1grelobe
I'm writing episodes of my life, each week one, Ithink that in more or less 20 years I'll be through with my entire life.
here the first 3
a little story about coffee bags
We used to live close to my father's warehouse, as a matter of fact the two buildings were as a whole. Once when I was six or seven, I did a quite amusing thing. Usually coffee stocks my father imported were unloaded in Genoa, but once it happened that a stock, my father was expecting, arrived in Naples. Now I have to add that my father feared illness a lot, especially the infective ones. In those days , papers and TV reported that a few cases of cholera were discovered in Naples, so my father gave strict order not to let the kids go inside the warehouse for any reason, and of course told my mother to keep an eye on us more careful than usual. I heard him telling this to my mother , but all I got was .... cholera's coming from Naples, be sure the kids don't go inside the warehouse when the bags arrive because ... As I said I was a little boy and like any other little boy very curious, so I thought "why can't we go inside the building when cholera gets here?" Determined to discover the reason of this forbidden fruit, one day I slipped inside the warehouse and I found a look-out among the bags. After a while I heard I was being looked for with growing anxiety, so I came out of my hideout. My father was startled to see me there and said a little sternly "but Massimo what were you doing here ? haven't you heard me saying you were not allowed in here?" and I "yes daddy, but ... I just badly wanted to see who Mr. Cholera was" I thought it was a person. My father started laughing and didn't tell me off
a piano perfomance
A dream of my life, it is to be able to play an instrument, but I think I am the most tone - deaf person living on earth. When I was eleven and I was in a boarding school where learning to play an instrument was compulsory, they asked me what instrument I would like to play and my answer was the guitar, but the teacher in charge of such thing asked me “show me your hands” I complied with his request, and he went on saying “oh no with such beautiful hands and long fingers you must play the piano, besides once you can play the piano you will be easily able to play whatever instrument you like” The fact was I’ve got quite ordinary hands, but HE was very fond of the piano, so he used to say the same thing to every child he met. The days at that boarding school were organized in this way: in the morning school, after lunch from two through four studying and in this span of time each of us had half an hour of time to train on our chosen instrument, then one hour of recess afterward studying again till half past seven. In the school there were 14 pianos and most of the them were seldom used, because kids weren’t so keen on playing them , but I was, so instead of using only my allotted time I used to go from piano to piano for two hour in succession. So when my “colleagues” were , more or less at exercise 20 I was already coping with number 90. But there was no knack in my fingers, only mechanical repetition. At the end of the school year, like in all but the schools worldwide, there was the usual show that we had to perform in front of our parents and relatives. In the boarding school there was a really beautiful theatre, with a real stage, lights and curtains. I had to play a very easy piece of music, but the problem was that I had to play it four hands , and it goes without saying , my partner practiced it very little, so once on the stage everything went wrong, I could manage my part quite well but not him , and halfway through the performance, full of shame up to my hair, I run away crying my soul out of my heart. My parents and the piano teacher tried to comfort me by asking … but what’s the matter? And I … everything went wrong we botched badly … and they …but no Massimo, no one noticed anything they clapped you … but all of no avail. It was, and still remains one of the most painful moments of my life.
my first encounter with the unknown - a disaster account
In the summer of 1975, my family and I went on holiday to Moneglia, a little town on the Ligurian coast, we lodged in a little boardinghouse which provided us full board: breakfast, lunch and dinner, and also beds in addition for the night. We had also booked a beach umbrella and deckchairs in a bathing establishment. Together with us came also two friends of my mother's , Anna and Graziella, and the latter will have an important role in my mishap. We had planned to stay over there for a fortnight, and so we did. On the first day we went to the seashore, while I was coming out of the bathing building and was stepping on the beach in order to reach our assigned place, my eyes fell on a vision coming off the waves, blue eyes and wet chestnut hair, quite shaped for her age, so my simple glance turned into an open stare. Instantly, I decided that I would spend all my time at the beach looking at her , without her knowledge, because the thought of actually speaking to her never crossed my mind, and spend all my time away from the beach thinking of her.
So, that I did, because I really am a straightforward person and always keep my word.
