introduce myself

I was born
early summer, on 3rd of june (no matter the year) during an heavy storm on Rome, my beloved birthplace.
My mother used to say that during the delivery pains, the ostetrician has assured her that the borning baby would has been a genius, since Ludwing van Beethoven was born during a storm as well.
Too bad.. she was wrong, of course.

July 1961, one month after my birth, with Mum. Yawning as usual

My life in few topics
There are few main topics of my life that deserved to be mentioned.

Special attraction for East Africa.
My first time in Dar es Salaam was in 1979, after high-school diploma, with a group of young social scientists. It was the age of the so called “decentralization process” developed by President Julius Nyerere and based on Ujamaa, that is a swahili word meaning extended family.

Julius Nyerere (1922-1999) First President of the independent Tanganyka since 1964
(picture from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Nyerere)

The country was just getting out from a long and bloody war against Uganda, with millions of refugees spread out all over the region.

Special smells, colours and tastes still remains in my mind today. And also a particular attitude to wait for sweat drops flowing up from my forehead down to my neck and shoulders.

1979, University of Dar Es Salaam, short hairs, white shirt, 18 years old!

A deep fascination for silence, loneliness and time off.
Life runs in our veins with a special sound, that could be listened and appreciated only during a deep silence pause: you can see the ultimate sense of life and having a vision of your place in the world. Falls of words could be rearranged in your mind as a simphony and you can suddenly have a view of the mission you have to accomplish. Great decisions have been maked during rest: how choosing a partner, what football team supporting, how resolving a conflict, how managing a professional challenge, and many more.

Biking, slowly
You can divide bikers in four main groups: Riders, people who like showing their ability and courage up on their bikes speeding out along highways; Chopperists, people wearing special black uniform, long wild hairs flying behind their shoulders and a number of skulls around nek and fingers; Scooterists, people with heavy strong designed scooters equipped with automatic gear, wearing a red bandana under their helmet; Travellers, people who consider bike as an horse, and live travel as an exciting adventure following secondary route, having a pause time to time, just to smell the atmosphere of woods, or seaside, having a beer or a hot cup of chocolate.

RIDER (picture from google images)

CHOPPERIST (picture from google images)

SCOOTERIST (picture from scooterviaggiare website)

TRAVELLER (picture from google images)

Biking travellers are a community, with special greeting rituals when they meet, and special expression of respect when they ovetake a “companion” . My husband and I were part of this comunity for a long time and sometime our childern joined us in those we called “family bike tour”.
Our identity as a family has been strenghten thanks to that tour, across the narrow streets of Corsica or the fragrant and green hills of Tuscany.

Corsica, year 2005 Family bike tour of the island

Tuscany, year 2011, Family bike tour of the center of Italy

Listening Opera music and crying
Could you imagine a woman red eyed, drops of tears rolling down her face, white hands tied one to another, while an opera aria rings out and a pasty young woman (soprano singer) dieing of tuberculosis singing her heternal fidelity to her lover (generally a young tenor)….
Ok, that’s me!
It could be a brilliant and lighting courting in Don Giovanni, or a bloody ambush in Macbeth, or even a deep complain in Peter Grimes. No matter the period or the colour. I stay mute and crying.

Giacomo Puccini, Tosca, scene of suicide (picture from google images)

Loving football
My first football match was in deep winter of 1970. I was around ten year, and it was a magic moment for a small unknown football club from Cagliari, in Sardinia island. I reached Sant’Elia Stadium, in Cagliari, with a cousin of my father, who, at that time, worked for FIGC (Italian Federation of Football). We had a long, exiting travel across Mediateranean sea, sailing all nigth, and in the first morning a young member of the Federation staff drived us from Olbia to Cagliari, up to Sant’Elia.
As I maked my entry, I was falling in love.
Cagliari football team won the italian championsip and sent a majority of the team to the world championship in Brazil in the same year.

April 12, 1970. Cagliari football team just before the match against Inter (picture from google images)

After a couple of years the brilliant star of Cagliari was already turned off and since both my father and my brother were a strong supporters of Lazio team, I choosed the direct competitor, that is Roma. A name, a story, a town. One word: my final destiny.
The only time my team joined the maximum European competition, I was there, after a long sleepless night, waiting the opening of the ticket office at the Olimpic Stadium in Rome.
All the matches I have attended after that one, all the excitement I could have felt for other final matches, even those of the 2001 championship….all of these emotions are nothing compared to that day!

Roma, May 30, 1984. Commando Ultras Curva Sud – CUCS I was there (picture from google images)

Every moment of that day is impressed in my mind and I cannot forget the emotion as well as the deep sadness after the penalties, since I will breathe. It was my first and only crying for a sport competition.