6 June, 2026
this entry is about: the end of high school, her blazing words and my ivory tower, the importance of boredom, summer ennui and the modern hero, impermanence and the fate of the universe, love for a satellite, past and present dreams
The well of my sister's faith ran dry for a long time, but today I drew from it and found her imperious, world-turning piety. The well of my sister's words ran dry for a long time, but today I drew from it and found her sweet, familiar sermon. Where has she been? How did I know I was going to find her again today? I throw my own voice into the world with the knowledge that, eventually, someone like me will listen to it.
Sometimes I snap back to common sense from my haze of mysticism and I marvel at how weird of a woman I've become. I've driven myself into the farthest corners that my mind could fashion; I wake up from my philosophical-thealogical mind-bacchanals to find that my limbs have contorted into those of a satyress - a deviant's crooked legs, that dance to a tune no one else hears - my head has contorted into that of the phthisic intellectual, and to my right there is a detective board linking Empedocles, Montale, calla lilies, entropy, and limestone cliffs. Mary Daly said that Sparking - igniting each other's souls with inspiration - is a bilateral process: is there a single woman on this Earth who'd find meaning in what I write? There must be, or, there could be. How insane this entry is! But I dream that one day these dissonant sounds will find the ears of kindred women and be perceived as beautiful melodies.
Today was the last day of high school!! It's weird, I'm not elated and I'm not heartbroken, I don't have any spectacular feelings, just this weird, vague sense of slight bereavement: I haven't yet registered the fact that I'm never gonna be in a small class with my friends again, never gonna wander those halls again. After the last bell rang I found my most elusive friend, a student-athlete prodigy in whose schedule it's almost impossible to fit a hangout, walking up to me with tears in her eyes. I hugged her tightly and asked her when she would come over. "Whenever you want", she told me.
Again, it's weird to lack spectacular feelings - both positive and negative - about such an event. When I came home and showered off all the sweat from dancing to Michael Jackson, I looked at my eyes and my ruffled hair, and I just felt that vague hollow feeling: I guess it's because I don't look any different - I'm not any different. Perhaps I don't give it much importance because it's an external moment of passage, something which is supposed to mean growth but is mandated from the outside and thus insincere, like turning 18. What I care about the most, it seems, are those internal transitions: reading The Chalice and The Blade by Riane Eisler, listening to an old deprecated italian song from 2002, sleeping on the couch one day and hearing the call of a little owl.
But I think I see the light. The esame di maturità is approaching dizzyingly fast, so fast that I can't bring myself to worry too much, that I also feel hurled like a pebble towards the future. I need to tell you about an epiphany. This weekend I was sitting at home, rolling around on the couch, doing nothing, and I realized that I was feeling bored - and that dull ache blended with heavenly bliss. Bored!!! I finally had the chance to be bored, you understand? Lately, for months, I've just been running all day from one chore to another, and I've never had the time to lay down and let myself do nothing - until now. I think I see the light. Bored. Boredom: our first reflex is to hate her, but don't we all realize after a while how terrible it is to live without her, don't we all come running back to her with tears in our eyes? Boredom is a symptom of abundance, abundance of time, and I think it's genuinely dehumanizing to live without it. I welcome her back into my house, this summer.
Yes, the seasons have turned. I see the light of the dawn when I will get up undisturbed and go walk on the mountain paths, and I'm getting ready to greet the long hours of idleness; but the summer heat is sometimes capable of turning this essential, blessed boredom into ennui. It's certainly become impossible to be out in the midday sun: when I have to, I bow my head under it, and stagger along like an ill woman; the sun drives us mad now, all the creatures of these thirsty lands, drives us into the depths of our dens. Heat alerts are beginning to pop up along with recommendations from experts on how to avoid getting sick, for example, napping around noon. Yes, medically prescribed naps, and I'll certainly indulge. The midday sun is so monstrous and terrifying that the only way to handle it is refusing to handle it, sinking into unconsciousness as it ravages the world outside. I think the little carrots I sowed this spring aren't gonna get any bigger; my calendulas are not much more than seedlings, but their leaves are crisping up and dying: I think I'll get no blooms this year. I'm already beginning to be weary of the sun, and I wish the order of things didn't require summer to be a mass-murderer. I usually allegorize summer as the time of unbound lust for the beauty of the world, when we buckle under the weight of our passion, so this ennui I just mentioned might seem out of place, and I might seem like an inconstant idiot; but it's my cosmology, based on my worldview and my experiences, isn't it? And throughout my life I've learned too well about how lust and the love-songs of crickets can turn into maddening, senseless refrains that drill a hole of tedium in your head, day in, day out. I also usually jeer at desperate and resigned modern perspectives, where man, bored after centuries of lording over the globe and wringing the life and beauty out of all things, proclaims the world senseless and chaotic; I jeer at this modern man who maims the world and disdains its frailty, at lofty Orestes who, just because he can't feel justified in killing his mother, loses his balance and turns into Hamlet. I usually scorn these modern worldviews - I love prehistory, the ancient, the recondite, the absolute. But I still like Shakespeare, you know. And some aspects of those worldviews may not be so relative or wrong after all: have you seen the sorrowful gods of Hamangia? So yes, summer can keep its renown as the season of excessive lust and beauty, of creation trampled by its own passion and vitality; at the same time it could perhaps be the season where great, tired Ma tosses the world at her feet like an old toy, and says: I ‘gin to be aweary of the sun, and wish th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone. And by her command fire rips through the fabric of reality, the mounting spires of life fall apart.
