Imagine Imagine a cold afternoon of December in Helsinki, -8° outside. It’s just 4 pm but the sun is already disappeared to illuminate other cities far away. The darkness is wrapping all around you, but it is no so bad. You are in the famous Market Square and the Christmas lights warm up the atmosphere. In front of you the Baltic Sea and a little further away a coloured Ferris wheel and the hot vapour that goes up from an outdoor pool of a sauna establishment. Immediately a thought crosses your mind ‘Why not? Let’s make something in the Finnish way’. After a while you are running toward that pool, wearing just your bathing suit. Oh my God it is really cold! What was I thinking!? As soon as you jump into it, the hot water relaxes you and you feel good. From time to time you need to submerge completely in the water because the cold is freezing your head. Even the stepladder is covered by ice stalactites and you don’t know how you could get out from the pool. Suddenly a bang and the dark sky is lighted up and coloured by circle shapes: the fireworks! You cannot believe it. It is really mad and amazing! You, imagine all this…I don’t need because I lived it! Thanks Finland!

September feelings What a dewdrops around me, I search the sun but it there isn’t... The country is still sleeping, maybe not. It is awake, it looks at me, I don’t know. The ground smell, wheat smell, already Go up toward me. And the life in my chest beats slowly, I breath the fog, I think of you. What a vegetation near and also a little further away, The grass seems almost a sea, And my light thought flies and go I fear as if it lost... A horse stretches his neck toward the lawn It stays as me: I steps forward, it sees me, it is just ran away... I breath the fog, I think of you. No, what I am now I don’t know I am as a men who is searching itself No, what I am now I don’t know I am only, only the sound of my step... But meantime the sun is seeping in through the fog by now: The daytime as always will be. Clear air of a September which seems without end Air already cold Water already cold Near colors and silences unique And fallen leafs And grey clouds play hide-and-seek And mine shiver.. The jacket clutched in the chest... A grapes taste... And fingers glutinous.. And the daytime As beautiful goes As always strong As always...

Thank you! I'd have liked to give you a gift today to say to you… thank you for the dresses you bought me that felt me a princess when I was a child thank you for the cakes and sweets you prepared us by surprise thank you for your words and your support when at school some classmates made me cry thank you for your hugs during the nightmare nights thank you for your strength thank you for your patience thank you for having believed in me when I didn't believe in me thank you for your infinite second chances you give me thank you for your suggestions thank you for cheering me when I am worried and especially thank you for being a mothering woman and for having surrounded and protect us with your arms since that horrible day… But I didn’t find nothing because there is nothing suitable to repay you for all you did and you do every day for us. Thank you mom! Your are the centerpiece of our family and a wonderful woman…I hope a day I will become a fantastic mother as you are!

I can't sleep I can’t sleep sweetheart I am thinking about you every moment Don’t be sad, wealth joy, Neither in grief nor worried I guarantee you I want only you, Because I love you so much, I love you, I love you and I love you My love, honey to love, My love is reserved to you. If I had had the wings to fly I would fly to you thousand times: I would come at least to say hello to you Or also only to see you barely. If it was possible for me I would get the invisible angel soul And his appearance I would steal from the sky the sun and the stars And I would create for you a beautiful world For give you all the best. My love, perfumed rose, My love, perfumed carnation, Love, heart, adorable appearance, Love, heart, I madly in love with you Love, you are the shining sun that appears in the morning at Orient. You are the sun that light up me And inflames my heart and my mind Lily in bloom, candid as the snow You are ever present in my heart My love, my love, love: Can you live without bitterness and pain. If I had could get all in one time The light of the stars and the sun And the best of the universe I would be submerged as a surface-supplied diver Deep down in the sea to give you life, Sun, ground and sea If I was a painter I would make to you a portrait If I had be a excellent sculptor I would have made a marble sculpture Instead I say with pain: “I can’t”. But the marble and the painting don’t be important in comparison with the gold sail of the love. I would like hug you and kiss you To spill my soul in your heart. But I have to venerate you from afar The thought of your love comforts me Canvas and plot of our life Have the same fate by virtue of your love. The beauty of the settings, the first sunrise, The down, the shining sun, the fragrances, The songs of the spring, the zephyrs, The breeze that get shining the sea, The blue sky, I give you all the best, my angel.

