A father’s letters to his daughter

Sandro Pertini

It was 1980. Sandro Pertini, President of the Italian Republic, had travelled to Urbino to meet with a group of university students. At one point, a young man heckled him. Pertini didn’t flinch. He had known censorship, the real kind, first-hand, and had paid for it with prison and internal exile. He took the floor. He restated his position. And then he did the most extraordinary thing of all: he defended that young man’s right to challenge him, reminding him that being able

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Earlier letters

The silence is full of you

You come home late. The key turns twice. You know the sound. Inside it's dark, but not completely. You left the kitchen light on this morning. A mistake, months ago. Now it's a habit. The coat goes on the chair. Always that chair. Nobody ever told you not to. There's a glass in the sink. Yours. You left it there last night. It will still be there tomorrow, if you want. In the bathroom the towel is folded badly. You folded it badly. That's fine. You go to the kitchen. You open

Aug 91 min read

Zazu

The lights go out. The songs of Africa fill the air. The drums. The music. The curtain rises. A yellow beak appears. A bird, serious, precise, a little awkward. His name is Zazu. His job is one: never lose sight of Simba. He follows him everywhere. Even where he shouldn't go. Even when Simba doesn't want to be followed. Then Simba grows up. Learns to roar. Takes his place in the world. And Zazu stays there. With the same look as always. Because caring continues even when the

Aug 91 min read

Before the first mark

I was holding your hand in a quiet room. The light came in sideways and our shadows followed us across the floor. We stopped in front of a large canvas, one of those that fills a whole wall. We stayed there for a while. It wasn't by a famous painter. But it was full of colour. You asked me why a man had put all those colours there, in such a messy way. I remember making something up. The real answer I didn't have. But maybe that's not the point. When we stand in front of a pa

Aug 91 min read

Silence isn't always a question.

There's something that wears me out. It's when someone tells me a story that isn't theirs. They circle around the problem, drop a line, and before I notice I'm already thinking about how to fix things. Nobody asked me anything. Yet I feel guilty, as if I had to answer questions no one had the courage to ask me. Maybe the other person was just afraid to ask. It happens, I understand that. But meanwhile my mind starts on its own, and I take on a task no one ever gave me. Silenc

Aug 91 min read

There was a last time i held you in my arms

I don't know when it was. I have no date, no photo, no clear memory. It happened in the middle of an ordinary day, between a rush to work and a dinner to cook. And neither of us noticed. First times, we remember. The first day of school. The first job. The first home. They arrive announced, prepared, photographed. Last times don't. They pass dressed as ordinary days. I think about it sometimes. How many things end this way, without a sound. A last evening with university frie

Aug 91 min read

Negotiating Happiness

What do you really want? Let's pretend we don't know. But we know. Deep down, it's already clear. What would let us breathe easier. Where we'd go, if no one were watching. It's not about finding the answer. We've had the answer for a long time. It's about how much it scares us. Because following it means hurting someone. Giving up something we cared about. Going back to the start. Standing there while the others, the ones from before, watch us become someone else. So every da

Aug 91 min read

My teacher waited for thunderstorms

Miss Carmela. My teacher used to wait for storms. When the sky turned dark, we children would huddle at our desks. We must have been three, maybe four years old. She, instead, would open the window. She taught us how to count. First the lightning. Then the seconds. Then the thunder. The longer the wait, the farther away the storm was. A sound you can measure is less frightening than a sound that simply arrives. As we grow up, we meet other kinds of thunder. Things that arrive

Aug 91 min read

Unlikely

Unlikely. They say it calmly, like it’s already the end of something. Like there’s nothing left to say. But the unlikely is really just a stage hardly anyone chooses to walk onto. We think of odds as fixed. Almost settled. But odds only tell you what’s happened so far. They can’t know what happens the moment someone steps up and tries. The ones watching can only guess how it ends. The one who takes the stage can still change the story. Some dreams look out of reach only becau

Aug 91 min read

They said we are coming

That phone call at six in the morning. You couldn’t finish the sentence. They said we’re coming. They didn’t ask anything else and you didn’t explain. Friendships know which road to take and they know that sign always points the wrong way. They know where you stop to eat. Things you learned together a long time ago and nobody needs to say anymore. You hadn’t seen them in five years. Maybe ten. You never bothered counting. They stayed four days and you tried to fill every hour

Aug 91 min read

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