scattare foto, a prendere eterni appunti per il romanzo di una vita che continua a chiedere di essere scritto e al contempo a nascondersi.

Andrei riduce l’uso delle parole al minimo, soltanto per impartire istruzioni, comunicare i movimenti da compiere. Pastore del piccolo gregge dei nostri corpi, li conduce all’allineamento di mani, piedi, colonne, colli, nuche, addomi: inspirare, espirare. Nel passaggio tra un asana e un altro, ciascuna di noi ha l’agio di ricucire gli strappi se non veri e propri traumi che il proprio essere ha registrato nel tempo recente. Intanto il tappeto sonoro del raga ci accompagna a entrare in questa nuova dimensione, ciascuna di noi al centro di ogni singola nota emessa dal sitar. Tutto questo si conforma all’insorgere dei primi pensieri del mattino, li ovatta, li assiste, li accompagna e infine li fortifica. Ogni nota traghetta il mini gruppo da una posizione all’altra e diffonde la nozione che il corpo è casa e più ancora tempio, Andrei uno dei suoi sacerdoti. Sono passate settimane, mesi, e il mio corpo è cambiato: ha perso peso, si è fatto più agile e potente: ora riesce a flettersi in archi concavi o convessi prima inimmaginabili, le mani riescono a intrecciarsi dietro la schiena, i piedi mi àncorano a terra mentre i palmi delle mani si estendono sempre più in là, con il bacino innalzato nella posizione del cane.

“The best, maladiez!” Dritti capelli lisci nero corvino, zigomi larghi e occhi allungati anche quando non elargisce sorrisi, Andrei ha tratti caucasici, asiatici forse – frutto della grande roulette russa dei dislocamenti etnici dei tempi sovietici? Un tajiko nato a Donetsk e con una laurea in legge all’università di Kharkiv? Chi è veramente questo coetaneo? Ora la singola nota avvolgente del sitar aleggia su tutte noi che pazienti manteniamo la posizione. Approdate nella tana del lupo buono, qui, nel centro di Kyiv, in uno spazio minimale ma funzionale, una telecamera di telefonino come occhio di grande sorella (la proprietaria del centro è una di queste splendide trentenni) a registrare tutto per editarlo e sbatterlo su Instagram in modalità gif, a rendere tutto banalmente normale, ma tutte noi ben disposte ad accettarlo e a pagare questa tassa alla modernità.

Ci sono volte in cui le fulminee battute di Andrei mi sfuggono. Non posseggo abbastanza controllo della lingua per decodificare certi sorrisi sui volti delle altre, deve trattarsi di un registro ironico che, ammiccante e lieve, un attraente maschio qui nell’Est Europa dispensa a femmine ancora fertili e fiduciose: un innocuo gioco di società con sue regole e ruoli, in cui tutto è ancora velatamente possibile, e perchè mai non dovrebbe. Riconciliata in partenza con il non senso, in quei momenti mi concedo un rotondo distacco, accolgo tutto mentre ebete sorrido, contigua a un’umanità femminile di fatto aliena: lì rimango a guardare, in compagnia di pensieri collaterali come note a piè di pagina.

Ha mani curate e dita eleganti Andrei, la presa salda di chi pratica da tempo il controllo sul proprio corpo, con ogni muscolo arruolato nella volontà di raggiungere l’armonia del tutto. “Ora bevete acqua ma attente non troppo fredda e a piccoli sorsi”, mi porge un bicchiere di carta già riempito, “spasiba” gli dico sapendo bene che quello è il segnale che prelude al gran finale, all’ultima sequenza, quella più impegnativa. Vado a posare il bicchiere in un angolo del pavimento e torno al mio tappetino (me lo ha regalato lui, in risposta alla mia richiesta di sapere dove poterlo acquistare, e, per compensare, poiché lui non ne ha voluto sapere di essere rimborsato, gli ho regalato una bottiglia di rosso italiano con la scritta “Essere” sull’etichetta). Si comincia: le note si susseguono – increspature più che onde sulla superficie di un mare placido, la terraferma ancora lontana -, i nostri corpi sincronizzati a seguire i movimenti della solida e flessuosa sagoma di Andrei. Con soddisfazione e una punta di stupore sento che il corpo mi sta obbedendo e che non è più come le prime volte che non riuscivo a seguire il ritmo delle altre: ora gambe e braccia eseguono in modo non solo automatico ma anche dignitoso l’intero esercizio. Finalmente sento di essere un’ultracinquantenne in armonia con sè stessa, una happy perennial, potrebbe essere la categoria coniata da un sociologo.

La sessione è terminata e la musica è cambiata, ora siamo in un prato. Andrei ci sta invitando a distenderci supine, a chiudere gli occhi e a rilassare gli arti: il momento del riposo che segue è un tempo che si dilata mentre là fuori tutto può accadere e non ha importanza, almeno per quindici minuti ancora. Facile, facilissimo scivolare oltre la soglia del sonno, e mentre la mente non fa nulla per impedirlo, aspettare con un’ombra di desiderio che Andrei venga a coprirmi e col rito del suo breve massaggio, infondermi energia. Mi ha appena avvolta in un soffice plaid di pile e con ferma dolcezza sta facendo oscillare le mie caviglie, quindi, con un impercettibile tocco finale – una firma d’autore -, le lascia inermi. Il suo passo ovattato si sposta ancora su di me fin quando sento stringermi polsi per poi rilasciarli, quindi comprimermi le anche, in un movimento antico di lento cullare che immagino non avere fine, finché di nuovo avverto quel fugace tocco di commiato che mette fine al flusso di energia. La sua presenza sopra il mio corpo aleggia ancora: per una lunga manciata di secondi e con una pressione via via crescente, mi comprime le spalle verso il materassino: da tempo ho smesso di opporvi resistenza anche solo mentale. Nel momento in cui la pressione viene meno, mi ritrovo a contemplarne l’assenza, rassegnata all’idea che sarà necessaria una nuova sessione per risalire a quello stato di piccola beatitudine.