My good resolutions As always, the last days of the year people start to fantasize about the future. A general frenzy strikes everybody: in TV horoscopes are a big success, people hope it will be the year of the own sign of the zodiac, there is who the night of the 31st December wears underwear backwards, who throws old things from the window and who (like me) makes a list of the good resolutions. After years of trays and sailor's promises, I have decide that my new year's good resolutions are no good resolutions! I won't start a diet, I won't start running, I won't be tidier, I won't buy more feminine dresses, I won't make up mainly, I won't read hundreds books, I won't prepare wonderful dinners, I won't start to paint, I won't learn to play guitar, I won't do kickboxing to release stress, I won't be less lazy...I won't be a perfect girl. This year, before to make a promise, I hope to understand what I really want because as Albert Einstein said: ''There is a driving force more powerful than steam, Electricity and atomic energy: THE WiILL".

What's Christmas? What's Christmas? When I was a child it was a big tree, full of decorations and colored intermittent lights which almost hypnotized me. Christmas was to try (uselessly) to stay awake waiting for Babbo Natale, to hope it snows during the night, to watch Disney cartoons and to eat peanuts in front of the fireplace. Growing up it acquired for me a meaning most religious: a special birth, an emblem of renaissance and hope. Facts of life leaded me to not trust anymore in the little baby in the manger...but I still feel this period of the year different from the other: special and a bit magic. And today you, mom, ask to me: 'Why did you buy gifts and do you want celebrate this day if you lost your faith?'. I like thinking to Christmas as the day of the second chances, of the renaissance, of the pureness and of the hope for a better World. This is independent from the religion, it is universal. So now, wearing my pajamas, eating peanuts and listening classic Christmas songs in front of my fireplace, with a glass of spumante in the hand I drink for an Universal Christmas and I wish to you an happy and peaceful day with the people who you love. Merry Christmas World!

Be brave Dear Carla, I have decided to write to you this letter because we need to speak. I'm tired of you! STOP to complain! STOP to say 'I can't'! STOP to be anxious! STOP to be afraid! I can't stand you anymore! Every day it is the same old story: your fear blocks you as a physical paralysis and you can't move, think and breathe...listen me: be brave! There isn't time for whimpering...the life is so brief! What was the moment when you lost all yours confidence, when you decided that the others were better than you...ever...and why? I want to remember you that you have feel like doing and a lot of dream to realize... 'If you want something, go and get it!' said Will Smith in 'The Pursuit of Happiness'. You maybe are thinking 'It is only a movie', and I want only to say to you: 'Maybe not...'

Declaration of love Sometimes it happens that when I listen a song a lump forms in my throat the tears grow in my eyes. It happens also today, listening a song which telling about you. If someone looked at me, he would think I am crazy! You has seen me to born, grow up, cry, laugh, make mistakes, triumph and now you has seen me go away...I swear that I didn't cheat you, you stay forever in my heart and I promise you that a day I'll come back. A famous Italian singer-songwriter expressed a beautiful thought about you that I want to remember you: "The life in Sardinia is maybe the best that a man could wish: twenty-four thousands kilometers of forests, of countries, of coasts submerged in a fantastic sea should coincide with what I would suggest God give us as heaven". It is a declaration of love by Fabrizio De André and I endorse it.

Thinking of you Day by day your image is more obfuscated, the outlines dissolve, the colors shuffle and the sound of your voice is confused in my mind... I remember our arguments, I was so young and I believed to know enough about the life. I wanted to live as my peers and don't be different. You just wanted to protect me. Now I know it.. You was fill of vitality, after work you was always busy with some activities: repairing the car of a friend, fixing the faucet which was dripping, going fishing, caring for your vegetable garden in the country. Often I was with you and I loved it. I remember the first time you allowed me to drive your car: the legendary 500 FIAT! A real duffer! How many laughters! Desperately I try to keep with me all memories about you. Especially one helps me and makes me feel good when I am sad or I have some problems: how you looked at me, as a dad looks his daughter proudly.