Days went by, the holiday end was approaching and the day before the last , even now I can't understand why, I opened my heart to my mother about my feelings. What I didn't expect was that she’d tell what I said to her friends. On the afternoon of the last day, while I was sitting on the deckchair reading, I heard Graziella calling my name, I took my eyes off the book I was reading and saw her holding the girl's hand, saying, “look who wants to meet you, her name's Cristina”, my heart stopped beating, I have always read this expression but I thought it was a figurative way of saying not that that could actually happen , more over, my mind went blank, it didn't take long, I've never had a huge one. What I did was, stood up and started running for my life. In Moneglia , between the seashore and the town there's a raised old railway route, so you've got to go through little tunnels to reach the country from the beach or the other way round, to reach the beach from the town, but there's one that is blocked and I, in my wild run, entered that one. “What shall I do now?”-, I thought. I stuck my head out the tunnel and saw Graziella and Cristina staring at the place where I had disappeared, a little puzzled I dare say, who wouldn't have been? I sat on my haunches straining my brain to find a way that could lead off my plight, but there were none, I was doomed and I knew it. So tail between legs, I slowly, really slowly, never knew how slowly one can walk till that day, I went back over to them and accepted my fate. We exchanged a few words, the usual stuff, age, school ,(I was about to switch from thirteenth grade to high school), address, and promises to write to each other in the following winter.
Once back home, I spent the following weeks in trance, I used to stop all of sudden, whatever I was doing and wherever I was, and start smiling like an idiot and thinking of her. As promised, we wrote to each other for the whole winter and spring, and when the summer once again arrived, like a famous Italian song says, we found each other at the same beach and at the same sea. She was with a friend of hers , Monica, I already knew she would come because Cristina had written this to me, she introduced her to me and we went swimming. At one point while we were just bathing in the shallow , I told her, “I brought you a gift, a book title is The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud”. For a little while everything went still, I couldn't get what was wrong, and why the two girls kept staring at each other and at me alternatively, so I carried on saying , “you wrote to me you would like to be a psychologist when you are grown up, last winter I saw my older brother reading this book so I thought it was perfect for you” “Yee..ss..”, said her,”… but right now ... you know ... we're on holiday and bricks and the like, you know... I really appreciate the thought , I really do , but...” I got it , and swam away, forgetting we were in the shallow, not a great move, sands and sharpened stones can be painful when you don't put the right quantity of water between you and them.
It was not a good holiday, Cristina had a lot of friends, I tried to go out with them a couple of evenings, but socializing has never been my best skill, if I have one, so I quit and came back to my novels. But all the same we kept writing to each other also the following winter, and once she wrote one thing I 'm rather proud of, so I'm quoting it, she wrote, “I can't understand how you can be so brilliant, shrewd and sarcastic when you write and so shy and silent in person”.
Not that much, but I settle for little, you know.
here the first 3
a little story about coffee bags
We used to live close to my father's warehouse, as a matter of fact the two buildings were as a whole. Once when I was six or seven, I did a quite amusing thing. Usually coffee stocks my father imported were unloaded in Genoa, but once it happened that a stock, my father was expecting, arrived in Naples. Now I have to add that my father feared illness a lot, especially the infective ones. In those days , papers and TV reported that a few cases of cholera were discovered in Naples, so my father gave strict order not to let the kids go inside the warehouse for any reason, and of course told my mother to keep an eye on us more careful than usual. I heard him telling this to my mother , but all I got was .... cholera's coming from Naples, be sure the kids don't go inside the warehouse when the bags arrive because ... As I said I was a little boy and like any other little boy very curious, so I thought "why can't we go inside the building when cholera gets here?" Determined to discover the reason of this forbidden fruit, one day I slipped inside the warehouse and I found a look-out among the bags. After a while I heard I was being looked for with growing anxiety, so I came out of my hideout. My father was startled to see me there and said a little sternly "but Massimo what were you doing here ? haven't you heard me saying you were not allowed in here?" and I "yes daddy, but ... I just badly wanted to see who Mr. Cholera was" I thought it was a person. My father started laughing and didn't tell me off
a piano perfomance
A dream of my life, it is to be able to play an instrument, but I think I am the most tone - deaf person living on earth. When I was eleven and I was in a boarding school where learning to play an instrument was compulsory, they asked me what instrument I would like to play and my answer was the guitar, but the teacher in charge of such thing asked me “show me your hands” I complied with his request, and he went on saying “oh no with such beautiful hands and long fingers you must play the piano, besides once you can play the piano you will be easily able to play whatever instrument you like” The fact was I’ve got quite ordinary hands, but HE was very fond of the piano, so he used to say the same thing to every child he met. The days at that boarding school were organized in this way: in the morning school, after lunch from two through four studying and in this span of time each of us had half an hour of time to train on our chosen instrument, then one hour of recess afterward studying again till half past seven. In the school there were 14 pianos and most of the them were seldom used, because kids weren’t so keen on playing them , but I was, so instead of using only my allotted time I used to go from piano to piano for two hour in succession. So when my “colleagues” were , more or less at exercise 20 I was already coping with number 90. But there was no knack in my fingers, only mechanical repetition. At the end of the school year, like in all but the schools worldwide, there was the usual show that we had to perform in front of our parents and relatives. In the boarding school there was a really beautiful theatre, with a real stage, lights and curtains. I had to play a very easy piece of music, but the problem was that I had to play it four hands , and it goes without saying , my partner practiced it very little, so once on the stage everything went wrong, I could manage my part quite well but not him , and halfway through the performance, full of shame up to my hair, I run away crying my soul out of my heart. My parents and the piano teacher tried to comfort me by asking … but what’s the matter? And I … everything went wrong we botched badly … and they …but no Massimo, no one noticed anything they clapped you … but all of no avail. It was, and still remains one of the most painful moments of my life.