The mountain is my lover, you all know at this point. Recently I looked at this tall, hard, rough cliff of limestone looming over the sea, and I thought that she might be as terrified of the passage of time as any human. Me and my lover hold each other desperately, she as mortal as I: she stands on unsteady ground, a land which is known to fall apart and build herself a new face every couple of centuries. Yes, one day these cliffs will crumble into the sea with a deafening roar, and this face that I love, the face of my shore, will be unrecognizable. Me and my lover hold each other desperately amid the hellish rush of time, the swarm of the harpies of the years sweeping down on us in their hundreds, ripping from us not merely youth, not merely beauty, but also consistence. This entire peninsula - the rolling hills of Tuscany, the spine of the Sibillini - once dozed under the sea; even a medieval peasant would struggle to recognize it now, with the steady flow of rivers adding debris at the estuaries and building land throughout the ages. So the Earth's face always changes, and this lover that I sing to and sing about will one day be gone. And when I think about it, a very human sense of agony and greed seizes me: no, I want her to be preserved through eternity! I thought I knew her, but I can only know a fraction of her, a glimpse of her face, an unrepeatable second of her unfathomably long history. How many more things will I miss after I'm laid to rest, my consciousness extinguished? The exhilarating fact that the Earth is dynamic and ever-changing can also be terrifying to the part of our brain which craves comfort and steadiness. But so it is. The world is like this not in spite of its unsteadiness but because of it. We are precisely because we are without consistency: without the past versions of ourselves we wouldn't be who we are, as the shell-encrusted Dolomiti remind us. And I always strive for the universal eye, the divina indifferenza, the divine impartial eye to which atoms are the same whichever form they take.
The biggest calla lily in my garden has been bent and broken, I don't know by what or whom. Her thick stalks have been snapped at the base - it looks like she's been trampled upon - and now she lays on the ground. Whenever I found dead things in my garden, I used to bury them next to her: I found consolation about the dead baby bird and the dead baby turtle, because they became food for beautiful flowers. What if a new shoot doesn't spring up from the bulb? What will we do without the solace of a rock-steady resting place? This is what's true about modern man's perspective, you see: the lack of security, the inevitability of change, the tyranny of Relativity spanning the universe. I try to have the universal eye, I try to see the bigger picture, I seek the absolute and the objective. What will happen when the calla lily that received the bodies of the dead falls over and doesn't spring up again? What will happen when the greater body of the Earth, who receives the eater and the eaten, falls apart into the wide reach of space? What will happen when every particle in the universe grows so distant that everything becomes cold and still? With the only metaphysical leap I'll allow in my materialist faith, I hurl my zealotry trillions of years into the future: I want to believe, like old Empedocles, that Φιλότης will overthrow the tyranny of Νεῖκος again and that the great wheel will keep spinning as it has for billions of years. And if it really doesn't, then let this dying universe be just one among many; let this be a single, minuscule, frail cell collapsing inside a larger organism.
But it's dizzying and unpleasant to think about the sidereal reaches of space right now, in this week, when the Earth and I open ourselves up to each other, when we flow in each other, when we mirror and reciprocate each other in so many ways. My chest swelled with wonder when, on the first day of my bleeding, I saw that the moon was perfectly full: such a coincidence last happened, like, two years ago. I love, love, tenderly love this cold hunk of rock in space, like a sister, like a mother; the faithful, constant Moon that hasn't left me dry in a single month of all my bleeding years. The alchemist, the magician who once a month touches this desert stone of a body with her rod, and makes me flow with abundance. How beautiful and harmonious it is to be part of creation; how freeing it is to acknowledge it. Even in this parched time, I become the grape and press the wine out of myself. In this parched time, the only thing we Mediterranean creatures can do is come out at night. We find relief in the cool air, in the calm, wide brow of our merciful Moon: I long to go out in the darkness along with the frogs, the crickets, the assioli, the owls, the boars, the foxes. Look, look, the celestial bull, the bull of heaven who charged at Gilgamesh, is descending the night sky, his tail swinging lazily behind him; I'd love to grab the horns of the cow of the moon, not to jump over her and make sport of her like the Cretans did, and not to sacrifice her; I'd love to grab the horns of the cow of the moon to pull her closer to me, pull her calm, wide brow closer to me, pull her wise, kind eyes closer to me, closer to me. I love this giant, cold hunk of rock in space, like a sister, like a mother.
