The Present

I often get asked the same ol' question every Western girl gets asked around about their birthday.."so,any prince Charming in shiny armours on the horizon yet?" Now more than ever the answer is: "yes, plenty"..the point is that not because one thinks some one is nice, they should feel innately compelled to wanting more from them. I have been fighting for so long against conventionalism that I guess now it has become my natural way of thinking. I live a happy,full and delightful life. Perfect just the way it is. So why should I be wanting more?

It was my twenty-something birthday party a few days ago. Some of my best gals and some of my male pals had been invited. It was a fun evening. We ate and drunk and laughed and I got quite a few nice gifts. My ladies got me some lovely stuff from my favourite surfers' shop. Nice. My boys also got me some amazing stuff: some of my favourite music and books..which I already had. Don't get me wrong. I have been taught to be thankful for a present whenever you get one, and I do. Frankly, I thought their presents were kind and lovely. However this brought me to make some considerations. Wasn't it emblematic that the wonderful things my "potential-princes-charming" had provided for me where the things I already had? May be I may be accused of being cynical and cold-hearted, but why should I make sacrifices and compromise to get something I already have? Just think.

Human Autopsy

A couple of days ago, I finally went to assist to a human autopsy. It was something I had been wanting to see for quite some time and never really got around to do. My main interest was strictly academic. I am one of those who learns from experience. Nevertheless, I also went I guess you could say to "test myself", to get a proof on my real predisposition and attitude for the medical profession. Having been preparing myself for any possible (and very understanding) shock or insufference, I was totally surprised to see how incredibly well I took the whole thing. I was impassive,couragious, strong and, dare I say, excited somewhat like a little girl in a candy shop.. (I truly hope you won't judge this harshly as it is a mere representation of my profound passion for medical sciences). On the way home I started to elaborate what had actually happened: the 65, male, cancer patient suddenly became a father, friend, employee, neighbour. His body may have been torn apart on a slab, but the memory of who he had been still remained. Who was he? What had he been up to his whole life? It made me think of the "Everyman" morality play from the XV century when Death comes knocking on the Everyman's door and he has to figure out, before he hits the grave, what really mattered in life. Beauty vanishes. So do Discretion and, obviously, Strength. A man's strength had definitively left his body and I couldn't help but wander what had he actually left behind,but more personally if I will actually take Knowledge and Good Deeds away with me to Heaven one day.. I'll sure try to do my best.

Blue Valentine

Quiet as a tornado..

Pretty much anyone who knows me,knows me as the most effervescent single girl they have ever met. I have had a few romantic stories. Some of them have changed me profoundly..influenced me into being the person I am today...with some regrets,of couse,as all of those stories did, eventually, come to an end. I love my life, despite all of it's quarky flaws and wrongs. I love being free to like and eat and listen to and watch and read what I like when I like where I like without having to be reliable on or responsable for anyone else. Guess that's called "being in your twenties and appreciating singleness". I have a few highly trusted friends, a zillion acquaintances and I meet dozens of people on a daily basis whom I share life and have fun,and cry and laugh with them but then, I keep a whole inner me secluded home for me to find when I get back..and that seems to be when the fun really starts..when I take my make-up off,put my trackies and my favourite music on..put off lights, light up candles and scented oils and get engrossed into reading,cooking,painting,writing, or merely speculating on the news or some random thought. My sister and her fiancè say they can totally picture me in a couple of decades living with a whole bunch of dogs, sporting long white hair in a dusty country house full of books. Suddenly, someone then walks into your life. As quietly as a tornado, he doesn't sweep you off your feet but worse: he can read you so well to put your foundations down. And you still have no idea of how he did it. And suddenly, even if you have a few trusted friends, a zillion acquaintaices and a few dozen strangers to talk to you wish to hear no-one's voice but his..Unfortunately, he is the one person you have asked to stay out of your life because it scared you how much he got you inside and because,somehow, the mistakes and hurts of the past haunt you worse than a ghoast. I miss you.

As you said, "It's been raining since you and I". Yesterday the sun came out again, but why is it you won't get out of my heart? I miss you.

Impulsiveness and the Power of Hindsight

I am impulsive. I always have been. I got out of bed at 3 am to write this. I must be impulsive.
When you are little, lack of experience, a mystical curiosity for what's out there and a wonderful sense of spontaneity brings you to writing silly messages on a piece of paper to the boy sitting next to you in class..to buzz the intercom at a stranger's place and run off as soon as they answer..to run naked in a field..roll yourself in the snow..spontaoneity. Then one day you "grow up", you become an "adult" and on your way to becoming a woman/man,adulescence,certain attitudes become un-cool and things you should restrain yourself from doing in exchange for make-up, French kisses and high heels. I never cared for those sorts of undefined social agreements and cliques. Instead, I have always prefered to stay as care-free and spontaneous. However there are certain moments in one's life when you realize that it is time to grow up. It is time not to speak everytime you wish to do so (even when it's irrelevant or inappropriate). A time when you should keep your impulses under control.

