Under the stars

Publish date 02-12-2021

by Marco Grosseti

The journey was long and tiring.
You have been missing for a lifetime and when you arrive people have to look at you well to be able to recognize you in a look or a smile.
You recognize the profile of a mountain as if you had studied it by heart, the sound of the rain that invades the streets, making waterfalls and streams appear everywhere, the exact point where the sun plunges into the sea and changes the color of everything it encounters, the beach that you slide and slide between your hands and under your feet, rediscovering the unique consistency and composition of your sand.

They say we are all in the same boat and in the same storm. Surely each of us has our own home. The place where nothing ever changes, where even a life after all always remains the same as before.
Where everything smells of magic and smells of peace.
Some have been here for years and some have never left. Lives dedicated to the protection and conservation of a small paradise: removing the weeds, checking that the water reaches its destination, planting a flower, picking up a piece of paper that others have thrown away. They seem like little things, they seem like lives wasted always in the same place doing the same thing, but without them there would be no home, there would be no you.

Close your eyes and look back. For every time you've lost your way, you've never found it. You came later, but what does it matter? They say the journey is more important than the destination, but isn't it the last step and the special place you reach that makes sense of all the steps you've taken before and finally allows you to stop searching?
The night is dark, the sky is full of shining and falling stars. Only the sky is perhaps the same for everyone, much more than the boat and even the storm. The sky that barely sees who trembles at the mercy of the waves fighting with bare hands against monsters and the abyss without even a piece of wood to cling to and a hand extended to help him. The sky that forgets those who have too many distractions and too many safeties and travels without lifting a finger from the top of the ship that bears his name, full of rooms for guests who are not there and lifeboats that have never helped anyone.

Darkness is a fundamental and necessary condition for everyone to see the stars better. Someone does not even have to make the effort to turn off the light, to move away from street lamps and light bulbs, from safety lights and from car lights. What does it matter to have arrived later, when the stars were waiting for you? Looking at the sky and making a wish: every arrival is a new beginning, another journey that begins, thinking that it will be less long and tiring is just a small hope.
You think back to all the mistakes you made while packing your gear and making eye contact with your new travel companions. You know they will protect you and you will have to protect them.
Think about the special moment when you will one day come home. You look for the dark and look at the stars you have entrusted your wish to that continue to shine and fall. And you think that deep down we too are a bit like them. We couldn't really shine without falling first.


Marco Grossetti
NP August / September

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