TR # 22 - Missing

The exact date of my return to Italy must be a secret for most of my friends waiting for me, but now it's useless to deny that the date is near or perhaps even imminent or maybe already gone. It's therefore time to take stock of and to count the things I will miss and those that I will instead be happy to leave behind.

TR # 21 - Moonlight and Valentino

I'm Luna, it's February 14, I'm going to see another concert by Bon Jovi. Could I choose a different title from that of the film starring Jon?!

TR # 20 - Belonging

Outside it's -20 °, very good reason not to go out, and I look on the internet the latest episodes of "Che tempo che fa" from Italy, all focused on the referendum about the Fiat-blackmail. To cheer myself up a little, I open a folder always present in my mail, it's called "Dialogues" and collects all the most interesting and literary stimulating emails that I and others have written over the years. I open it with a specific purpose, to go and read the emails I wrote when I was 17, full of "x" and "k" and full of enthusiasm, anger and energy for my first encounters with the world. There's not much time left to my return to Italy and I'm sort of taking stock of my months here and looking back once more to that first trip to London. After coming back I was asking a friend: "Tell me, may there be a "Britain nostalgia"? Yes because I always heard of the "Africa nostalgia", but what I feel seems just like it! It was a vacation -but more than that, a life experience- truly wonderful and exciting." And he replied to me that yes, there may be all kinds of "nostalgia", or better it's a "situation nostalgia", the nostalgia of those places and moments that will probably never come back. Ten years later I know for sure that I will not suffer from the "Toronto nostalgia" because no matter how much I appreciate this experience and what it gave me, I won't regret these places and this hectic life (but I'll leave to another post the list of what I'll miss and what I won't). And I don't suffer from the "Italy nostalgia" either, although I miss my loved ones and sometimes the places, because I know I don't belong to my homeland either. Here it is, this is precisely the right verb: to belong. I want to find something or someone to belong to. It 's something you often see around, in those who talk about a place that's dear to them or about a loved one: there's a different light in their eyes, a very special excitement in the voice of those who speak to you about what they belong to. Some people have a "Colombia nostalgia" and staring into space they describe the difficulty in breathing for the thin air and the lack of seasons as something awesome, then there are those who have the "Italy nostalgia" although they have almost never been there, and you can almost see the image of the countryside and endless olive tree groves, and there are those who talk like that about a loved one, and no matter where they are in the world they know they belong to that person only and they feel at home anywhere. And I saw the "Europe nostalgia", the Brazilian saudade, and many other situation nostalgias. But I still have to find a place of which I can talk like that, and I'm strongly determined to find it. Meanwhile, I can say I'm happy to have lived this experience fully, in the sense that while sometimes things happen too fast for you to realize, in these months I have enjoyed every instant at the very moment in which I lived it. And almost without realizing it, I have accumulated experience in my field that will be invaluable in the future. So I'm definitely happy with what I got on a personal level and continue my search, going home for a pit-stop.

TR # 19 - The Ghost of Christmas Past

Nice to meet you, Luna Scrooge. I don't think it's a recent thing, my hatred for Christmas. I mean. First, when I was a child it meant I would stay at home from school and I liked studying a lot. Pureblood nerd, here I am. Then there was the stress of the tree (and every other year, also the Manger): sacred hush while Pa' unrolled the lights and equally sacredly swore at full blast because some didn't work. And then he tried to explain to us why some cables worked even if a light was broken while others not… mysteries of the electricity on parallel cables or similar stuff. Then bad words and crazy screaming if we didn't put the larger balls near the trunk and wild complaints if the tree was real (it only happened twice, I think) because it scattered pine needles anywhere. Shortly, 'twas a penance. And then the Christmas lunch that, although funny and very pleasant in the result, required a preparation and a long job of diplomacy between supporters of the lunch at home and supporters of the restaurant that Wikileaks would make a fortune out of it. And my family -that we weren't properly conventional wasn't yet clear?- follows the politics of “if you need something we can buy it during the year, there's no need to wait for Christmas” therefore there weren't even heaps of presents to unwrap. On the bright side, I found when I was 4 a more than rational explanation to Father Christmas and I keep sticking to it (I'll write about it in another post, it would be too long). What?? Do you still believe in Santa Claus? Not mentioning the fact that I met him when I was 18, yes, I still believe in Father Christmas. Just saying, you still believe in Berlusconi… let's make a challenge!! He's sure cheaper and less harmful for the general well-being, the Father I mean, rather than the Papi.

And let's admit it too, the more years go by the worse it becomes, the Christmas period. It feels like here in North America, everybody rushing to the malls to buy a whole lot of generally useless gifts, everybody stressed out to decorate their houses according to the latest fashion's criteria, God forbid the neighbors and guests don't see that they're not up-to-date… how boring! And then, daily demonstrations of an alarming hypocrisy -that I have especially noticed since I entered the job world- with gifts exchanged among people who can't stand each other, pretending to believe in the spirit of Christmas when instead they can't see each other and they would kick and punch each other rather than buying a “little thought”! The Japanese know it best, since they hardly celebrate at all and they even work on the 25th!

