RI return to the house where I was born and lived to assist my mother. In my childhood neighborhood, more bars and fewer grocery storeslarge supermarkets and no haberdashery, the little shop where, with a piece of paper in hand, I went to do the shopping alone for the first time has disappeared; the old Motta that perfumed the air has been replaced by offices, a gym and a fast food restaurant.
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The squares of Genoa, from the past to the present between real and virtual
On the street, my old friends recognize me, the ones I played marbles with or Barbie dolls withand the old tenants, who had lived there since the end of the fifties, when everything was still to be designed here, between uncultivated fields and new buildings to house the children of the baby boom. The well-kept garden surrounded by the views of the houses, a “modern” idea that smelled of the future, where I played endlessly every afternoon, every weekend, every holiday day, has become a small forest.
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The little trees then taller than me have reached the seventh floor, mine. The flowers that a gardener who seemed very old and always angry because we trampled on the grass, used the hedge as a volleyball net and the bushes as football goals are no longer there, and neither are the children.
Danda Santini, director of “iO Donna” (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
The fountain on which my favorite weeping willow tree rested, which I drew many times for school, has been filled with earth. The trees have grown, they have swollen, their foliage touches the balconies in a ribbon and touching each other, an impenetrable sea of leaves just yellowed by autumn seen from up here. Too bad no one enjoys it, not even dogs, who knows if they’ve banned it.
My bedroom has become a middle ground, part storage, part wardrobe. When I left the house, and after a month my mother gave me everything I had left in a box to take away with me, I was disappointed. But how, you erase every trace of me? Now I understand, I would do it too: forget immediately, with a swipe of the sponge, the place where the children were babies, children, teenagers, students and then teenagerscapricious or in love, messy and noisy, to turn the page without nostalgia and move forward. Reclaim a space, assign it a different function, refurnish it a little.
Return home, between nostalgia and a sense of security (illustration by Cinzia Zenocchini).
But there is no escape: it remains an unfinished, meaningless and neglected room. Where there were my 19th century novels, cookbooks, travel guides and folders with household documents are now lined up. My bizarre posters are no longer on the walls, the desk where I studied until late at night has been moved to a corner, the void is occupied by a large solitary darling.
Only the bed remained intact, with its very hard and lumpy mattress that I always complained aboutbecause it creaked when I turned, but nothing, it was made of horsehair, an idea that seemed bizarre to me but my mother claimed it was the best, natural and cool in summer. It is still humped, it still makes noise, but it must be tiredness, or the absolute silence of the garden in front, or who knows, perhaps the ancient bed itself: I collapsed suddenly, cradled in the warm embrace of my old bedroom.
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