Il sottofondo audio è stato riassorbito nel silenzio. Andrei ci invita a riassumere la posizione seduta a gambe incrociate e per gradi ci fa riaprire gli occhi e riprendere contatto con la realtà circostante: “bciem spasiba!“. Prima di varcare la porta di ingresso che dà direttamente sulla via, come quando sono arrivata il maestro mi saluta con un caloroso abbraccio, “your body is very good now!“, aggiunge, grata ricambio con un sorriso e saluto anche Sasha, la giovane ed efficiente proprietaria. Uscita in strada, metto gli auricolari, avvio Spotify e riprendo l’ascolto del mattino; lo sguardo mi finisce oltre l’altro lato della strada: là, oltre il muro perimetrale dei giardini botanici, all’interno di un’altissima serra di vetro, respira la leggendaria palma Livingstone di Kyiv, quella che a gennaio, mentre la città giace sotto gelidi strati di neve, torna a esplodere con la sua fioritura, gloriosa e placida nei suoi duecento anni di vita.

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Ticket in Her Pocket

Freyalu

Slow train to Russia,

the ticket is in her pocket.

Ballerina life,

on tip of toes,

passing days.

For how much longer?

She doesn’t care.

The ticket is in her pocket,

theirs, mine.

She doesn’t care,

Her master never left her behind,

never.

He actually shows her the way,

patient,

confident,

smiling.

The day will come 

and a dog will bite her ankles,

yours, mine.

The ticket is in her pocket.

Why does he insist in visiting her dreams?

Never stopping surprising her,

listening to her,

smiling at her,

and in love again she awakes.

Has that ever happened to you?

The ticket is in her pocket,

return tickets never sell,

one way only,

that makes her smile.

Slow train to Russia,

all thoughts packed up

in her super light bag

endless landscapes crammed inside,

technicolor memories

and no need to get off.

Checkpoint Childhood

Freyalu

In my grandparents’ garden there was and still is, now diminished in size by my fiftyfive-year-old glance, an artificial hill called La montagnola. Towering trees patrol the surrounding gardens while thick bushes keep secret the path that spirals up along minimal flanks and leads to a clearing the size of a rocking horses carousel. Up there would we lay down in lazy summertime afternoons, bird singing and insect humming in our ears. Cast beyond the tree crowns, our glances could meet clouds playing hide & seek with sun or get stranded. An exercise I most liked was keeping my eyes wide shut and imagining myself dead. Wasn’t falling asleep a daily exercise in dying?

La montagnola had existed long before us kids as well as our grandparents. It is part of the estate they had bought in the early Thirties, together with a garden – its monumental weeping mulberry, orderly and colourful flower beds, neat gravel sidewalks, round goldfish tank whose wrought iron fence would later try to protect its dwellers from our raids.

My grandparents were country people. They both sprang from small landowner families, mostly uneducated farmers. Their catholic imprinting shaped their life vision, developing in them a keen sense of resilience and self-denial. My grandpa Gino, the eldest of five siblings, was the only one who receive higher education to obtain an agronomist diploma. It did not take long before he got hired as administrator by landed gentry residing in Rome and Milan and possessing estates in the Marches. Farm production cycles established my grandparents’ family agenda. Their life rhythms soon tuned in with rural cycles: wheat harvesting, threshing, plowing, wine harvesting along with the silkworm breeding activity she had inherited. In time land ownership and proper education would become a priority in their family project, assuring their two girls – my aunt and my mother – economic ease and cultural equipment for a better life. Harvest after harvest, savings had been put aside till opportunity had arisen and investments made both in land and higher education, because “money makes us rich but education makes us noble”, read a ceramic plate hanging on my grandmother’s dining room, for anyone to know.

Nonna Augusta had attended formal education till somewhere near to a middle school diploma. Since a very young age she had loved reading and writing poetry. After a lifetime spent jotting down verses, at seventy-five she indulged in having a selection of her poems self-published. How many times visiting them already as an old couple, would we see nonno Gino in his snow-white apron meticulously setting the table while smiling to us “hush… the poetess is composing”. To this day, her poems collected in I silenzi del cuore (Silences of the heart) keep their healing power. Nonno Gino‘s memory also stays with me. As his employers grew older, new generations stepped in but many of them lacked sense of commitment and ethics. Those were la dolce vita days. My grandfather’s advice became more and more crucial for most of his younger employers. In retrospect, I can see him as a typical representative of the emerging middle class: purposeful and vigilant, with his mixture of popular wisdom and professionalism, he had made his small contribution to the so-called Italian economic miracle.