My summer plans aren't exciting at all, I mostly just need to rest. Going hiking every week; replaying Resident Evil Village - I'd replay Biohazard too but I'm pretty sure I sold it... Maintaining a sensible sleep schedule even though I'll have the freedom to go to sleep and get up whenever I want, and maintaining a low screentime even though I'll have way more free time. Driving not too much but not too little: I still share the car with my sister and she doesn't go outside except for uni, so this summer I'll basically have it all to myself. I don't wanna use it too much, but I can't deny that I'm excited about being able to drive and not having to depend on the bus this summer. I can go down to the beach in the morning and stay under the pines until long shadows start to trail the earth, and climb back up at my leisure. Since my sister probably won't use the car much, though, I wonder if I'll be the one who has to pay for fuel. That would suck... Ever since I began working on the Sae-ism shrine in June of 2024, coding late into the night while listening to music has been an essential summer tradition, so I guess I'm gonna do that too, sometimes, as a treat. I wonder if I'll have the courage to (illegally) camp in the mountain woods and sleep there, alone in my tent. I'd probably shit myself if I only heard a twig snap, but, we'll see. It'd be cool. Now that I have the time, I wanna do more cardio, though I wonder how hard it'll be with summer temperatures - I hope I never suffer heatstroke. I wanna see how much better I am at climbing up the mountain after these months of running. Do you have any fucking idea how bad it used to be? This was my dream for the longest time, I'd always wanted a heart that beats slowly, strongly, surely, and a breath that doesn't falter easily. And, again, I want opportunities to be bored, I wanna do things slowly. I wanna lay in bed in the evening and cross away at word puzzle books, until the throbbing in my clit gets too intense to ignore, and I have to spit on my hand and slide it between my thighs. Do you have any fucking idea how bad it used to be? This was my dream for the longest time, I'd always wanted to be easeful, slick, and open unto the world. And what I wanna do most this summer, is go to the place that will probably become my own in September and just sleep there. I want to fall asleep naked in that giant, soft queen-sized bed, with the blinds open, so that when I wake up I'll find myself showered with rays of light, and I'll admire my body and the sun on my skin. Do you have any fucking idea how bad it is? This has been my dream for the longest time, I've always wanted a bed and a room to truly call my own, a place where to truly lay down and rest. And I have no doubt that I'll make it come true.
24 May, 2026
this entry is about: a transition period, insects, the city, my land in me, vertical planters, sleeping with monsters
It's winter in the middle of May. I really am biting down on, tearing at the last bit of this old life that I've still got in my plate. I swallow it down with big, brutish gulps; I don't even try to shy away from the discomfort, I let this too-small world have its way, I offer myself to the last blows of it. Patior, τλάω - I bear it. I'm even proud of the way I bear it: I stand firmly, bravely, I don't close the door, I don't even cover myself up anymore. Death, stiff white nudes, unsensational dull ache, the slow grinding of fangs into flesh: I sort of wish the world was sighing in boredom along with me, but it is spring outside this place. My arms are folded on my chest as if I need to ensure that I am alive, and my limbs are thin. I trust that it is spring for everyone else, every plant and animal: I have strong faith that they are all blooming, and singing, and feasting, but it is winter in the confines of this too-small life that, I hope, is gonna turn around soon.
Is my friend hearty,
Now I am thin and pine,
And has he found to sleep in
A better bed than mine?
I dream of a better bed than this one: it's become so hard to sleep in this room, I can't help that I'm outgrowing it, outgrowing everything I know. I endure the constriction of this room as I'm growing ever bigger, I endure the pressure of the walls, I endure these final moments of gasping and choking before the roof gives way and I can breathe open air. I tear away at the last bits of this old life brutishly, stupidly, dazedly, dreaming of the air I'll breathe and the form I'll take. I want to rise from the formless ocean, I want to split from my twin, I want to cut the umbilical chord. I dream frenzied, visionary, feverish dreams about the form I'll take. The gorgon, the sphynx, the harpy all inhabit this place of passage: the three-headed dog of the dead, and Lilith screech-owl: and the assiolo that I hear singing in certain nights, I think, has something to teach me. That night when I broke and went to sleep on the couch, listening to her through the blinds, I think she told me what the thrush told Keats:
O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind,
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist,
And the black elm tops 'mong the freezing stars,
To thee the spring will be a harvest-time.
O thou, whose only book has been the light
Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on
Night after night when Phœbus was away,
To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn.
