Last update: 22 September, 2015
"The great follies leave great memories ..."
- Dance Vega
It would be nice, dear reader, if you read these humble words listening the unmistakable voice of Maestro Vecchioni and moving you as I am doing it now, with the memories, with the memories that each of us has and that pop up from time to time to make us cry or to make us laugh ...
Those indelible, wonderful memories that nothing and nobody could erase; the smile of our mother as she cradled us, our first kiss, the first love letter, the first drawing of our son when he ran like a madman to show it to mom and dad ...
Those memories that remain in our mind and that sometimes reappear like the greatest of treasures, as we searched in a corner, on a piece of paper or in a drawer.
It is then that that photo of when we were just children or that yellowed letter of the boyfriend of the time, of the youth reappears ... the letters are now so old that we find them only in our memories and in museums ... it is so.
That withered rose between the pages of a book that still reminds us of our twenties and the unmistakable innocence of our first love; that cookery recipe book made by our grandmother with so much effort, and that she still tastes like boiled meat and sponge cake, or that diary we were not aware of and that appears in our lives like a vortex ready to upset our hearts .
I remember that some time ago they found the first pages of what was to become a diary, my grandfather's diary. Unfortunately he could not finish what he had started with so much effort… life goes like this.
I never met my grandfather, so these written words marked a before and after ...
When they began to read his writings aloud, while I stayed silent and absorbed as in front of the best film, a great emotion invaded me, and suddenly I felt like I was traveling in a time machine. It was as if I were somehow getting to know my grandfather, that man by now old, as he talked about his adventures as a young man with the same words and the same vivacity with which he used to tell my grandmother, his beloved life partner.
At that moment I felt that my grandfather's words acquired so much strength that I could feel him a little closer to me, despite never having met him. Yet at that moment it was as if through those words he had wanted his youngest grandchildren to know that grandfather they had never been able to enjoy.
The story was so beautiful that we lost track of time and we continued to read and read ... his pranks at school, his relationships with the people he loved ... Until at a certain point silence fell ... The grandfather he had only gotten to write a few pages of what should have been his diary, he did not have time to continue ...
It was then that we realized that he was gone too soon, and that although we hadn't been able to appreciate his stories sitting on his legs, we had at least been able to relive his words that afternoon ... That afternoon made of memories.
(Joan Manuel Serrat)
People believe
who were killed
by time and absence.
But their train
he sold them the ticket
round trip.
It's those little things,
that left us a time of roses
in a corner
on a sheet
or in a drawer.
Like a thief
they spy on you
from behind the door.
You are completely
at their mercy
like leaves
that the wind carries here and there,
who smile at you sadly
and fans yes that
we cry when
nobody sees us.
And now I will go back to listening to this wonderful song as I write these words and as I reread them and I understand the powerful force that memories have in us, you remember that "Throw poetry into the fire, all the music that is mine, keep my cards with flowers in it just the day before yesterday… ”.