Back in the Seventies we were just kids busy in their clandestine fishing at the goldfish pond, creating our complicated parallel worlds beneath the mulberry cathedral or just playing hide & seek across all nooks and corners of the big garden.  A suspicion that things did prove more complicated than we assumed must have flashed on us the day our grand-grandma Olimpia passed away. We sensed that an action was needed and we came up with the idea of an impromptu funeral to be held in the big room on the ground floor of the old house. Keeping a central corridor in the middle, chairs were arranged like pews facing the altar/ dining table. There, Lillo solemny bestowed on us a funeral service in memory of nonna Pimpa, with my brother – older than Livio but less ambitious – playing the altar boy. Curiously enough did we later learned that the very room we had staged our religious rite in, had actually served as an official temporary place of worship after the big earthquake in 1930 had hit the nearby parish church: a white stone plaque sporting the Holy See coat of arms placed onto the house external wall keeps memory to these days.

We were not living in the same house. Our three cousins stayed with our grandparents in the old house. The three of us – our youngest brother would arrive many years later – spent their holidays in the new building, a three-storey house built on an adjoining plot of land. La Montagnola marked a no-man’s land between the two gardens. In fact, the place that we most valued was la grotta. To us the dark and damp grotto at the very foundations of the hill proved the most mysterious and thrilling part of the whole garden. That silent barrel vault space that in very old days had served as cellar and storage room, was kept off limits from us all – adults and children – by a heavy rusted padlock tightened to iron gratings. In fact, once did we venture inside there in candlelight accompanied by our cousins’ father.

Zio Elvio had a limp lag and curiosity for anything local and historical, no wonder he was a history teacher. He spent long hours collecting old keys, stamps and any kind of exotic items. He was also very creative and loved experimenting with sculpture but even more with drawing. He created series of countryside o seaside landscapes especially with crayons. The last time I saw him in his studio he was ninety-two. He was still as curious as ever and his ritual of allowing you to pick up and take away one or two pieces amid his miniature landscapes was still in place. I reckon now the magic of those moments, with him so silently proud of sharing fragments of his imaginary world. Since we were very little he had been entertaining us all with stories he would make up or read, or playing us songs on his mangiadischi – a portable 45 rpm record player -, like Enzo Jannacci’s Vengo anchio! or Cochi e Renato’s  La vita l’è bella.

The grotto had left in our nostrils a sniff of humidity and a sense of sweet gratefulness for our adult guide. Meantime, our father had always been up in the sky if not in heaven. As hard as I try to find him at any point in those long summertime days spent in my granparents’ garden, I just cannot: he would always be somewhere else – flying in the sky, travelling abroad on a mission, sailing to Croatia with friends, riding his flamboyant motorbike. Summer days would pile up with sunny mornings spent mostly at the beach which was located just five minutes’ walk across the street, and afternoons spent playing around the two neighbouring gardens. We would move back and forth between the old house and the new one via il cancelletto, a small green iron gateway marking the border between two sovereignties as much as educational visions. It was a checkpoint of sorts where universal family rules applied: it kept closed during siesta time, with each family expecting their kids either to take a nap or read Topolino or books, or just get bored for the sake of it. Truth is many breaches daily occurred at the cancelletto, with boys often venturing across each other’s zones, and us girls preferring idle chatting by the gate. 

At official playtime a number of different games kept us busy – we most liked to play the grand hotel, the bar, organise theatre shows, arrange bazars. In fact, set aside the before-mentioned totally self-run funeral service, all such games required a degree of planning and an active contribution from adults: in a way or another, sooner or later, all of them – except for our flying father – had contributed or at least showed up. Adults’ life was indeed a major source of inspiration for most of our creative games. Like the time we created a performance using the grotto gate as a backdrop, with us wearing our parents’ apparel. My born-actress sister Lalla co-starred with born-actor cousin Lillo whose nickname up today is Bruce Willis. And here comes the memo to write about lingerie, because not only was I the playwright but also the prop master and from my mom’s drawer I had the chance to pick up one of her fanciest transparent babydoll ever, for my sister to wear in the opening scene.

The production process had kept us busy for a whole weekend, also due to the continuous hysterical scenes from my cousin Giovanna who could not get along with the idea that she – despite her being the cutest of us three – was not fit for the role. We had to work quite hard with my eldest brother, the best ever problem solver for all technical aspects, but the small crew finally made it. I cannot tell for sure how many years have passed by since that Sunday afternoon but I can still flavour the thrill and the sense of gratefulness we had when our spectators finally began to flock in, sharp on time, complying with the advertising poster Lorenzo, the youngest and the most intellectual of us all, had drawn.  After having duly paid their tickets, spectators silently took their seats on the heavy and uncomfortable iron garden chairs. In fact, they turned out to be only three of them – nonna Augusta, nonno Gino and zio Elvio but their final applause convinced us that everything had been worth while.

Unhappy Genes

Freyalu

Her high-cheekboned beauty does not immunize her from feeling just as transparent as any other mate in the line. A quarter past seven and there she stands silent and haughty in this Kyiv summer afternoon light, waiting for her marshrutka. Poor people stand unnoticed on the curbs of the world, she has learnt that long ago as a five-year old would-be violinist clutching Baba’s warm hand in freezing winter afternoons, the small instrument case a carapace for her tiny shoulders.

Her frowned grey eyes sparkle into the melting sun as the yellow minibus pulls up. She gets on board, earphones on – old style ones, nothing like the wireless kind she cannot afford -, Johan Sebastian Bach keeping her company. The eight hrivnas in her hand are gently handed over to the driver who briskly fits them into his rectangular hand-made wooden box. She carefully fits her violin case into the tiny space between her seat and the bus side window. The driver steers into the traffic flow and there the usual parade comes up.

