Small and perched on the white marble step at my grandmother’s doorway, my legs dangled in the air, too short to touch the ground. I was building shaky card castles out of old bingo sheets. Beside me, she leaned far out to hang laundry on the line that ran from our house across to the building opposite.
Heavy, distant, and comforting all at once, she would later sit on the bed and ask me to fetch her glasses for reading—kept in a drawer full of Liebig cards, scented with lavender. That night they slept head to head, and I at their feet. At dawn I half-woke: she had turned to the left, toward the open window, an arm wrapped around herself. My grandfather was to her right. Both of them breathed softly, while the street outside lay in near silence—only a car or motorbike now and then. The morning was cold.
When she rose, she baked me a sponge cake and washed the glasses one by one, rubbing them clean inside and out with just her hands and water. Later, from the little kitchen balcony, we tossed pieces of soaked dry bread onto a nearby terrace for the pigeons. That’s what life was on Vicolo San Mandato, when you let me stay with them overnight.
I wish you were here now, so I could visit whenever I wanted. At night, moving through the dark like a quiet animal, I’d sit with my left leg tucked under me and watch you sleep. Sometimes I’d check whether your sleep was peaceful; when it wasn’t, my hand would reach for you, stroking gently so you’d feel loved and safe—like the wild little girl you’ve always been.
Before dawn I would slip away, only to return later, catching a glimpse of you over breakfast, or sitting in your wheelchair in some corner while someone sang.
Lately I’ve heard you’ve grown aggressive—a stage they say is normal with the illness. It makes me wonder: if I suddenly appeared and called you Mom, would you recognize me even for a moment? Could it give you a flicker of comfort? More than a year has passed since I last saw you, except in scattered photos: your face drawn long, your eyes lost, a desperate performance of yourself.
Thank you for being an endless source of inspiration, for teaching me how powerful and essential willpower can be. Fragile and sensitive though you were, you faced the world like a lion without claws or fangs, showing me what it means to fight for what you want. And, unintentionally, you also revealed how destructive and self-sabotaging pride can become.
We’re rushing faster and faster toward a destination none of us knows. All we can do is cross our fingers and hope to be among those who survive the ruin of these past hundred years. Only art will save us. What can save us too is wild, independent thought. Then comes recklessness—daring, gut instinct. And finally, the strength to ignore, even to scorn, fear.
Meanwhile, I clarify butter, learn to recognize trees, wake in the night with panic attacks. And meanwhile, one of my works will be shown in Rome this Saturday.
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