Then during the last few years life -or bad luck- also got in the way to create ugly memories to me, all concentrated in the dull days between Christmas and New Year's Day. There are memories of death, of diseases diagnosed on the 31st and toasts made in the entrance hall of a hospital. Memories of police officers at the work place, of crisis of anxiety and attacks of panic for the situation that had been created on my work place. And then it was iron's turn. Yes because around this time one year ago I started making iron injections for a serious anemia of which I was absolutely unaware before the blood tests. And on December 28 last year they very wisely thought of doubling my dose of iron, causing an anaphylactic shock that scared me more than anything ever. I haven't spoken about it a lot since then, but the feeling of losing control over my own body, with my heart pulsing like crazy in my back and the pressure rising and falling in a minute -I remember everything as if it happened yesterday. Just as I remember, on the 30th of December, the overwhelming terror to go out of my house: on the threshold I almost went back in because I was terrified at the idea of feeling sick again, not being able to control my body, even fainting or something like that. I fought the fear, went out, and nothing happened. Then on New Year's Eve we made a promise with Gica: this year would have been different, enough celebrations in Mestre square with the lame concert and drunk guys throwing firecrackers.

Said and done, I celebrate it in Toronto City. And here they know their stuff. The inauguration of the Christmas period was on the 27th of November, with a big celebration in the main square, a million people, fireworks hitting the buildings (yes, says Ma', they must have indoor fireworks............) and Christmas music while all the people were skating as if we were shooting “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York”. And once I left behind the baggage of the Christmas' duties and the snow fell, with no gifts to buy, I feel like smiling more than anything else. I even decorated our house with small houses, penguins, little trees and snowflakes. I also drank the snow (that is, I held my mouth open until a snowflake fell within) and I'll probably go throwing snowballs very soon, in the nearby park. The Ghost of Christmas Present seems therefore much optimist and even not knowing what the Ghost of Christmas Future has ready for me, I count on succeeding in throwing behind my shoulders every negative memory brought by the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Sincerely,

Luna Scrooge.

TR # 18 - In excelsis Deo

Corrections on the title won't be accepted, since I spent 2 hours to decide what the right form was. And if the endings are random, the thought is what counts.

The day begins talking about funerals. No, it's not fault of my ancestral pessimism or of the snowstorm or some other tragedy, but only of intercultural exchanges between me and Toy, the Japanese. Because if in Italy there's a monotonous Catholic monotheism, in Japan they have more imagination and freedom of thought. In fact, almost all of them are Buddhists. And they dress in black and white (red and yellow are the colors of Tibetan), and watch the corpse all night eating sushi in the company (of the dead, of course). Then they cremate him and make the funeral at the temple. You spend a King's ransom (or better, a Buddha's ransom) for flowers, coffin, urn, and name. Yes, the name. Because when someone dies, they're assigned a new name. It's the monk to decide the name, according to the money he's been given. Then we talk about privacy, spirituality and mafia behavior. Ever heard of protection money?!

But the day doesn't end here, in fact I'm invited to a concert in a church in Christmas theme, with music by Monteverdi, Palestrina, Vivaldi. Ma' has no doubts: "Vivaldi?! Of course, they'll play the Four Seasons!" No. It 's a Christmas concert. And in fact they are two hours of magnum mysterium, lullaby (as if I needed it...), ode a te probo vir, and then Vivaldi: Magnificat and Salve Regina. Help. I had never been to an Anglican church... or rather, never except as a tourist. The ceilings are high, OK. Seatings on the benches are strictly for 3 or 4, which you can tell by the number of prayer books in the prayer-books-holder. Books have not only text, but also the score of the songs, how professional. The pews are hard as all the pews, and next to the books there are tickets to be put in the offertory "I'm not giving cash because I already support this church with Visa or Mastercard". Oh. Speaking of privacy, the supporters are listed at the end of the concert's booklet... starting from the most generous down to the least, but is that normal?! The church is decorated with Christmas lights and Christmas trees, and after some minutes I understand what's weird: we don't have garlands, or perhaps one under the statues of saints, and the tree is a pagan decoration, for goodness sake! On the other hand, we have miles of cribs. Finally the concert begins, and I am surprised to like it ... more or less. But being surrounded by slumbering spectators when not sound asleep, I'm delighted by my stamina. And I ask myself technical questions: why that unknown instrument, the theorbo, is so long and unwieldy? The soprano improvises her trilling or Vivaldi had written, "On the lu of hallelujah trill 7 times A-G-A-F-E-C-B sharp"? The Mystery of the Faith wasn't the death and resurrection of Christ (which among other things, to explain it to Toy this story seems an episode of Twilight)? So why the magnum mysterium of Palestrina is summarized in the fact that it was mysteriously allowed to an ox and a donkey to see our Lord? I'm confused, what a mystery. During the break, the Sleeping Spectator wakes up because of the applause and with perfect nonchalance turns to me and begins to comment on the technical aspects of the choir ... you were sleeping, what do you know????! But I appreciate him as one of the few Canadians -if not the only one- starting a completely random conversation with no ulterior motives. He tells me about the Christmas Carols, which are really a tradition here, with the singers who used to go door to door singing.

After the concert, with a well-wishing "Goodbye, stay warm" of my new friend, I decide to ignore him and take a brisk walk. With a temperature of -5°, that with the wind feels just -12°. And the flying ice -because if it doesn't snow how do they say? Icerains?- whipping my face while I admire the megavillas behind my house. Finally I get home and I take refuge under the blanket, in the warmth. Thank God... or thank the heating.