Along the avenue sidewalks Aroma Kava points pop up with their reassuring white, red & blue logo, passersby come and go in their working day pace, an overconfident Favorit billboard takes perfect care of a new building site, a stout babushka presides over her tiny flower kiosk armed with her short broom, untamed kids skim back and forth below a soviet-time tank monument embellished with withered patriotic wreaths. As always what she is more drawn to are the zupinka teeming with single men and women of different ages waiting for their yellow minibus at the end of yet another ordinary day. Bach knows better and the Goldberg Variations give these people a purpose, turn them into her heroes.

True, poor people wait a lot and equal to a silent invisible army to those who ride their fast cars across town, but a superior mathematical order oversees and regulates everybody’s lives, none excluded, each destiny enacted according to a pattern, only with shared sun coming from above and an individual light springing from somewhere inside. That light she totally lacks and it’s not her fault. She has always wondered why she cannot smile. In fact, she is definitely too young to have gone through any of the hardships her parents, grandparents and ancestors had, yet her mind seems to keep record of all the bad her folk have been exposed to in the course of time. All forms of annihilation inflicted on the skin of her nation – pogroms, the Kulaki repression, the scourge of the Holodomor, Baba Yar genocide, any other past soviet mischief – you name them – must have locked down the genes of smiling deep inside the Ukrainian blood. 

“Mom, what’s the matter here in Ukraine, why nobody ever smiles or talk cheerfully on the street?” was my son’s first question when we landed in Kyiv. 

Back to Irina. She has just lifted up her chin to stare at the brand new roof up of a glass-paneled skyscraper being raised on the opposite side of the avenue. She bets they will name it after yet another big American city, people here need very little to dream about America. Up there wind is making clouds almost as restless as her mind. Traffic jam in the rush hour, still plenty of time to indulge in her usual labyrinth of thoughts.

Unaccompanied Cello suite n.1 in G Major. Tomorrow she will be twenty. Will he be wishing her something like “buon compleanno, amore“? Alas, the coronavirus pandemic has cut any hope for her to meet him up again in the flesh any time soon. Will he remember their unspoken mutual bond? What do six months ago equal to in the mind of a young Italian artist? All the couples she has known have never seemed to survive to long distance relationships. In the course of time all of them have split up. What if Giovanni were different?

She is fighting to dispel anxiety and procrastinates the time for feeling hopeless. The thing is she is still too naive to just feel confident and rely only her physical beauty. She actually does not want to: she feels different from all the others, but how different? All she does know right now is how badly she is missing everything in him: his warm eyes, his stern voice asking delicate questions about her childhood, his elegant hands. Will he ever again be coming to welcome her at any train station in the world, will their violins ever play again in the same quintet?

She tilts down her head to check out her phone, the screen has just lightened up. One unread message from an Italian number. An urgent question is surfacing now: which – today – is the exact number of times she has been taking this marshrutka since her very first one with Baba Virochka? Bach suggests that she finds out that number out and in search for the answer she cast a glance to the outside landscape now locked into darkness. The sun has totally decamped, silhouettes of dozing passengers survive onto the marshrutka side windows. Her mirrored image looks different: haughty, on the point of turning and reflecting back the smile that has just flourished on her petal lips.

Tall and Content

Freyalu
Nicole Zeug, “The Tired Labrador”

Long story short, I am a middle-aged expat dog. A well-trained snow-white American Labrador. Call me a WASP dog and I take it in. At an early stage I was taught good manners, basic manners of come, sit, stay, wait, kennel, down and so forth. The idea behind that, you know the codes, you get along fine wherever you end up living. Anyways, you may already know that we Labs are calm and trainable and basically pleasant to be around and trainers can rely on our quick and analytical mindset. So here am I, your family guy, expat version.

Since my owners (or my breeder?) picked me up amid my siblings, I have lived in a number of places and been through an unending gallery of humans. As they walked me along the streets of New York, Turin, Milan, Moscow and Kyiv I have smelled life and its whims to the fullest. Dogs are no poets so I have nothing more to say and that will do.

Actually one thing: I still miss them, my siblings and my caring mom. How many times I have been on the point of believing it was one of their endearing silhouettes that was passing by on the other side of the street. I have ended up adapting, which is no complaining but sheer reckoning. I am quite easy going and respect humans. I play fetch, swim, go on a walk, or keep my owners’ feet warm. If ever, it is in ball games that I get really crazy and slightly out of control. If ever. With peers too I get along fine, I just cannot see the point in challenging any of them. I keep to myself, tall and content just like my image mirrored inside the neat elevator ascending to our share of paradise, up at the fifteenth floor. For sure, all the affable strokes I have been bestowed upon by unknown hands as I was walked here and there, satisfy my long for rewarding. If any.

Now, don’t ask me why, either my breeder or my owners named me after a human language dictionary. By now I have got used to my bookish self,  kind of an omen nomen thing, if you get what I mean. More. Fishing the sound of that exotic word amid the thousand others that gush out from my owners’ mouths gives me a sense of belonging – even of purpose, a confirmation anyway, that I belong to their daily rites, just as much as they do to mine. What else to long for, I wonder as I lay down on the soft king-size mat they bought me at that oligarchs’ pet shop back in Moscow days. 

Surely, humans seem obsessed with words, urine definitely not being an option for them to mark their territory. It is words that they rely upon to make the trick. Not only my owners – all of them. Floods of words are being exchanged by the minute, and the more they flow others with them, the more they are expected to be in control of anything. Almost. Barking is a harsh fallback to them. They have an instinct for playing with words just like we do with sticks and balls. Their apprenticeship with them, though, actually takes their whole lifetime.  Truth is, to catch up with them, all you need is to pick out a few salient words out of their unending stream of blah-blah-blah. We are straighforward and lucky, wired as we are. Take our sense of smell. I just need to take a whiff of my folks’ smell, especially of HER scent, and I am the happiest old pup on earth. 