Unlike the widespread stereotype on postmoder women, I hate shopping, especially for clothes. (I swear I am honest and I ain't lying!!) However sometimes a girl has gotta do what's she's gotta do and I too shop. A few weeks ago I had seen this wee coat I had fallen in love with. But, as I had not enough money on me, I set my mind on going back later on that week to get it. I never got around going back to that shop until this afternoon. I was so excited about that coat when I had first seen it, but as the time had gone by, my interest for it diminished and, when I saw it again this afternoon, it looked aweful to me. The colour was different,the material looked bad and I had generally lost interest in it. I am beginning to love the patience,or you might want to call it "laziness" I am developing in taking time to think before acting upon my emotions, without having lost on that awe-filled sense of wonder and spontaneity for life. So I am just going to get some snow and roll in it! As for moving in with someone..that may take much,much longer!!

Feeling all grown up..Feeling so small..

Freedom to Learn

Epictetus once wrote in his "Discourses" that 'we must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free'. The best of my academic background up to two years ago has formally majored in the field of the humanities. To be perfectly honest, I find much greater pleasure in discovering about the human body and science than reading volumes of literature and philosophy. However, I have always been brought up to respect and revere the knowledge of those who came before me, the valuable lessons that history can teach us and to the wisdom of the ancients. Around about 400 B.C., the historian Tucidides first wrote about the lessons that are to be learnt from history which, as later on Giambattista Vico reinforced, repeats itself. I have always believed that notion to be true.. unlike most Italian politicians! I find myself rather disgusted by the state of our parliament which seems to represent us Italians less and less. We have come a long way since the 1970's..the days when Italians begun to make their voices heard protesting and fighting through the weapons of free speech their dissent on civil rights, education, equality. By the 1980's my parents' generation had obtained for us everything we would have ever needed and more: a stable, prospering economy, highly bureaucratic yet perfectly efficient free public health,educational and legal systems..and the luring presence of private broadcasting. Under the false illusion of colour TV, increasingly shorter skirts and mind-numbing programs..Silvio Berlusconi begun his crusade for personal gain though corruption, delusion, politics and privatization. I am not here to make of him the "Antichrist" but imagine living in a country governed by, as an American television put it, "one man combines the political powers of President Bush, the media influence of Rupert Murdoch and the wealth and ambition of Ross Perot and Steve Forbes" (If you have about 30 minutes to spare and the necessary empathy to find out more about the devastation that is taking place in my beloved homeland, please to follow the link above and spread the word around!!!!) A new law was just approved yesterday on Italian education (from primary to University and Research) which risks to dangerously undermine our educational system by making university into elite privatized factories for the wealthy, making our country poorer and poorer and less knowledgeable which in my opinion implies making it easier for unscrupulous leaders to subdue the masses. Let us keep our freedom to learn.

***The pictures in this post were taken by me this week at the protests where thousands of intellectuals, students, teachers, professors, researchers and common people alike have been demonstrating apolitically against the newly approved 133 law. We are currently awaiting the possibility of an abrogative referendum.***

The Bionic Woman

On the way back from a delightful evening at the cinema with friends, we laughed away and discussed about life, how it's changed us, what we have become. So it seemed that us 20 something girls have gone from dreamy-eyed, romantics to seemingly cold-hearted, pragmatics..some sort of bionic women!

I have grown cynical.

All this makes me wonder whether I was always this way, or something along the way changed me into being like this.
Was I always as independent and non-conformist, was I conditioned somewhere down the line into becoming a little princess, dreaming of wearing a white meringue dress, giggling at banal cheesy chick flick movie lines and expecting that same cinematographic behaviour in my own relationships? I remember a phase of my life where I would be watching pop girls’ films, long for a tall, blue eyed "Prince Charming", becoming a Betty Crocker style mother, a perfect wife, an exquisite chef and hostess, condescending with wistful eyes to my lover’s desires.. not too far behind down memory lane, however, there is me skinny brown eyed self-confident tomboy, who loves climbing up trees and demands to be taught how to read and write aged 4… who enjoys solitude, nature, beauty and adventure…who wants to graduate as her top ambition…who is not afraid of competition nor spiders or sleeping in the dark alone… who is unafraid of thinking and acting outside of a box, but is fearful of becoming a stereotype, of being stuck in a box.
I think the wild little girl with grass stains on her knees, uncombed hair and lively eyes is back and she is happy and feels so free to be herself again…too bad that now some people would like her back onto being a little princess. Now the question is: would men of our time be able to deal with all this? I wish I could be the kind of girl who loves conventionally, who, when you give her a flower, doesn't laugh in your face and actually appreciates that you took her out on a romantic dinner, who could love a traditionalist man as well as he deserves to be loved… Am I unable to commit? Am I just scared of taking the plunge again? Or is this just the way things are meant to be for now? God, am I a cynic?