At the beginning of July, my daughter tripped while playing basketball. It seemed like a simple sprain, but it turned out to be a hairline fracture of the fifth metatarsal. Brace and rest. Two weeks later, we were supposed to leave for the seaside.
I’m writing much less because I’m thinking, much less. I’m thinking much less about what I watch, what I read, what I use or what I eat, what I do and who I am. It’s a period, it must be summer, it’s a period in which I watch, read, use, eat, do and am, and that’s it. Nothing more. There’s no lightheartedness, only commitments and unexpected events, with unexpected events that quickly turn into commitments. Not even on vacation, damn it, we managed to spend a few days relaxing. Never mind, it’s a wheel. And even a wheel that’s followed a caravan of horse-drawn carriages, sooner or later, gets clean by walking. And so we walk.
We repainted the entire house. All of it. I spent two months boxing up books, paintings, toys, digital devices, more books, and candles and mugs and pen holders and desk photographs and dozens of miscellaneous knick-knacks, and glasses and goblets and bottles of wine and liquor, and documents, various speakers and lamps, only to spend two weeks with the house in disarray and me working in the dust and catching first allergic rhinitis and then tracheitis. Finally, now that they’re finished and the house is starting to feel like a home again, I can finally say I’ll never do it again. Ever. You’d better sell the house, if I have to think about it again in a thousand years. That’ll be the right time.
When my daughter gets a haircut, she comes home sad and angry because she doesn’t like it, that haircut, and then her mom washes it again and fixes it, and she looks at herself in the mirror and smiles, and then, in bed, under the warm covers, shortly after, happy, she tells me, Dad, I love my hair.
My friend Nicola, a few weeks ago, referenced this post of mine and wrote about Bitonto, the town where he lives. I admire and almost envy the way he described it. You can clearly tell that, somehow, it’s his roots and that those roots engage him.
There are people who throw themselves, and there are people who stay on the sidelines to watch. Who is at greatest risk?