Can we say the same for them? How can they expect to reach out to one another through all the layers of words that keep on growing on their skin? Still, that is in their blood and there is no point in criticizing. Take it or leave it. Aren’t we called their best friends? Give us a whiff of this and a whiff of that and we figure out the whole world and rarely feel that miserable, anyway. Take expat dogs: every now and then our owners are expected to  decamp and we are asked to adapt into new spots, get exposed to unsmelled scents, put up with misleading new street layouts. That’s nothing compared to their ordeal, including their taming of whole new sets of words – foreign languages they call them – and related new social skills.

Good thing is, I am only expected to understand my owners’ words, which is an endearing blend of American English and Italian. And how much do I love the sound of that latin language (am I surprising you? Not only am I acquainted with the existence of Latin but I am also rather attracted by its rich smell), the singing way she summons me for a walk, “sei pronto, WEBSTER, andiamo?”, my tail wagging from side to side,  to reach for the entrance door never takes me longer than a second. I am there, I am HERS, ready to smell the world all over again.  Long story short, no matter if you are a working dog, a service one or just an expat family guy, you end up seeing them exactly as they are, beneath their invisible coats of useless words.

One of These Things First

Freyalu

I could have been your pillar, could have been your door

I could have stayed beside you, could have stayed for more.

Nick Drake

“LOOK AT YOU”, I hear him saying to my head tilted to one side, “where is your boldness, where is your stamina, where is YOU?” I wish he hadn’t asked me that because I am feeling like a corpse. One glass of wine too many and here I am, unable to articulate an answer. I choose to shut my eyes and take a deep breath.  He is still sitting in front of me behind our scented candles, waiting for my reply but our conversation has turned into a burst bubble. And there IT comes to me to save me once again. Approaching mid air, soon hovering over our dining table – a totally mesmerizing object – suddenly snapping open as if dutifully obliging me.

I am a lucky woman, my imagination always coming to lift me up when needed. More, its appearance in my life has made me the artist they say I am, despite my self-sabotaging attempts. It is a bliss that smooths down things when they get matted. The first time it saved me was the summer my mom got cancer and had to go through major surgery, he had shut me out from his life – at least temporarily -, and my workroom was so full of crap, a much worse version of Sibyl’s cave. Till then I had never really trusted my imagination, always too eager to repel any of its shy assaults.

Call it a minor epiphany or just the effects of the sunlight on an Italian solitary beach, whatever, it proved to be a great experience. Fact is I longed for my share of a smile, that kind of heat that reaches deep into your bones. So it was that I saw him slowly approaching under a heavy sun rain, beaming with his red golf bag which at a closer look turned out to be a bunch of umbrellas hanging on his right shoulder.

He gently crouched down under my shade whispering: “sun is for free, smile is for free and for just ten euros this red umbrella will always shelter you – rain, lonelyness, fear – no matter what. It has magic powers and it will serve you honestly. It will also help feed my six kids back home. In Senegal I used to be a poor school teacher, here I am teaching humour to sad rich people.” Secrets of a little red umbrella and the smile that came along with it. That object colonized my imagination and then my canvases, superimposing infinite backdrops and mazes: it was a statement, IT WAS ME.

“At your age, you should know better, shouldn’t you?” He has more to suggest now and I do agree with him and I do appreciate his observation. I even feel thankful, that’s why I am paying tribute to him with my warmest available smile. In fact, since I first met him up at my hometown train station twenty-something years back, he has gained access to a number of my inner rooms. In fact, my easiness in agreeing with him is a very recent personal achievement, along with my starting to reward him with heartfelt smiles instead of the old regular set of sour or – at best – blank glances. And isn’t that just one more of those silent clicks that contributes to shape us up into updated versions of our previous selves? Or is it just growing old as a couple? Truth is that since I chose to rely on his sharpness of mind instead of blaming him for the way his messages were being conveyed, I have grown into a better self. Also, my suppling by the day does not make me miss so much the harsh girl I used to be. 

I observe him now: he is rewarding me in turn with his ernest smile. He is waiting for my next step, though, keen to detect any actual progress on my side, shrewd enough to dribble any of my narcissistic verbal diversifications, committed to coach me in the art of treasuring the day, ANY DAY. Till I can finally see it: tomorrow I will be back at my easel, ready to pick up my brush and complete this last baffling watercolour still life: a red umbrella floating over our dining table.

Give the Ball a Chance

Freyalu

Regola n.1 Guarda la pallina, non perderla mai di vista

Quando occupi una posizione in campo dietro al tuo avversario è facile vedere ciò che sta facendo, ma quando sei tu davanti devi voltarti e seguire la traiettoria di ogni tuo colpo. Solo in questa maniera si potranno capire i colpi dell’avversario.