Right now, I feel dry, assaulted by an endless stream of duties and meaningless stimuli. I feel like all my sap's been wrung from me. Anche la fontana vigorosa del mio sesso si ritrova a sottostare penosamente alle circostanze: il mio piacere tornerà, mi prefiguro, quando avrò un letto tutto mio. I've been feeling heavy - I think I've gotten a bit ill from stress, and the fact that I have to get a thermometer's permission to take some time off makes me even more tired and cranky. So does our vulture Lady sweep down on me: the slow grinding of claws into flesh. Again, I endure it, because I think that something better awaits me on the other side of this. The last month of high school, the last summer in this home, and then, pleasures and freedoms I've never tasted before, hopefully. I'm not totally sure that it will be better, or that it will be incredibly good like I often fantasize about lately, but I do know that things have to, like, change. I've outgrown the place and time that I'm in, and we have no choice but to change. That's why I have so much faith: this is precisely the sort of death that foretells a rebirth.
But still does our vulture Lady sweep down on me. I fight back: not fighting back would be disrespectful to the holy spark of survival instinct that she's put in me, that comes from her also. This too - false conflict between two parts of a whole - is sacred play, a sacred play.
Back to what I was talking about last entry: I think I seek acknowledgement of those things because they are familiar to me. I get wary, I grow nauseous and even homesick, when someone tries to show me their world and I don't see Lamashtu sweeping down on children.
I didn't know about Lamashtu from Mesopotamian myth before, regretfully. Now I do and I find her perfect. Not beautiful, not lovely, of course - perfect, and true. A perfect symbol, a Brugmansia who uprooted herself and grew a pair of legs. I've known her in my time, I've felt her claws in my back. I often think about how, if I was born as another species, a crippled child like me would have not survived: I wonder if it's better or worse for the world overall that I survived, but I can egotistically enjoy it nonetheless. I wonder if she can see now how much my horns have grown, how I'm skipping on the rocks. I do not hate her (what would it accomplish?) because she is perfect and true. I know Lamashtu: I cackle when I see her riding past, and I sometimes throw a thighbone in her direction, like one would playfully slap an old friend.
My plans aren't set in stone yet, but I really don't want to go to an entirely different province. I don't think I can handle leaving this place. The smell of flowering jasmine, the summer sky above me, the three radio towers on the hill with their blinking red glare: my soul is in repose here, you can't remove me. And when I turned around, I saw the most spectacular sunset I've seen in months: the dark red blood clots of the dying sun were all laying low above the dark, wide, still body of the sea. A girl in the balcony above me offered the best prayer: a vulgar yet wonder-hushed "Che cazzo di tramonto!"
It's been a wonderfully rainy May and my garden hasn't gone too thirsty, but we're almost on the turning point of the seasons, and soon all my plants will be flattened to the ground by the heat. Where I'm probably going to move, there'll be neither of these things; there'll be such few things, in fact - just a few square meters of concrete - that I'm afraid nothing will grow at all, but I refuse to believe it. No rain, no soil, I'll be a single mother. There'll be only a small sliver of sky above us, through which the Sun will sail an hour, another hour, another hour (who knows how many?) and then be gone: there'll be no terrible summer drought, but I'm worried about the amount of light that my plants will get. That's the biggest problem: is there enough light to grow something? Maybe in summer, but what about winter? Though, again, I refuse to believe that I won't be able to garden anymore.
I'm thinking of ways to grow as many things as possible in such a small space. Climbing plants and trellises might become my friends: I've always snubbed them until now because they're a hassle to set up, so I don't have much experience with them, but I'll definitely have to take advantage of the vertical space in that small ass patio. I'm saving up for vertical planters...
However it may go, what's certain is that I'll never see as many bugs and critters there as I do in this garden. No such diversity, for sure: I get sad when thinking about it. The minuscule fairy-green mantid-looking things crowding on the very tip of a wild oat spikelet, thinner than the white part of my nails; the giant, terrifying hornet, loud and gloomy as thunder, bigger than my thumb. Placid, mild-eyed brown locusts hanging on the stalks of my callas. The mysterious spiders inhabiting the depths of my lemon balm bushes, textured and colored like wood, horned like demons. The carpenter bee, a true hierophany for me at this point. The caterpillars of cavolaia, relying on me and my radish plants each autumn. Even spider mites I'll miss, o Ma. Red-and-black-striped stinkbug-looking things, all the different kinds of spiders weaving their homes between my favas, ridiculously cute little brown-black-and-white grasshoppers that almost look froglike: all these creatures whose names can't all be learned in a lifetime. I've noticed a lot of pollinators on my chamomile lately, many kinds of those insects that hover horizontally and move in intervals like hummingbirds, and I'm not so greedy while harvesting anymore. It will be a tough blow, to not be able to see them all in my garden again. But I'll live closer to the hiking trail, so I guess I'll let the mountain raise them, and go see them there.
