We do our part well

Mid-season has its advantages, but that's not all.
In summer, for example, you sleep with the sheet (or on top of it), in the morning you pull it up and go. In winter you sleep with your beautiful leopard-print duvet, the one your great-aunt Agata gave you for your wedding, in the morning you pull it up and go.
In mid-season instead you sleep with the sheet, then timidly add a blanket, then another blanket, then you have cold feet then put another blanket, but only from the knee down (otherwise you sweat), and in the morning, since you have also already worn the light pajamas, that of Spiderman, you practically wake up in a bundle.

If then (like me) while you sleep you also dream of making a tournament in the chaos of Greco-Roman wrestling, the bundle in the morning looks a lot like a sausage, a tight tied one. My wife, in making the bed, shows off all the proverbial stubbornness of her, which in general I admire a lot, except when I have to make the bed with her.
You would be able to call a surveyor to measure the area of ​​the two sheet flaps that hang on the right and left, and have me pull until the measurement is within its tolerance "range" (and we are talking about millimeters). Then, if she could, she would measure the degree of tension of the layers themselves with a dynamometer. All this while I, with two neurons in number (since I am a man), try to understand how the sausage is unrolled. In those moments, my tobacco rises from the depths (when a Piedmontese tells you that his tobacco has risen - miltame 'l tabac - it means that he has fallen prey to a fit of anger). But obviously I don't say anything, on the contrary, to make her happy, I pretend to participate and do my best.

I respect my wife very much, also for this ambitious fussiness of her. It is not pedantry, on the contrary; it is simply the pleasure of doing things well. It's the same fussiness that I put into so many things I do (apart from making the bed), starting with my job. Like my wife, I feel satisfaction with a job well done, even if no one notices it. I notice it and this is more than enough for me. Fussiness for me is the desire to do something well, the will to do it to the best of my ability. Then we must not go crazy, we need balance in all things, otherwise a healthy inclination risks becoming a fixation, a mania, an obsession. On the other hand, I believe that we are at the point where we are (slightly in the guano, if I may allow myself) because many times we do things in the best possible way, in the "pìsme 'n cuntra" (another Piedmontese phrase which, however, I cannot translate ).

Each of us wants something more, material, tangible, affective or emotional, but I think that to "have" more you must first of all "be" more, and to be more you have to want it, look for it. In difficult times like the one we are going through, I think it is important that everyone plays their part well, with themselves, in the family, at work, in society. If I am a musician, it is important to do it to the best of my ability, and I also have to make sure that I grow that maximum, otherwise my level, even if I push to the end, always stays where it is, it never grows. It takes a lot of effort and determination to give the best of yourself at all times, but I owe it to myself. Then every now and then one allows himself his breaks, every now and then there is a human need to let his guard down, which I always try to recognize and welcome. So I decided, it's November, I'll put the leopard duvet on tonight, and tomorrow see how I make the bed.

Mauro Tabasso
NP November 2021