Childishly Joyful {Fairy Talk}

The night is warm, there’s no wind to ruffle my hair and the appointment has been made with my beloved cousin. As with all things Italian, we take our sweet time: time to find the meeting spot - even though I have been coming here since I was born - time to meet and greet, time to hug, kiss and cry. This is how I meet with my Italian family. It’s summertime, warm and welcoming under the starry sky. It’s under the benevolent eye of the village’s patron saint, San Domenico. My dad never missed a celebration, never missed a nostalgic opportunity to tell us the story of his joy as a child when he attended the  procession carrying the statue of the saint around the cobbled streets. 

It’s all different now, but I am so childishly joyful to be here: we are all sitting in the local piazza, surrounded by tacky stalls selling horrible plastic toys, animals of all sorts, crêpes and local pastries. We are going to have a pizza, there’s 12 of us. We share the piazza with the rest of the inhabitants, the faithful who step into the church - I do too, but can barely recognize it now that the priest that my dad used to know (don Gino, whose highly pitched voice still resonates in my head) and my dad too are gone. My world has changed, but I am childishly joyful to be here. 

We share the simple food, we talk about food, as always we listen to the band playing the music we used to tease my dad and uncle about. These are the small things that remain now, the all important memories. Now, we listen and rejoice to every single key, we could even sing along if we dared! Around the table, conversations take shape, twist and turn: new projects, old habits, new stories and old myths, new videos, old photographs are told and shown by each family member. 

I am part of it all, under the fairy lights of the piazza lighting arrangement and of the old village center and its history. For the first time in what seems like an ageless life, I am actually here: I can feel the earth under my feet, smell the sweet almonds of the local specialty - cupeta - , the sour beer - another local star, Dreher beer from Hungary - and the holiness of it all. I breathe it all in, then divide it all into tiny particles and assimilate each of them to who I am today. Forget about the others, the feeling of unity, the meeting of generation: this very day, I finally understand where I am too. The feeling is fragile, and breakable; I know only too well it may be gone tomorrow. So I am childishly joyful to feel fulfilled, to feel like a child, to be able to truly and deeply smile. 

Credits: Unsplash (edited by TheDaydreamer)