Perdo sempre la partita perché non seguo la pallina con lo sguardo. Tutti migliorano e salgono di varie posizioni nella lunchtime league del Polisquash eccetto me, che continuo a occupare la vischiosa parte bassa della classifica. Di qui sono passati tutti, per salir su, chi prima, chi dopo, agli onori della parte superiore della tabella e come una monella di scuola materna nella calca di un distratto pubblico adulto, li osservo lassù, maturi proprietari dei movimenti giusti, ciascuno proveniente da qualche travagliata storia personale ma infine vincente, meritevole di una forma di rispetto a cui non ho animo di ambire. Tutto questo perché non mi concentro sulla pallina e d’altronde lei non aspetta me: se ne schizza via per la sua, taglia l’aria del campo ed è capace di lasciare anche tracce dolorose, se mi trova di mezzo. Perché, mai scherzare con la pallina da squash, massimo rispetto per i suoi poteri pressoché illimitati. Eppure ci sarà un momento in cui diventeremo alleate, se non simbiotiche, e assieme sprigioneremo quel suono giusto e rotondo che acquista il colpo eseguito alla perfezione. Perché, a differenza degli altri giocatori che puntano al profitto domestico della vittoria, io mi attardo alla ricerca del movimento perfetto, rimandando l’incontro col qui e ora, nonostante la saggezza che l’età mi assegna. Intanto, nella vita come nello squash, il gioco va avanti e le regole le detta il caso, che  ti sposta a suo piacimento da una parte all’altra del ristretto quadrato di gioco. Adattamenti continui alle circostanze, imprevisti che si sommano e imprimono una direzione sempre diversa agli affanni del giorno, questo è anche il balletto impossibile dello squash, questo il motivo per cui continuo a perdere ogni singola partita, nonostante le lezioni di Duncan. Quanti i colpi sbagliati e le sconfitte accumulate nelle stagioni che passano, con Duncan che scommette una birra su ogni serie di esercizi assegnata, mezz’ora di lezione dopo mezz’ora di lezione. Cliente perfetta per questa prodigiosa canaglia sbarcata a Milano da Londra. Duncan, che ha compiuto l’impresa più memorabile della sua vita – attraversare a nuoto il Canale della Manica – il mattino in cui dall’altra parte dell’Atlantico le torri gemelle crollavano e io, ancora del tutto all’oscuro delle arti dello squash, giocavo solo a fare la mamma. Duncan, che alza la pinta di birra e brinda, “Lucia, give the ball a chance.”

Pelle d’asino

Freyalu

L’ombelico ormai non esiste più, la pelle del pancione è tesa al massimo. Lì sotto c’è lui che sta costruendo sè stesso, accumulando grammi di identità e nuotando le acque dense di una piscina primordiale. Gambine che scalciano o puntano senza complimenti contro pareti già troppo tolleranti. Ed è tutto vero: nulla delle immaginarie sbirciate di profilo davanti allo specchio con la pancia all’infuori per vedere come appari quando sei incinta; ora lo sei davvero e lui sta crescendo di te e presto da te uscirà per iniziare la sua corsa. Le ore più belle del giorno sono quelle trascorse a leggere , la mano spalmata sulla pancia per non perdere il contatto – starà sognando, starà giocando, terrà il pollice in bocca, riderà? Nel ripiano superiore dell’armadio c’è una grossa scatola di cartone blu dove campeggia la scritta bianca GAP. Dentro, avvolti in fogli di velina bianca, hai messo i primi costumi di scena con cui presentarlo al mondo – tutine a righe verdi, braghette di cotone blu, un cappellino bianco di lino.

Diciotto anni fa ho rischiato di perderti per sempre. Colpa di un istinto materno difettoso o di una lenta reazione al cambiamento. Quante manovre sbagliate ho accumulato prima di capire che concepire un figlio non equivale a ospitare qualcuno in un recesso del proprio corpo mentre fuori indossi il costume di sempre. No, la geografia del corpo cambia e i confini si espandono: la vecchia pelle non basta più a coprirlo tutto e in alcuni punti l’anima rimane nuda. Tu, cocciuto sin da subito, me lo hai fatto capire nel modo più spietato. 

Ho perso sangue come un animale ferito. Era la prima gravidanza e non sapevo che questo succede quando c’è una minaccia d’aborto; ho lasciato passare parecchi minuti prima di riconoscere che avevo bisogno d’aiuto. Presto è subentrato il senso di responsabilità che subito ha istruito il processo alle azioni sbagliate, trovandomi colpevole di molti reati. Avevo continuato a lavorare, prendere treni, aerei e un auto fino nel Nord della Germania. Il colpo di grazia però te l’avevo dato a Natale in montagna, quando non ho saputo dire di no a quella lunga camminata nella neve fresca alta fino alle ginocchia. Conficcavo un piede dopo l’altro nella coltre immacolata bevendo quell’aria profumata anche per te, convinta di fartene il primo grande dono di tanti altri a venire. E che a scricchiolare fossero soltanto i passi e non anche qualcosa nei caldi tessuti del ventre, il laboratorio dove il tuo essere era in costruzione.

“Ora devi stare ferma”: al telefono il tono perentorio del ginecologo ha trafitto la mia coscienza, “rimani in riposo assoluto e prendi queste pasticche ogni giorno.” Per due mesi sono rimasta acquattata a letto.

Quando ti abbiamo visto nell’ecografia, come eri già potente nella tua minuscola fragilità, al centro di una scena da cinema muto: un cuoricino pulsante in bianco e nero e in assenza di audio. Il tempo anestetizza i ricordi e per ritrovare il papà e me, giovane coppia, devo scavare più sotto: eccoci là, spettatori paralizzati di fronte al mistero di una vita che sta lottando per divenire.

Subito dopo la nascita ti hanno avvolto in una copertina termica e ti hanno sistemato su di un fasciatoio arancione. Non ricordo alcun suono né il tuo primo vagito, soltanto il modo prodigioso e malinconico in cui hai cominciato a occupare il tuo spazio nel mondo. E, il giorno successivo, il nostro primo appuntamento. 

