Friday 20 February 2015

The magic is in the words

You know that your magic is in your words. In your words lies your ability to enthral the people, to make them love you, to make them to dream, to give solace or sorrow. But to give this power to your words you need to infuse them with what of most intimate you have. So you stretch inwards, going deeply down towards your heart, and from there you draw fully to begin to narrate. You unfold your fears and your joys, your places, your life's story, your sorrows. You tell of the time you walked in the wood, stopping and staying still and silent to contemplate the colourful carpet made of mushrooms stretching all around you in every direction. You tell about the colours' explosion transforming the trees in Autumn, or about the Winter and a white landscape where yellow-green small bird flocks landed to eat the bread you had left in the snow. You describe the flavours of different foods you collected around in small farms and the pleasure you felt baking the bread at home or making the yoghurt or potting mushrooms under oil. You narrate about the works you deed to renovate that old house in the wood, working its wood and stone, a bond between you and a land which you felt to belong to, even if you were born on a different ground. In that soil, you thought to receive burial.
And while you're unfolding your story you feel you have the public under control. You understand it from how they watch you in silence, you perceive it in the change of their breathing. You see them relaxing and dreaming and becoming part of that land, of that story. Even if it's just for a moment. You shared yourself, you gave them some beauty, and you know you've fulfilled your purpose. What they don't see it's the toll that you pay. Every word, every memory, every sentiment and emotion you give to them through your narration is a tear where your flesh begins to bleed from, is a pain chewing deeply. Because you know that all of that is lost, it's something you'll never be able to go back to. And even if you would go back you would find it different, hostile, a poisoned place, and you would be just a stranger to it.
With such an awareness where can you find solace? How can your spirit not be veined with sadness? That vein of sadness is always there: now just a thread that nobody notices, then a swollen river brimming over your eyes. It's a bitter taste that never leaves your mouth: it doesn't matter how much sweet are the joys you savour, you well know that always, at the end, that bitter taste will come up again to your tongue. And who notices it doesn't understand, or doesn't want to understand, or doesn't know how to understand. That person is offended by it. Your sadness is an insult, it's the proof that you live stick to the past, that you live for someone else, it's your rejection of happiness. It's like if, after you lost your legs in an accident, someone would blame you for refusing to run together. It doesn't make sense, but it's what happens. Your magic is still there, but now it's sorrow what your magic dispenses. So you let the blame be laid at your feet, you let them put you at the bar, you bend your head and allow that the shame is put on as a mantle on your shoulders, a shame you know you don't deserve. But since it must always be a culprit, why not you? You let them saying and don't retort anymore. Who doesn't want to understand never will.
Adam lost stupidly his right to dwell in the Eden. He has been chased away, his return was forbidden. Can you imagine his frame of mind ascertaining that all his efforts were not enough to obtain something equally satisfying as before? He cultivated the land, but its fruits didn't have the same taste as before. He made artefacts, but they weren't perfect anymore. He slept but didn't rest. He ate but was never sated. He contemplated the skyline, but that beauty wasn't as perfect as the landscape he could admire from the top of the Eden mountain. But did he love his wife less for this reason? Did he hate his children? Did he stop trying, gave up his life? But how could he be completely happy with the Eden mountain standing out against the horizon, the memento of what he had and had lost?
You will walk towards places where you'll never find real satisfaction. Your hands will strive to build what is doomed to not last. What is it than if a love you believed sweet disclosed to be bitter? What is it if a person refuses solace to you? As much more pain can do it than knowing that you'll never feel at home again? Can such a wound be worse that all the wounds your memory inflicts you? But despite all this, you're still able to love, to savour the good of life, to appreciate the beauty. You're still able to get on with your life and even if you know that there's nowhere to go for you, you know also that you will meet someone who needs to lean on you. Your magic is there for those people, that they would stay with you for a long time or for a short while. For this reason, you get on, looking just for temporary solace, picking up what you find along the road and getting as much satisfaction as possible from it. Because all that you are able to give will never suffice. Because whoever says that wants to stay close to you will watch always what you are not able to do.


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