City tales - Milan lethargy.

Milan is never described as dormant, it is never slow or passive. Unless you are talking about he month of August.

Milan in August is stagnant, it is hot and stuffy, it is empty and deserted. It is sleeping.

Milan in August is quiet, and its peacefulness is almost unbearable. It is a place where you can feel your worst nightmares coming to life, its calmness is alarming. It isn't a city for placidness.

However, once a year it goes into hibernation, and the people roaming the streets look lost and dismayed, as if they can't quite understand what is happening around them.

Nowadays the holiday season is shorter. People aren't going away for the whole month anymore, so a new situation is happening, we are stirring the city from its sleep.

Walking the streets around the end of the month is like looking at a bear coming out of hibernation. Gradually, as the days wear out, we see shops opening up slowly as if just out of bed. Workers sweeping and cleaning as when we wash our faces to clean off the sleepy eyes. People that up until a few weeks ago were milky white, not are cappuccinos. All with a sluggish manner, in tune with their holiday rhythm.

Now we also experience the other side of the city, the side that has never closed, and they are high on coffee, they are resentful, they are fighting back the city and we can feel that it is not linking it quite so much.

Mountain Tales - San Giacomo family house

The house breathes of life lived in peace, of people who have worked towards having a great life, it smells of marzipan.

It is filled with toys that hang from the ceiling, one can loose oneself trying to discern each one, dancing on top of our heads; there are many little airplanes, in different colors and shapes. Some are helicopters and others balloons. But they all fly, as they should!

On top of the beams there are also placed wooden toys, and most of them are, too, airplanes. They sit there waiting in the gate for departure. Waiting for a new adventure, for a new destination.

The house feels of reached destinations, of goals that were met. it breathes and lives off the aura of its inhabitants.

The house is filled with books, books about travels. It feeds off the knowledge inside these books. The house is part of the world around it, its inside is in tune with the landscape around it, inside and outside are interlinked and speak the same language.

The house smells of marzipan, and lingering inside its walls one can smell freshly baked bread and strawberries and cream.

It smells of people with great minds and big hearts; and it is happy.

Summer Vacay - paintings

Stargazing - San Lorenzo Nights.

Watching for shooting stars is a careful work of patience. One should never divert one's gaze from the sky. It is also a painful work of determination, as the position that is required is seldom a natural one.

We are lucky people, as we have the privilege of using a terrace that is as advantageous during the day - with its views over a castle ruin, as by night, with a star studded celestial vault.

Watching for the shooting stars can be a deceitful task, as by looking intently at the sky one is unwillingly exposed to other uncommon things. Tonight for instance, I was painstakingly waiting when I saw a star moving in a orderly and straight motion, surely shooting stars don't move like that! So my other two guesses were: an UFO or a satellite! Taking the easy way out I believe I saw the latter, and for the second time in my life! (the first was as a little girl, it went past my bedroom window.)

If you watch for long enough, you feel almost as if the sky is taking hold of you and eating you up. One feel one's oneness with the universe, one can understand there isn't "them" or "there" and "us" and "here", but it becomes a bowl of "star soup" and you are part of it, you start dancing with the Great Bear and Oby Wan Kenobi. One can almost touch the stars, and I felt as when I am at home on my bed, almost going to sleep, gazing at my "glow in the dark" star stickers.

Then the most amazing thing happen! A shooting star! I had almost forgotten why I was doing there in that uncomfortable chair giving my neck reasons to annoy me with cervical pain in the morning, and I forget for a minute of all my problems and went back to my childish beliefs and made unreasonable wishes like "happiness" and clapped my hands - but by then the magic was gone.

(And you do it all over again - going into the cosmic soup, seeing satellites and  flying saucers - up til you see another shooting star.)

Going back home - 10 years later (pt.1)

Ten years had passed, ten years of living in Italy, ten years and they were my 20's.

I have to admit I was somewhat nervous about going back to my birth place, the country where I spent my childhood. I was nervous and a bit scared, as if in these ten years the place I should know so well had turned into some strange beast. Or was I that had changed into someone who could not relate to that familiar place? I was nervous about seeing people who would not understand me, as if the language I spoke wasn't understandable to the locals anymore.

It had been a decade, a decade that I had started my profession and had found my life partner. The decade that I had fought with myself to become an adult responsible for my actions, and I was scared that by going back, this place would have the magical capacity to change me back to the person in me I remembered living there, as if I was 't sure of who I had become. 

(warning: I am listening to the "lost" soundtrack...this might go deeper than I would have liked)

Another reason for my nervousness  was that I was taking a business idea with me. Something related to my profession, and I couldn't be sure it was the right thing, as I had only heard about what Brazil had become.

Oh yeah, I probably should have mentioned before that we were talking about Brazil! A country that DID change a lot inthe last 10 years! 

Once arrived, my mum and I ( who is one of my business partners, great mind!) mer our cousin and his bf, with whom we are planning our business venture. From the airport we went straight to lunch - and we had the time of our lives! We talked and talked, wine always by our sides, and when we realizedwe had   drunk the  lunch, afternoon and evening away! It was the best welcome party we could wish for and they become one of our best friends right away! (  only found in Brazil, I think)

It wasn't only a business trip, it was also a time for reuniting with family - some who we knew and some who we  didn't, but even the known were for us unknown, specially for me, for the last time we met I was a little girl.

The first weekend we had an invitation, by another of my mum's cousin, to a BBQ in a "chácara", a "chácara" is a small farm that is usually used for parties!

 

This place was magical. I was in a known surrounding, even though I had never been to that particular one. I was home, one of the many places I can relate to in a deeper level, just because I had experienced similar situations as a little girl. 

Our host started the fire in the "churrasqueira", the Brazilian BBQ place, at the same time as starting drinking beer. just like I had see. my uncle do during my childhood, with a smile in our faces, preparing for the arrival of our guests.

This party went from 11AM to 11PM, we sang, we danced, we ate and drank. We met up with old acquaintances and met new ones, we had the new and the old generations of our family together. We told stories about the past, present and future...

 

thus connecting back with our Brazilianess!