Yes, we're at the turning point of the seasons, and I'm thinking about the sea: seeing my shores again, riding my canoe, walking the mountain paths down to desolate beaches. Who ever gave us permission to ride over the waters? over the trembling, unsteady mass of the waters and the blinding scatters of light. Why do we dare tread upon a world that was not made for us? I guess it's in our blood to seek beauty even in terrible things, to seek harmony everywhere. It is our nature to desire it, and so we see it even when it's not there (I'm the prime example of this, for sure). So we made a festival out of Adonis' death; so we hung deer skulls beside our hearths. So, when the Etruscans and the Minoans gave up their loved ones to the terrible, unknowable, stiff sleep of death, they laid them down in tombs with scenes of feasting, drinking, dancing. Isn't this good, isn't our nature good? I too wish to essere sempre per la vita, to be always on life's and beauty's side. And if I die at sea, if one day I fall into the waters and die, say of me that the loathsome crone of the deep saw my young, hip-boned body sunning on the rocks, lusted after me, and stole me for herself.
Yes, we're at the turning point of the seasons, and these are the last blows of this old life: soon, I'll be done with high school (!), and nothing will stop me from wandering on mountain paths. But then, the rains will have stopped: my plants in the garden will die of thirst, as every other under the brutal heat of a Mediterranean summer. Ah, what can we do? This is just how our world is made; our world that we live on, our world that I love, our world that is reflected in me now. Pierre Louys' small-breasted musician girl: "I am thin and sterile as a pine among the rocks." My gaunt, angular, meagre body laying on top of her jagged rocks, amid thorny bushes and lanky trees: I can feel that her body is the same as mine, and that through it thumps the same sharp, dry, staccato pulse. We are haggard, wild-eyed, silent: we make our nests in the steep seaside cliffs, we spread our branches above heaps of burnt brush. Ask from us the lushness of the Amazon rainforest, and we will not deliver. Ask from us the delights of an orchard, and we will not deliver: our fruits are small, hard, dry-pulped; corbezzoli, wild blackberries that give poetic vision. Ask from us a theatrical, pathetic death in Winter, and we will not deliver. We spring back up under the rain and the merciful cover of clouds; autumn is a time for sowing, not harvesting. The time of our death is in summer, when we grow so pleased by the beauty of the season and of ourselves, we buckle under the weight of our own passion, we are burned alive by our own lust: then, the love-songs of the crickets drill into our bones and drive us mad; then, even the sunflowers' heads droop in mourning our folly; then, we pant through the thirst-stricken woods, dipping our hand in every dry creek bed: the only water left is that of the sea, making us thirstier and thirstier the more we drink. And so I am haggard, barren, and on fire like the land I live in, and I love her like I love myself. My meagre, hip-boned body sunning on her rocks; and the loathsome crone of the deep, fat and slick with rotten fish bodies and shipwrecked wood, tending to her own garden of silvery posidonia and toxic algae, might one day raise her eyes from the depths, see me, lust after me, and steal me for herself.
I wake from uneasy dreams, to find that Lamashtu has creeped beneath the covers and seized me. I thought I'd gotten over her and away from her danger, but there she is, her gaping maw above me. Panicking, I shoo her away with a kick. I'm sorry, I changed my mind: I feign affinity with her because I want to seem unbothered by what she's done to me, unbothered by her memory, but I can't sleep anymore in the room where she mauled me. Yes, every once in a while she prowls in my dreams, pouncing on me in my sleep. The dust of this house engenders nightmares; I need to leave to a place where the floor isn't marked by the old imprints of her claws, where even my deepest secrets can lay safely in the dark without getting to her privy ears. Il treno ha fischiato, get me the hell out of here and away from her, from the memory of her! And tell the crone of the deep that she's not my type: I can't die now, not before I've done something more with my life.
11 May, 2026
this entry is about: women like me, senioritis, bad driving, Caterina Sforza and the lesson of the puma mother, salvation
What can compare to the feeling of coming across a woman like you? Not just a woman whose opinions you share, whose politics you agree with, whose words entice you: a woman who is like you, your mirror, formed by the same elements as you and forged in the same fire. Not just a woman who speaks your same language, but a woman who speaks exactly as you do, who uses your same exact words; a woman, you know it for sure, in whose head swirl the same exact thoughts that you have. Anoint me with fragrant oil, kill the fattened calf, because I've found my sister. One who prays like me, one who loves like me. I can smell it on her, I understand what she is, I understand everything that she is: a woman of my kind. What were the odds? Ours is a dying breed: the ashes of the last of us are scattered over sacred lands, the words for our truths are tucked away in books long out of print. Our youngest ancestress is Enheduanna. My sister, where have I found you? Where are the others? The search for a woman like you can feel neverending, but its rewards are without compare. The words of my sister bathe me in warm blood and perfume when I'm wilting, so that I return to life. Our oldest ancestress carved the Lady of Laussel.
