THE LAST RIDE

THE LAST RIDE

Jun 15, 2024 | AWARD, STORIES

The Last Ride is the title of my story for the Bisarca 2024 competition organised by Il Perdilibri. 

I have already told you about the Bisarca  competition in past editions: but I quote directly: what do you win? The satisfaction of participation and eventual victory.

I would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank Il Perdilibri for hosting The Last Ride.

Habit is regarded as addiction, but asking questions is also a habit.

Eleonora, however, is not in the habit of doubting her schedule, starting with the alarm clock: for which there are three repetitions before getting up, every day, regardless of tiredness, weather, hunger, or stress level.

After that everything is calculated, including the delay, a luxury offered to her by an anonymous traveller.

A group sub-habit is created among the usual commuters: a kind of unwritten code according to which, occasional invaders aside, seats are occupied according to a kind of hierarchy acquired over time.

Eleonora remembers the day when the man with whom she shares the seat beckoned to her: ‘as of today the seat is free’ were the only words other than good morning and good day, which they exchanged over a period of what may be a thousand days now.

Eleonora arrives at six forty-three minutes, sure to find the seat reserved by her travelling companion, who, as always, rests his briefcase on the window side until she reaches him.

All she knows about him is that he travels daily to Milan, that he perpetually listens to something on his earphones, that he prefers classic, good-quality clothes in shades of grey, and that he uses a perfume with Vetiver as the base note.

Every morning they exchange a single good morning each, Eleonora sits down, takes the book out of her bag and starts reading. In these thousand days she will have read a hundred books, all in strict silence until she arrives at Porta Garibaldi, when her travelling companion wishes her a good day before gettinf off, leaving her for her ritual minutes during which she waits for the crowd to thin out.

If you want, you can find the rest here. 

But first tell me: what would be the last ride for you?

There are many examples: books, movies, on a personal level though, does your first instinct lead you to think of last in a positive or negative way?

LIFE IS A BEAUTIFUL AND ENDLESS JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE PERFECT CUP OF COFFEE.Barbara A. Daniels

LIFE IS A BEAUTIFUL AND ENDLESS JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE PERFECT CUP OF COFFEE.Barbara A. Daniels

Feb 24, 2024 | JOURNEY FROM MUG TO MUG

Life is a beautiful and endless journey in search of the perfect cup of coffee.
Barbara A. Daniels

I take this fantastic quote to thank Tomislav  for taking up my invitation: I am always happy when you send me pictures of your coffee.

In this case Tomislav sent me a picture of his afternoon coffee, telling me that he had found a new cup that was smaller than the one he used to use.

And look how beautiful these vintage advertisements are too!

There’s a cappuccino radiating light just to represent a happy moment.

Happy as I am adding a new stage to the journey from mug to mug. 

I take this opportunity to show you a picture of what used to be my favourite cup before it broke.

 

What a sad fate when the objects we care most about break more easily than the things we care less about, isn’t it?

Am I the only walking disaster?

I remember the exact moment when I realised that the cup had slipped out of my hand … can you imagine the echo of my noooooooooooo?

Do you have a favourite cup in particular? And if so, have you managed to preserve it?

Tomislav replaced his cup with a new one, how long has your cup been with you? How many coffees have it seen?

So, considering the opening quote:
Life is a beautiful and endless journey in search of the perfect cup of coffee.

Did you completed the wonderful journey in search of the perfect cup of coffee?

I NEVER FORGET TO CALL YOU LOVE

I NEVER FORGET TO CALL YOU LOVE

Feb 3, 2024 | BOOKS

Non mi dimentico mai di chiamarti amore (I never forget to call you love) is the sylloge published by Parallelo45 for which I surely “won’t forget” to thank Carmelo Cossa and Manuale di Mari. 

February has arrived, the month of Valentine’s Day, the most famous romantic occasion, just as romantic is the author’s soul.

Carmelo Cossa is immediately striking in the way he declares his love: love for poetry.

So Poetry becomes the way for expressing the idealisation of love as a totally harmonising expression of feeling.

The author is like a knight of the dolce stil novo, even though life has taken him far from his roots.

Reading the poems in Non dimentico mai di chiamarti amore (I never forget to call you love) I had a strong sense of how the journey from his homeland to the place that would offer him fulfilment was a key element for Carmelo.