my first encounter with the unknown - a disaster account
In the summer of 1975, my family and I went on holiday to Moneglia, a little town on the Ligurian coast, we lodged in a little boardinghouse which provided us full board: breakfast, lunch and dinner, and also beds in addition for the night. We had also booked a beach umbrella and deckchairs in a bathing establishment. Together with us came also two friends of my mother's , Anna and Graziella, and the latter will have an important role in my mishap. We had planned to stay over there for a fortnight, and so we did. On the first day we went to the seashore, while I was coming out of the bathing building and was stepping on the beach in order to reach our assigned place, my eyes fell on a vision coming off the waves, blue eyes and wet chestnut hair, quite shaped for her age, so my simple glance turned into an open stare. Instantly, I decided that I would spend all my time at the beach looking at her , without her knowledge, because the thought of actually speaking to her never crossed my mind, and spend all my time away from the beach thinking of her.
So, that I did, because I really am a straightforward person and always keep my word.
Days went by, the holiday end was approaching and the day before the last , even now I can't understand why, I opened my heart to my mother about my feelings. What I didn't expect was that she’d tell what I said to her friends. On the afternoon of the last day, while I was sitting on the deckchair reading, I heard Graziella calling my name, I took my eyes off the book I was reading and saw her holding the girl's hand, saying, “look who wants to meet you, her name's Cristina”, my heart stopped beating, I have always read this expression but I thought it was a figurative way of saying not that that could actually happen , more over, my mind went blank, it didn't take long, I've never had a huge one. What I did was, stood up and started running for my life. In Moneglia , between the seashore and the town there's a raised old railway route, so you've got to go through little tunnels to reach the country from the beach or the other way round, to reach the beach from the town, but there's one that is blocked and I, in my wild run, entered that one. “What shall I do now?”-, I thought. I stuck my head out the tunnel and saw Graziella and Cristina staring at the place where I had disappeared, a little puzzled I dare say, who wouldn't have been? I sat on my haunches straining my brain to find a way that could lead off my plight, but there were none, I was doomed and I knew it. So tail between legs, I slowly, really slowly, never knew how slowly one can walk till that day, I went back over to them and accepted my fate. We exchanged a few words, the usual stuff, age, school ,(I was about to switch from thirteenth grade to high school), address, and promises to write to each other in the following winter.
Once back home, I spent the following weeks in trance, I used to stop all of sudden, whatever I was doing and wherever I was, and start smiling like an idiot and thinking of her. As promised, we wrote to each other for the whole winter and spring, and when the summer once again arrived, like a famous Italian song says, we found each other at the same beach and at the same sea. She was with a friend of hers , Monica, I already knew she would come because Cristina had written this to me, she introduced her to me and we went swimming. At one point while we were just bathing in the shallow , I told her, “I brought you a gift, a book title is The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud”. For a little while everything went still, I couldn't get what was wrong, and why the two girls kept staring at each other and at me alternatively, so I carried on saying , “you wrote to me you would like to be a psychologist when you are grown up, last winter I saw my older brother reading this book so I thought it was perfect for you” “Yee..ss..”, said her,”… but right now ... you know ... we're on holiday and bricks and the like, you know... I really appreciate the thought , I really do , but...” I got it , and swam away, forgetting we were in the shallow, not a great move, sands and sharpened stones can be painful when you don't put the right quantity of water between you and them.
It was not a good holiday, Cristina had a lot of friends, I tried to go out with them a couple of evenings, but socializing has never been my best skill, if I have one, so I quit and came back to my novels. But all the same we kept writing to each other also the following winter, and once she wrote one thing I 'm rather proud of, so I'm quoting it, she wrote, “I can't understand how you can be so brilliant, shrewd and sarcastic when you write and so shy and silent in person”.
Not that much, but I settle for little, you know.