My sister, what do you see at this time of year? So similar are we that we both have our mountains to climb on. What does May look like in your homeland? Tell me, and I will weave you a crown out of wild rose, orchids, honey locust and poppies; I will put a stem of scardaccione, who drinks the blood of the drowned, as a sceptre in your hand. Let me hear from you, sister: does your mullein still stand, do your mule deer still gaze at you? Sulla, the flower of May, finally blooms here, and I remember eating her delicious sweet stems, last year. When I go running, I see alliaria springing up on the side of the road, and I remember skipping on the rocks and learning the names of wild plants, last year. You live in a hot, dry place like me, sister: this is our last chance to climb up our mountains and greet our flowering neighbors, gather herbs before the drought flattens us all to the ground. Your way of loving is exactly like mine, sister, a matter of life or death, and I know your longing is as powerful as mine. I think we are being called, my sister, to go up there or die.
I have asymptomatic senioritis. I still have great grades and my performance is very good, but I am so fucking tired. I don't have time to go up the mountain. Questo è un periodo che non si augura, the last month of the last year of high school, having to face the last wave of tests and having to prepare for the esame di maturità. A lot of the time lately I feel like a machine; sometimes everything - eating, exercise, even sleep - seems to simply be an act of maintenance to ensure my regular functioning, like changing the oil of a car. It's a hectic time, it's an uncomfortable time, having to throw myself in this cramped room at the end of each day and fall asleep brutishly, quickly enough to function properly in the next. I'm fed up. I know it's unwise to not live in the present and to wish for happiness in the future, but I feel like I can't really help it: I've grown too large for the cocoon I'm in and I'm so close, so close to bursting out of it: these are the final, uncomfortable moments of a phase in my life, I think.
And so my stance on my recent dilemma about leaving has changed in a particular way, for now. There is a place, and this is already a massive thing, a great blessing to libate over. Close to home, so I won't miss my mother. A five-minute drive from a hiking trail that's very dear to me: perhaps I could go there every week? Without bare ground, of course, that'd be too much to ask, but there still might be some hope, o Ma, I'd have to measure it carefully, but there might be space in the patio for some grow bags, o Ma, I'll cram as many in there as it can handle. Under the balcony of another, o Ma, will there be enough light for something to grow? In the winter? In the summer? Will bees still visit me? I can't live without them. I'll try, o Ma, I'll try in every way I can. I can try and see how it goes. And knowing that there's a possibility I might be able to keep gardening - a crucial thing for me - made me change my focus from what I (maybe) can't do to what I (maybe) can do. Even though I'm not sure of anything, I have been hoping with my whole might; hoping and fantasizing, honestly. It's a stressful time and I've been allowing myself to fantasize. I will have an Instant Pot and the most beautiful, luscious food processor. I will thrift pretty plates and bowls and I will eat out of them every day. I will turn artificial lighting off and light candles every evening and I will have a proper night routine. I will wake up with gentle sounds and take my sweet time in the morning. I will lounge naked in summertime. I will dance. I'm gonna have my own PC and it'll have Linux Mint on it. I will never eat red meat again. Uh, maybe meatloaf sometimes, I fucking love meatloaf. I will start drawing! I will start sculpting clay! I will play an instrument again! I will take edibles and do psychedelics again! And I have no idea how freaky I'm gonna get once I go live alone. You're gonna catch me riding the bedpost with a Swiffer duster up my pussy every single night. I'm gonna get into credit card debt to buy the Samsung Smart Rimming Simulator. I'm gonna WRITHE, holy shit, on the BEAUTIFUL QUEEN-SIZED BED that I'll have all to myself. With a mattress topper too!! Again, I know I should live in the present and not rely on the future for happiness, but... isn't it part of human nature to have hope? And why should I renounce it? I feel like I deserve it, I want to have it, holy shit. Don't I deserve it! Trials and tribulations, so many things that I've been denied or that I haven't felt worthy enough to ask for: I demand my good fortune now, I demand prosperity, I demand space for me to take up. Last Saturday night I drove a friend home, steering with one hand and gesturing to Britney Spears with the other, as I sang and she did the backing vocals. I don't care if I put a dent in that old man's car while getting out of the parking lot, I'll pay up, who cares! I've always been so uptight, what the fuck, I need to let go, I need to run free. And we sang Into You by Ariana Grande because I told her what I want to do to that stupid piece of hunk I've been ogling at the bus stop. She wanted to DM him: "ma sei un incel? pk se si la mia amica è meno gasata ma ti stupra lo stesso" and her finger was hovering on the send button. Why not? Girl, let's go to his house and break through the window, I'm gonna rip his cock off and keep it on my nightstand: and I wanted to drive forever into the night. Holy shit, am I an adult? It looks like it, it looks like I am: it's about damn time, it took me such a long time to Grow Up and Grow Out Of. Now let my horns grow to their full size, the horns of maturity, the symbol of my lust and vigor and love and skill and dreams; I want to ram my way into a greater life. And maybe, in one of those grow bags in the patio, I will finally make a Brugmansia bloom, to signal that the child that I was has grown up now. I'm trying not to be too excited, not to take things for granted and to live in the present, however less favourable it might be; but I don't think it is a foolish or reprehensible thing, to hope for a better life next to the mountain of doves. I have to go up there or I'll die.