Nell’istante in cui l’infermiera ti ha estratto dal carrello pullulante di neonati disperati, il tuo pianto è giunto dritto a me, ben staccato da tutti gli altri: la tua voce, per sempre. Con cauta incredulità ho incominciato ad attaccarti al seno e a passarti il mio pochissimo latte. Bambina che gioca alla mamma, ti ho posto al centro del letto per osservarti: dormivi placido, avvolto nella tua tutina di ciniglia azzurra. “Ora chiudo gli occhi, li riapro e avrai già diciott’anni. Come sarai? Ho fretta di conoscerti.”

La risposta ora è qui: tu e io parliamo, sei un adolescente e quando i tuoi occhi si accendono in un sorriso, è  l’ennesimo segno di vittoria. Come allora però ti vedo in bilico. Crescendo sei divenuto uno splendido asino. A scuola vai senza curarti di studiare e non ti lasci convincere dalle parole dei professori. Ti tieni a distanza da qualsiasi libro che mi ostini a proporti. Sei convinto di sapere già tutto oppure che nulla valga la pena scoprire. Ora sei tu il cantiere di te stesso, questo hai cominciato a sospettare e anche a temere. Fabbricare sogni è il mestiere di un adolescente: vuoi diventare un campione di basket ma è soltanto un sogno e tu lo sai. Chissà quali pensieri ti attraversano mentre digiti fulmineo i tasti dello smartphone, quali paure, e come non vederti ancora come quel pesciolino palpitante sospeso tra la vita e il buio anecogeno. Hai un fisico armonioso e un profilo da filosofo, sebbene forse non sai nemmeno chi fossero questi filosofi dell’antica Grecia. A volte i tuoi pensieri mi colpiscono come i calci di un asino, dolorosi ma vitali: è la tua energia interiore che cerca una via, una vocazione. O un sorriso di incoraggiamento che non so donarti.

Un mattino hai cambiato pelle e tutto è stato diverso. Hai scritto una lettera al preside e a noi genitori. Ci hai fatto sentire piccoli, meschini. Con lucidità e passione hai dato forma a pensieri covati nei giorni, negli anni. Nel modo più deciso ci hai comunicato le tue intenzioni: rinunciare al basket perché capisci di non avere sufficiente talento e impegnarti nello studio. Aggiungi anche riflessioni che farebbero la gioia di un educatore appassionato. Un giorno poi quella pelle è caduta e un’altra si è formata, poi un’altra ancora. Ti vedo correre ed è bello vederti cercare il tuo cammino. Intanto la pelle che mi ricopre non basta, qualcosa rimane sempre esposto. 

Inconspicuous Mother

Freyalu

I can see her slim figure tilting on a spade in the early morning sun digging in the orchard. Her high-pitched “Buongiorno!” together with her encouraging smile as she watches me reaching her, definitely wakes me up. We are deep in summertime of my eighteen. She has always loved gardening but to grow her own vegetables has been a recent conquest, the glowing result of settling down after years of a gypsy life: finally able to stamp feet on her own ground, a call of her peasant DNA, maybe.

Seasons have been piling up till the five of us sons and daughters have grown adults. Then one day she realised something new. Her bones had grown too stiff to take personal care of her tender crops. She put on her reading glasses and looked up for Gino’s number. Soon that little old peasant, a peer of my dad’s from elementary school days, started to become a regular amid our tomato, cucumber and green bean plant rows.

It was in preparation of glorious Summer that she would be keeping on investing her money and all of her time. In fact, not only would the garden and the big house draw her energies, but also special care would be paid on her outer and inner selves. Reading, regular walking, visiting church next door, everything would contribute to make her fit for our arrival. In that season her offsprings and nephews would show up, with the declared intention to spend at least part of their holidays “back home”; the nest and its guardian would be indeed ready to receive them all.

The long convent table under the lodge is the altar for family rites. Along with always al dente succulent pasta, colourful appetising dishes prepared with her zucchini, tomatoes, aubergines and green beans are being served there. They are passed back and forth along the table, from hands to hands, smile to smile, most of the time.

Like any Italian mother she has articulated her own food language and by that family code she has always been able to reach those she loves. Her husband, our father, would benefit much from all that too. He would sit at the head of the table facing the church (our right-hand side neighbour), bestowing his mockingly serious bliss on the food we were on the point of sharing. That too was part of our family rites which she accepted and even longed for.

She also well tolerated his very personal gardening style. First thing, she could never tell when he would be available for help, then he would unpredictably choose his tasks, like, he would climb up the poplar tree with the excuse to prune some of its stupid branches, sometimes indulging in some clownish scene, like his screaming aloud voglio una donna! (I want a woman), just like lo Zio Teo, the crazy character in Fellini’s Amarcord. He would do it to draw the attention of our left-hand side neighbour’s bimbo wife, mainly, though, for the sheer fun of us all.

My mum would look on from a distance with her mild smile, possibly reminding herself that that was one of the reasons why she had chosen to marry him instead of the other and indeed he was an unconventional, lively, free spirit. That probably explains also why – among all other things – he loved fire and the brave act of taming it, making him a tribal priest of kind. He would dutifully assemble dry leaves, pick up any piece of paper or wooden material around, to pile all up in a corner of her orchard, to be finally and unexpectedly ignited on a whim. In fact, she did not like that at all, actually she hated it. Sharp on time, with a dramatic intonation in her voice, she would warn everybody around to shut down all windows and doors, to keep that hellish smell away from inside her house.