Among my favourite poems:

Con il cuore appeso (With the Hanging Heart) because I found myself in the concept of a night grip and also in the comparison of a shredded cloth stretched out in the sun.

Natura e vita (Nature and Life) because I found the personification of nature in the first person a metaphor capable of giving a powerful sense of flow, vitality and harmony.

Magia di vita (Magic of life) for the concept of the ‘beginning again’ of the cycle of the seasons that repeat, but even more so, relive.

Speaking of his Poetry, Carmelo Cossa also quotes Rita Levi Montalcini:

it is better to add life to days than days to life

thus capturing the mark of what I would dare to call a life mission for him: he lives for poetry and makes poetry alive.

So I invite you to pause on Non mi dimentico mai di chiamarti amore (I never forget to call you love) and to think about to which ‘love’ your life is dedicated.

LET’S PRETEND THAT

LET’S PRETEND THAT

Aug 12, 2023 | ISN'T IT IRONIC?

Summer: time for travel, craving for levity.

I propose a surreal quiz to laugh with each other.  Are you ready to imagine?

Let’s pretend that …

you are traveling with people who make you feel good, whether family or friends.

First question: where are you going?

You are chatting about the last movie you saw while you are driving, but you feel a little tired. You see a motorway café, you stop and say: “I need a coffee, I’ll be right back.”

Twenty minutes later you aren’t back yet, so whoever was with you comes in looking for you and what do they see?

You singing standing on the counter like the girls from Coyote Ugly

but this is Italy, there are no microphones in the motorway cafés and you are holding a Rustic sandwich with ham, tomato, mozzarella salad and mayonnaise.

Second question: what are you singing?

Since you have been discovered, you invite them to join you.

Assumption 1:
They catch up with you and start singing with you in the Top Gun style.


Assumption 2:
someone decides to bite the Rustic sandwich 

Assumption 3:
they look at you dumbfounded and after the first moment when they are like salt statues they react by asking what the heck you are doing

Let’s pretend that …

you have to give an explanation: what happened after the coffee?

FILOSOFEGGIANDO IN ALLEGREZZA

FILOSOFEGGIANDO IN ALLEGREZZA

Aug 19, 2022 | JOURNEY FROM MUG TO MUG

Filosofeggiando in allegrezza is the blog that gives us a new stage of the Journey from mug to mug, and now I have plenty of joyful serenity for these pictures too!

As you may have guessed, the photo below the title is from Spain: Galicia, and to be precise it is from the Vigo Book Festival. 

As Feiras do Libro de Galicia take place every year in various towns and cities in Galicia, in the spring and summer months, with stalls run by booksellers, and an extensive program of parallel activities, such as readings, meetings with authors, exhibitions, book presentations, etc., that make these events a meeting of great cultural interest.

The writer who most universalized Vigo was Jules Verne, in a passage from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Have you read it?

I missed it until my son brought it home from the elementary school library, but there’s always time to recover, right?

In Verne’s novel, the Vigo estuary hides very rich treasures from the Battle of the Bay or Battle of Rande.

“So, Mr. Aronnax (…), we are in that same bay of Vigo. It is up to you to unravel its mysteries.”

The battle took place on October 23, 1702 between the Anglo-Dutch and Spanish-French coalitions during the War of the Spanish Succession. Spanish galleons arrived at the Vigo estuary laden with the greatest treasure that had ever crossed the Atlantic: gold and silver, jewels…

“The sand was littered with those treasures. Then, laden with that precious booty, those men would return to the Nautilus, deposit their burdens and resume that inexhaustible fishery for gold and silver.”

Since then hundreds of dives have been made in the waters of the Vigo Estuary in search of treasure. Without going any further, six battle-related wrecks were located and identified in 2011.

Thus, don’t you think that the quote chosen to introduce the Festival:

THE BEST STORIES BEGIN WITH GOOD COFFEE

is simply perfect?

If you want to discover further interesting anecdotes about Galicia, don’t miss the description of the trip here on Filosfeggiando in Allegrezza. 

Speaking of precious things then, here are two coffees from Monforte de Lemos!

So after Verne we can also mention Miguel Cervantes’ El ingenioso caballero don Quijote de la Mancha, precisely with reference to the Count of Lemos.

But about Monforte de Lemos you can ind more details on Filosfeggiando in allegrezza in the second part of the report.

And what about you? Where have you had your coffee lately?

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