First of all, I had to decide whether to write in Italian or English. I’ve been living outside Italy for 2 and a half years now, and I miss the boot-shaped country terribly: I keep on suggesting politely to my boyfriend it’s time for him to learn Italian, and every time I see an authentic Italian shop/restaurant I am more thrilled than a kid realising theres leftover cookie dough after his mum left the kitchen. Despite this, I keep on living in a foreign country (Belgium) and my visits to Italy are more or less sporadic. Most of my life is based on other languages, mainly English or Spanish since I’m not friend with any Italian person here, and considering the amount of my fellow countrypeople around the world, the fault is almost entirely mine. I am so not used to speak Italian daily that my sister makes fun of me every time we talk on the phone as I use mixed up vocabulary and erroneous grammar; and every time I land in Fiumicino it takes me a good couple of hours to get rid of a odd histrionic voice tone.

So yes, writing a blog entirely in English seemed the most sensible choice. Buut, winds of change refrained me to do so.
In fact, I recently wrote a book: well, I finished it last summer after years that I started it, hated it, loved it, picked it up again and again. It made me suffer and it made me tremble: imagine my excitement when an Italian publishing house showed its interest in publishing it. And then, another one. Of course, they are the small subsections of major publishing houses, the ones focusing on new talents. But, witnessing the Italian (worldwide?) cultural scenario, it’s for sure rewarding that someone had seen potential in me. Italian, yes: as the book of course it’s written in my mother-tongue. That’s why I initially taught to address only Italian speakers in this blog: I want to promote myself and my book mostly. However, as I’m an extremely doubting, pondering person, I could not cut out the perspective of blogging in English – I love this language so much and writing in it it’s the best way to honour it.

So my Eureka was, why not having them both? An Italian and English blog respectively. Recognizing it will be more time and focus demanding, but I think the Buzzfeed newsfeed can survive without me for some more time in a day. NB, the entries won’t be the translation of each other: but maybe this will be a nice excuse for you to learn one of the most beautiful, romantic, musical languages of this world 🙂

Well, It’s my first entry only but I already think I’ve been talking plenty about myself. I  put myself aside to share then a very beautiful poem from Cummings I came across the other day.

The title is :

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

and yes, no capital letters and no space after the comma (what a mess!), and I agree there is more important stuff to focus on than such little details but, at the same time, they makes you focus on them – you see what I mean? And there is something about the little hands that creates really painful correlations with actual politics, but I try to think to my sister’s beautiful, elegant, little hands as I go through the poem (I have really big hands instead which cause me so many typos on my phone…).

This poem Its one of the sweetest dedication I have ever read. It perfectly conveys the fragility to open someone’s heart to the other, slowly and carefully as flowers open in spring, unfolding through the gentle touch of small, delicate hands only. But enough for me, the rest is to Cummings –

 

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and

my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

See you next entry,

Hungerness