It would happen to shamanesses and holy women to be overcome by a force that would rip them apart. Younger me had no idea I'd unironically start doing what she jokingly suggested. My desire still feels too big for me sometimes, bigger than my small body. I flatter my desire, like one would flatter a vicious beast in hopes of taming it: you are a pool in which Brugmansia flowers steep, my dear, you are the sun that sweeps like a bird of prey over the chalk-white parched face of the mountain. But it's okay if I can't tame her: I think I like her a little unruly, after all, and I can handle her anyways: she doesn't come as frequently as she used to - thankfully, I'd say, though I miss her sometimes, and I find myself waiting for her like Psyche did with Cupid. I receive, at her will, the visits of my monstrous spouse from Lebanon.* We were looking at the garden today, watching a miraculous May shower fall on the greenery. A year is a month, a month is a year, and in a month a thousand generations spring up and die for the small creatures that live inside me. Glaciers receding and expanding, ice ages and megadroughts, the eruption of the Krakatoa, the sinking of Thera, all within a month in my body: Streptococcus and Gardnerella nourished by streams of blood, eventually replaced by Lactobacillus populations again. The rain tapped the same rhythm as the blood pumping in my hips. It fell upon a spider's web without damaging it. How could it be, my dear? The spider's art, her τεχνη, allows her to survive and to withstand the rain; I've learned to do the same, and now I don't fear the deep end of the pool anymore, and I greet the fiery summer sun from the top of the mountain.
Yes, even though I have the τεχνη to survive now, even though I have enough wisdom and skill, I'm still so uptight, what the fuck, always have been; it's always tragedy and gloom with me, even when I win I'm thinking about the next defeat, even when I'm living in pleasure I think about past or future pain. Yes, some weeks ago I was watching a documentary, Night on Earth, and there was this puma mother with her small cubs. She was leading them to a fresh kill she'd made, but some of them got lost along the way, and to make matters worse a big, bad, beefy male was prowling the area. I only had a vague sense of horror somewhere in my chest. I watched on haughtily, as haughtily as I thought the puma mother must've felt when faced with the threat of losing her cubs. Girl, you have plenty to eat, he's got them now, they're basically dead, who cares anymore! Don't bother! Go, I spurred her in my head, speak like Caterina Sforza on top of the stronghold of Ravaldino: Fatelo, se volete: impiccateli pure davanti a me. Qui ho quanto basta per farne altri! How could a puma be less fierce than a human woman? So I was seriously, utterly shocked when she went back for them and faced the male, first trying to appease him and then fighting him off. She didn't even beat her cubs' ass, or like, the feline equivalent of it, for the trouble they'd given her.
I was... kind of disappointed? A puma mother is less fierce than Caterina Sforza. I expected the same heroic disdain, the same cruelty and selfishness.
I guess I've kind of forgotten about softness in this life. I've preached about deliriants and poisons, suffering and meaninglessness, eating and being eaten; and I've begun to laugh scornfully in the face of those who speak of my Ma only as a benevolent mother. A mother, yes, but not even motherhood is inherently loving: I think of all the mothers in this world, insect mothers and reptile mothers, not just mammals. I know it well, I come from a line of women who squatted upon the earth and cursed the fruit of their birth, one after another. I don't think I'm wrong overall, but perhaps, for fear of seeming vain, foolish and unbalanced, I've leaned too hard into the other side of the unbalance. Perhaps I've grown blind to the soft and sweet things of this life. I've philosophized so much about the Brugmansia that I've forgotten about the luscious, sweet, juicy fig. I've read so much Enheduanna that I've forgotten about Carol P. Christ. I've bent my head before the vultures of Catal Hoyuk; yet the Minoans painted baskets full of saffron, holy women dancing in sacred groves, all the beauty in this world, and the Etruscans put so much faith in the pleasures of this earthly life that they painted them on the walls of their tombs and spread them over to the otherworld. Should I disbelieve this? Why should I disbelieve this? Have I disbelieved this? Why have I disbelieved this? I'm still so uptight, what the fuck. Even pumas can count on their mother's love; even bumblebees play and bonobos jill each other off (absolute queens). Doesn't mean that I can unbalance myself the other way around, but I think it won't kill me to stop being so uptight, what the fuck, and accept the pleasures of life as they come like I accept the pain. It won't make me stupid, and it won't give me instant bad luck or something. I can take up space, I can reclaim good things for myself. There is salvation: I can go up the mountain and I'll be saved: I will go up the mountain and I won't die.
*Vieni dal Libano, o sposa,
vieni dal Libano, vieni!
Scendi dalla vetta dell’Amana,
dalla cima del Senir e dell’Ermon,
dalle spelonche dei leoni,
dai monti dei leopardi...
