Mwhile you controlled remotely, your girlfriend in video call mode scrolled through your wardrobe piece by piece and I I took the chosen shirts and jackets and piled them on the bedreminding you that everything you didn’t take with you would be given away.
“No mom, swear you won’t give anything away,” you begged on the other end of the video. “Swear you keep everything for me.” I snorted: there is no space, in this house it doesn’t accumulate, you know that now I will rent your room.
But I was already thinking to myself about the shape your green and yellow room would take, about how to change everything, what to use it for. Anything, just to not leave the bedroom sanctuary of you as a child, a teenager and then a university student who would have tightened my heart at every passage. Just to let it live, and not be forced to keep it closed so as not to be assailed by melancholy.
Danda Santini, director of iO Donna (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
I could give the room to the little brother, who has always been sacrificed, but he cares about his den. We could put on the exercise bike and do some exercise, but how much wasted space. Or all the books and study them, but to study what then, at our age?
The pile on the bed grew: you are the dandy son, the one who drove me crazy when you had to buy something, even a pair of sneakers. You tried, you tried again, you looked at yourself a hundred times in the mirror, then after long silences you said: “I don’t know”. What were you looking for? Perfection, the round toe as you wanted it, the right proportions, the style without excess, the softness of the sole, even the laces you looked at. “Mom, you know I care, keep everything for me.”
Have a safe trip, my son. See you soon. Indeed very soon (illustration by Cinzia Zenocchini).
When we finished there was little left in the closet. To be safe, you gave some shirts to your brother, you let go of the tattered jeans from your teenage years. We have added the six tasting glasses that they gave you and you will finally have with you, two small designer bedside lamps, I’ve been looking for a couple of nice prints from my grandfather to hang something familythe two 1930s office chairs of my great-grandfather who who knows how arrived here unscathed and we waited for the moving truck.
You move abroad for work: now it’s serious. It’s no longer the six months of Erasmus, the year of the Master’s degree, and then the back and forth to your girlfriend’s house. Now go for real. You wanted the bathrobe, which is a bit like a toothbrush when you’re engaged: an unmistakable sign of presence at a distance. Well, not even that anymore. Have a safe trip, my son. See you soon. In fact, very soon: we’ll come to visit you in a week to check that everything is okay.
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