S'abba tenet memoria

As white as white can be, sitting, elegant, on the slope, the villa, that my father built in Cala Girgolu, in Sardinia, looked, from the beach, like a candid blanket left to dry in the gentle caress of the hot sun and salty wind that were and are king and queen in those latitudes. My father, who was a lawyer, had discovered the deserted spot (in the far away Sixties) during one of his lonely roams in the island which he loved as if he had been, in a previous life, king of a nuragic tribe... He found the place, fell in love with Tavolara, pink and blue in the distance, bought a piece of land and started building his dream. His dream is now my dream and as I write these words, I am there now, right now, wings glued on my feet like the ones that Hermes wore to bring messages from the Gods to us, down here, in this topsy turvey world.

And as I see, all around, the sad scenes that I watched on television: water everywhere and the sea full of trees from the land inside, I remember an old sardinian man, a friend of my father's, who, long, long ago, said to my father (and to me sitting in his shadow), and he was criticizing the modern way to build, build, build, as if the planet only belonged to us, selfish people. He said in sardinian: "S'abba tenet memoria".  The water remembers. No matter what man does, nature is stronger...

Roman Walks

On the blabla of november, when winter, with its grey hat and mighty brown coat, will at last hug the Eternal City, bringing shivers and joy to the Romans, sick of an unusual summerlike autumn, I’ll be walking together with two lovely irish ladies from the Trajan Column to the Pantheon, speaking and speaking and showing the secret symbols, that few see (too busy with the turmoil of life),  which are the living signs of history and of the red thread stretching throughout the centuries in the beauty of truth.  You need eyes wide open to see it all and, please, do not be afraid to open up the third eye, that sleeps in mindlessness in the middle of the forehead. Do not fret, it will open up as my words (many, two hours of words…) creep inside, merging with the secret river that flows in the silence of our souls.

Ready, steady, go: it is going to be a plunge in history, culture, religion, all in one because it is actually all in one, as Georgina Masson knew… If you are interested in my “Passeggiate Romane” and you are coming to Rome, willing to understand the City (and life) and not only to dash from the Colosseum to the Vatican Museums, please send me an e-mail  (bennidv@alice.it) and we can arrange it together. Do as the Romans Do also for a coffee, for a pizza, for an icecream. Food is sacred as much as monuments. When in Rome, do it our way... 

me