Conversations with Mary

Outside my family’s house, at the centre of a little square, a shrine is placed, where Mary shows the inside of her forearms. She has been doing that – and that only – for decades now. Standing like she’s offering her veins to a blood test, or preparing for the Mountain pose (aka Tadasana.) She always wears the same Monna Lisa-like expression. 

In the old days, the ladies from the neighbourhood would gather around the shrine with the rosaries in their hands, in the evenings in May. They pulled each bead of their Catholic jewels like the strings that held together their lives. Mary watched those murmuring sitting ladies with dry resignation. Sometimes she would whisper: 

   “Go home ladies, don’t waste your time. Cheat on your husbands. Have a glass of wine. You have feet, use them. You weren’t made to be shrines; why the hell would you want to behave as such?” 

Se fossi una Strega…

Se fossi una strega 🧙‍♀️ in una foresta

Prenderei un ramo di pino,

Farei una bacchetta magica 

Preparerei un calderone

Poi volerei sul mio bastone 

 In America dal Presidente🇺🇸 

Ho Perso La Bussola

Ho perso la bussola

La devo trovare

Nella mia testa c’è un caos

Di grida di bombe

Di bambini con occhi sbarrati

Spaventati

Di case demolite

Bombardate

For life

For the children of Palestine

Stop this genocide

I drown in this sea of cruelty,

unleashed on

Gaza, on Palestine

I do not hear voices rise

In defence of life in Palestine

Our Governments are mute and deaf 🧏 

Il mio cuore si è fermato a Gaza

Stream of consciousness.

Sono rimasta ammutolita per un tempo interminabile imprigionata dall’impossibilità delle immagini che arrivavano da Gaza sullo schermo del mio IPad. Immagini fuori della mia realtà quotidiana, da film dell’orrore, uno di quelli che alterano o mettono in dubbio che esista davvero un’umanità.

Quelle immagini atroci e di una ferocia senza nome, mi facevano salire spontanea un altra immagine associata ai grandi dinosauri carnivori che giravano sulla terra millenni fa. “Reptilian Brains,” pensai, “che altro…”
Non riuscivo a trovare altri paragoni… I was at a loss anche d’immagini più adeguate…

lo shock più micidiale però fu che la maggior parte dei nostri governatori europei, in primis la signora Van den Leyen subito si dichiarò a paladina dei dinosauri attaccanti seguita poi dalla nostra povera Italia 🇮🇹 con accapo la biondina Meloni, subito a scimmiottare senza nessuna dignità o moralità, la Van den Leyen.

Oggi, seguendo in diretta il secondo incontro della Corte Internazionale di Giustizia ( 19/2/24) seguo uno dei Rappresentanti del popolo Palestinese, delle Nazioni Unite, Riyad Mansour dichiarare che l’intenzione d’Israele è sempre stata quella “di cancellare la Palestina dalla Geografia e dalla Storia” “Out of Geography and History”. E questo è più che lampante per chi segue la storia della Palestina dal 1948 al presente genocidio della popolazione di Gaza e il massiccio espandersi degli insediamenti illegali nella Cisgiordania e Gerusalemme Est.

Untitled

“I feel alone.” 

My mouth is dry
I chock on words
My heart is broken
For those people in Palestine
And now I read on

“ I feel alone.” 

I see a man on a wheelchair 
Pushing fast on his wheels
Baby strapped by his chest
His house is gone

“I feel alone"  he says
And then he is gone
Out of frame of the newsreel
 Then a woman comes along

“I cannot speak nor hear
 the floor was shaking 
Under my feet 
I cannot scream 
But felt the terror under my feet"


I hear a blast, the camera shake
The image disappear
Then on the screen something appear
Error number : ... and here I don’t remember

- Only the dialogue is now going on -
This is censorship I think 💭 
I am confused
A techno person I am not
And I don’t know what is going on…

There is a pause
Then figures like phantoms behind a veil appear
I squeeze my eyes, I want to see
I want to hear what these forgotten
Souls have to say, how they survived
This genocide

Behind a darkened screen
A woman with a baby on her lap appears,
I squint my eyes again
She is sitting outside on a stone
beside the rubble of her just bombarded home,
On a piece of stone
Her right arm holding her baby tight 
Her left caressing her wheelchair
Which is no more

my heart ♥️ stopped in Gaza

My heart has stopped in Gaza,Palestine,

I am looking through layers and layers of printed words, algorithms, news, fake news and so on, and so on….

I swim in a chess pool of  lies, media lies, I puke.

I see the of terror in Palestinian’ children eyes

Palestinians mothers holding on 

their child 

from the cold grasp of death

I cannot cry but I rage inside

I want life

I want smiles on those sunny children face

But all I see is the sun 

Turned into the darkest desert of death 

Personified

Into the destruction of human life

in Palestine 🇵🇸 

A second holocaust under our eyes

Humanity must rise

If not we shall all die 

Mind-less 

Soul-Less

Zombi-Slaves

And in our little comforts shall survive 

Pearls for the crazy

5 simple truths about psychotherapy – learnt the hard expensive way

Credit @Alamy, published on BBC.co.uk

I fired Dr. White almost a month ago. The specialist I’ve been referring to as my new therapist for the last eight months, has already become my ex. (“Fired” may not be appropriate in this context, but I enjoy using the word.) We’d been on a rough patch for sometime, although if I hadn’t had a certain conversation with Silvana – my friend who co-authors this blog – I’d probably have dragged our therapeutic relationship for a little longer. Some friends open your eyes, or rather, your mouth: they dare to say things that you didn’t want to say. Dr. White was definitely not the one – who would turn my unconscious inside out – she’d proven that to me already on several occasions. It was time to stop procrastinating and move on.

I believe – more and more, as I grow older – that bad experiences and failed relationships teach us a great deal, and my ex-therapist has gained the podium in my life for both. 

Not a Turkish Delight

Photo from Daily Jstor

It’s not just that prices are going up in London restaurants, quantity and quality are going down to the point that food is almost disappearing from our plates. This has become so normal that any attempt to ridicule it, make a sarcastic joke, or scream out in outrage would fall on deaf ears.

Last night I paid £18 for 3 dry falafels on a smudge of humous, and a micro salad, without even a drop of olive oil. Sitting next to them, there were one tab of humous and one of yogurt, both as small as a serving of ketchup. The sad falafels seemed to swim in the huge tray, which instead of making the food look more abundant, achieved the opposite effect. In the gaps between the, so-called, food you could ski slalom.

The Turkish restaurant in question is Gallipoli, in Islington. The ambience was well choreographed and the deco pretty. Tables in beaten brass, cumbersome chairs and low two-seats sofa gave it an air of opulence, and at those prices, you know why. The walls were embellished with posters of Turkish films, featuring actors nobody knew. The heavy chandeliers with the rest of the soft furnishings are probably every cleaner’s nightmare and contribute, no doubt, to the high prices, together with the extortionary London letting rates. Through a large skylight above our table, we saw 100 shades of grey, coming and going over our heads. Full marks to the 80’s background music we danced to, by rocking on our chairs with subtle movements of our shoulders and clapping of hands.

Idea

Ideare

Ideazione

Azione

Azionare

Fare

Disegnare

Costruire 

Demolire

Rifare

Ricostruire

Ideare

Un mondo nuovo

È possibile

Individuo sei solo un atomo vagante 

Due incomincia già una possibilità

Tre scocca una scintilla 

quattro il gruppo si forma

Cinque l’energia incomincia a circolare

E non ci possono fermare

È un’ idea.