For thirteen years now she has been leaving alone in her three- storey house, finally able to decide when to keep doors and windows wide open at zero risk of smoke smell getting inside, windows that my still childish imagination resembles to human eyes open onto outer worlds. It was an Easter Eve. My father was supposed to bring back home ravioli for our Easter supper. Before that, he had many plans for the day, first of all an exciting transfer. Something went wrong, though, and the left wing of the ultralight plane which he had just bought somewhere North and was taking home on its inauguration flight, cracked down leaving him no escape; the sea below swallowed it along with him.

The accident made her angry rather than sorrowful. His sudden disappearance triggered in her a deep sense of frustration, as if victim of a major form of betrayal. How many years had she been patiently expecting that he, just turned elderly enough the week before, realised the moment had come for him to stop flying and start a new more mindful phase? She had always been confident that they had still time ahead to share, despite different personalities. She strongly felt she deserved it and now it was his fault that everything wound up this way.

Since then, every following summer she has been keeping her usual seat on the right corner of the long table under the lodge, while her husband’s head seat has stayed vacant, strictly if informally assigned to one of us five in turn, never ever conceded to any of our annexed partners, if not under very very special circumstances.

Indeed, something in the alchemy of her dinners had changed for good. Her cooking turned more lukewarm, less piquant and spicy. We still enjoy her flavoured pasta and rich vegetable dishes – whatever their origin -, but everything just tastes different now.

When a new summer ends, all of us visitors leave. From inside her fortress home she looks up in all possible directions, with the five of us living in scattered parallel worlds. Apparently that does not affect her much. Despite she is shortsighted and wears thick lenses all the time, she succeeds in reaching out on us wherever we are. Technology is her strategic ally: her social media accounts keep her busy and watchful.

At times she surprises us sending pictures she has just taken on her morning walk along the seaside. She never takes selfies, though. She is rather a natural reporter of minimal events, which may materialise in a seagull hovering on a sunny solitary beach, the vivid meeting up of skyline and sea along the horizon, located somewhere beyond the very point where he entered the waters, or the glimmering floating ashore of a wooden piece after undergoing artistic sea change.

She harkens sea changes also inside herself, continuously recalculating her priorities. That is what she must have done when she elaborated a new plan: enough with her orchard and home-grown veggies and ahead with a space where her youngest one could put foundations for his new family house.

Teo is the youngest of all and the only one still living in town. Their umbilical cord was formally cut forty years ago, when she was already forty-one and mother of four pre-adolescents. It was a late unplanned pregnancy, complicated with the risk of exposition to chicken pox viruses in the air of a Christmas family reunion.

Back then, prenatal diagnosis offered quite limited options and she just chose not to hear all those who wisely advised her not to venture on a too risky pregnancy, those including her partner. Defiantly and just like a patient peasant, she chose to nurture her inner soil till harvest time. I remember we spent a whole month or so separated from her within our small flat in Milano; we would communicate via a board placed the buffer zone of our long corridor. Soon her belly started to blossom. We were all thrilled.

Yet, going back to those strange days I cannot detect any sense of trauma, rather excitement and even bliss. We were elementary school kids and to catch our attention she would sketch funny drawings assigning us tasks and telling us how she/they two were doing. With hindsight, I have no idea whether such logistic measures actually prevented hideous chicken pox viruses from hitting our yet in-progress brother. I do know for sure that she taught us what resilience means: no matter what, never give up and never feel alone nor let down. Even better if you keep smiling.

Her approach proved successful: her harvest was stunning. Few months later, in a late-July full-moon night, our brother “Gift from God” made his epiphany. A new family chapter was to begin. I walked to the hospital to see him for the first time. I squeezed my nose onto the nursery glass panel to scan all the cots in search of his name, till I spotted MATTEO: there he was, so gorgeously regal, amid all other newborns. A six-grader, I kept on contemplating my brand-new brother with mixed feelings: what was looming ahead for me? Would it be just like playing dolls or, rather, a new threat and source of family extra tasks? Either ways, I suddenly realised I had become a grown-up.

“Look at this wonderful baby here! Can you believe that his mum is the very one that married the aviator?! He is such a handsome man but she is so inconspicuous!” Three women were commenting my brother’s genes just beside me.

An the trick was made: my wonder mum turned into an inconspicuous middle-aged woman. For the first time I could see her under external eyes. True, you could not define her as a stunning beauty, still she has always looked pleasant, as charming as any smiling woman wearing glasses and not pretending to stay blonde while her hair has gradually whitened… I also observe that she has always had nice-shaped legs, if not vertiginously long to make a major impact.

Admittedly, to sync the three women’s vision of her with my own magnificent one, took me a while, finally proving a punch in my stomach. Truth is that I was not vaccinated yet against local gossiping, or rather, the real world. We had never really settled down for long enough to go local. We used to live in a realm of our own, with parents its absolute monarchs. Every three years or so we would relocate somewhere else, according to my dad’s new assignments as an Air Force officer. Till that day of recognition, the quiet sea-town and its simple people had only represented a background if friendly scene in our holiday seasons. Now we were there to stay, at least for a while longer.

When the women’s comments were reported home, it actually took us very short to digest them into a family joke as the myth of the inconspicuous mother. So it was that to celebrate our new family member and dispel any past misgiving, my dad sparkled a major bonfire. Many neighbours complained that night, not she who was still in hospital breastfeeding the newcomer.