Unexpected flights

One morning a few days ago I was awakened by a small sparrow that perched on my windowsill and began to sing melodiously at the top of its voice.

What a lovely pet! I got out of bed and quatto quatto took the phone to take a picture of him. As he noticed my movements, the beast stopped chirping, but it didn't fly away. Rather, he followed my moves with his head sideways, with curiosity. When I had him "in range", I pointed the camera and he, staring at me and tilting his head to the other side, defecated profusely, spraying his catabolites on the windowsill and on my clothes, lying on the balcony below. Great son of a good oviparous !!! I soften and you throw the guano on me? But then you are reprobate inside, "inside" !!! What follows is the imaginary dialogue between me and the irritable bowel sparrow. Me: «You are really hateful! You are in the countryside, the countryside is large, all to be fertilized… Did you have to do it here? Just on my clothes? ' Him: «Get dressed? Sorry, but I'm a granivore and insectivore without a bladder (that's why I make it liquid) and I do it wherever I want, where I am, one place is as good as another. I haven't seen your clothes, and then what are these clothes? I have nothing on, I only have wings. If I wore something I could no longer fly ».

But look ... What clothes am I wearing? Are they cloths that allow me to fly or do they keep me nailed to the ground? Do they make me explore the sky and see the world from above, or do they bring me nothing but miserable fruit, miserable consequences, such as irritable colon and liquid stools? Have I ever really wondered what you are wearing? And if I can find a more truthful answer than my reflection in a mirror, would I like the answer? Of all the sparrows that fly into the countryside, I met that nuisance and impertinent friend of Del Piero, but the questions he prompts me to ask are important. Sometimes it is good to put yourself in your shoes, then look from the outside and ask yourself how we see ourselves and how others see us, two versions that often do not match. I think I'm wearing the shoes of a musician, but not just anyone. There are infinitely better, luckier and more famous artists than me, and there is not just one, but many. But I do something special. When I make music, when I talk about it, when I write about it, I am aware of offering myself (and perhaps others) my best version. That's why I continue to wear those clothes, always trying to improve them, to take care of them, to keep them clean inside and out, to patch them up when they break, to reinforce them when they wear out.

They have to last me and I also want them to induce me not only to look but also to be better. I wear many other clothes: a father, a husband, a brother, a friend, and each of these clothes speaks of me. I try to take care of everyone. The dress does not make the person, but in this case the clothes, the roles, are part of the person, who through them expresses himself, communicates, lives. I love all my clothes, I defend them, I don't allow anyone to dirty them. Maybe they don't allow me to fly, but what really interests me is that they serve to make someone else fly, and also to remind him that if he learns to fly he will never have the right to fly anywhere, maybe in the air, or he will risk throwing it at him. to someone who dreams of learning to fly too.

Mauro Tabasso
NP June / July 2021