Roots

I don’t come back here often. Since I left 10 years ago, my comebacks have been mostly in-betweens. In between jobs, partners, travels. Sometimes I come here to heal, like last June, but I never stay too long.

This is the land where I grew up. My roots lay here. It holds wonderful memories, but also very painful ones. I like the peacefulness, the slow pace, the nature. I hate the stillness, the small-town mentality and the complete lack of public transport.

This is the first home I ever knew, even if my idea of home has evolved so much over the years that I can’t identify this place as “home” anymore. Not just this one at least. Living a nomadic life, the concept of home has become more and more subtle for me.

Home is the distinctive stench of Paris subway. It’s a beer with friends at the Public Bar in Melbourne or at Birrificio di Lambrate in Milan. It’s riding a Vespa on Bergamo’s hills and sleeping under a million stars in the Australian desert. Home is to be with your loved one. It’s the thick tropical moisture that wraps you when you get out of an Asian International Airport. It’s the scary and fascinating night noises of the jungle. Home is going for a run or hiking to the top of a mountain. It’s driving a motorbike. It’s using crutches.

Home is an ever-changing feeling. Last month, it meant going back to my roots. It meant letting my mother taking care of my health. It meant trusting. For ten days, home has been the burbling waterfall of the small pond and the tweeting birds of my parents’ garden. The good old local Italian food and the locking sound of the ’92 Ford Fiesta. The rumble of lawnmowers on Sundays and my old journals dating back to the Nineties.

As usual, I didn’t stay too long. But this time I wanted to pay honors to my roots. I realized that I have an enormous amount of pictures taken all over the world, but I never shot anything here. I didn’t have my camera with me and I didn’t want this to be shot with an IPhone. Plus, this is No Country for Young Men, so which better way to portray the stillness of suburbia other than an old Pentax from the 80’s?