26 April, 2026
this entry is about: an ex-friend, saturday night parking, night-birds, the lion in the sky, Lucio Battisti and Francesco Brillante, companions, acceptance
We talked about you and I felt vindicated. I'm not the only one who thinks you've disappeared without justification. We agreed that it must be because of your fat boyfriend and the creepy, pathetic way he keeps you chained to himself - it's something that sadly happens a lot, I've seen it, but I can't believe it happened to you, happened to us. When I think of you, I always remember the night of San Lorenzo last year, when we went looking for shooting stars on the beach and then we slept at my place. Do you think back on it sometimes, too? The night's sounds - the waves lapping softly at the shore, the 80s nostalgia band playing in the seaside hotel - weren't they so angelic? Angelic, along with the lights flickering on the water, along with the red radio towers marking the speechless, solemn presence of the mountain, shrouded in darkness. How could you not think back on that night? We stumbled on the sand together, holding hands, and we laid down side by side on every unguarded deck chair we could find. You held me so close, yes, you laughed and you said it all reminded you of a song. You even sang it for me:
"Sotto le coperte d'inverno, sotto le stelle la notte di San Lorenzo
Ho bisogno di abbracciarti da dietro e sussurrarti all'orecchio:
"Sto vicino a te""
I don't know why, if it was the neapolitan song or your neapolitan accent, but you managed to dredge up from the depths of my memory this authentic gem of 2010s italian trash, so I sang it back to you whenever you sang to me. Facimm amuuuurrr...... Then, late into the night, we slipped from beneath the streetlights and into the door - I felt like I was taking the two of us into our own pocket universe - and I listened to it once I'd taken you home, waiting for you to finish showering, alone in the living room with La Pimpa on the TV. Before going into the shower, and after stripping down to your underwear, you dirty danced for me right there and then, and you were actually good at it. Why did you do that? I was the first one to get sleepy that night, but your energy was inexhaustible: you didn't seem to want the night to end. Eventually I gave up, dragged us both to the giant, wonderfully soft double bed in the other room and turned off all the lights. From beneath the covers, we could hear the wind blowing fiercely outside, and whenever I heard your bright laugh in the darkness I saw the shape of your face in my mind's eye. We were more than half-naked from the heat and you did not want me to go to sleep, you kept me awake with flatteries, you kept rubbing my arm and my abs - do you do that to your boyfriend now? Why did you do that? When I went to the bathroom that night, I stopped for a second to think about why you did that. It's just the kind of things that straight girls do with their friends, it's normal, and it didn't matter to me: I didn't even like you in that way, S, I just wanted your company. But it turns out you chose that guy over almost every one of your friends. I wonder if you even realize that we all feel uncerimoniously abandoned, and that we're unlikely to just forgive you when you eventually break up and seek our company again. I wonder how you remember that night and if you'll ever feel regretful or nostalgic about us. Vabbé. Sappi che ti ho sempre voluto bene (cit. Auroro Borealo).
And again, I've never even liked her sexually but I want to headbutt her boyfriend like a ram simply because he's a scrote and no scrote should be allowed to monopolize my friends. I'm like half his size and I can lift almost as much as him. 🙄
Last week I experienced Saturday Night Parking™ for the first time, in a town I don't even go to often anymore, but I was invited to a birthday party there so I didn't really have a choice. Like every time I go driving alone, I was kinda nervous, but I thought that everything would fine as always.
It was a fucking disaster. That town's roads are narrow as all fuck; almost every parking space was occupied and whenever I found a free one, I could not manage to get my MINUSCULE car in there because I'm retarded and neopatentata. I'm gonna admit it, I bumped into like, 4 cars in total during all my attempts at parking that night. I was genuinely going insane. I was driving down the road at one point, running late and still looking for those goddamn parking spots. I thought I was paying attention to the road?.... But all of a sudden I heard an awful TTTRRRRRRRRRRRHHHJHVVVVVVV sound coming from the right door. I screamed: oh Jesus!!! When I finally managed to park and I got out, I saw a beautiful, luscious, perfectly horizontal scratch on the right side of my car. So, I actually did it. I really did scratch the car. I thought it wouldn't happen. What a cliché. The first thing I did was break the news to my sister, with whom I share the car, but she actually took it well, so... It was already a catorcio, so it doesn't change much, but honestly I'm not driving back to that goddamn town anytime soon.
When I finally got home and broke free from the belly of my metal beast, I heard the assiolo again. I hadn't heard her song in a while: I'd grown certain she'd gone, like, somewhere else. But there she was, beautiful, so loud and clear in the late-night quietness of my street. And someone else was bantering with her: it must've been another night-bird, I don't know which one, I'd never heard her song before. To each one of the assiolo's perfect, short, composed cries she responded with a mad hag's cackle, a "kokokoko!" or a throaty "hohohoho!". They went back and forth like this while I eavesdropped, avidly drinking every sound.
Ke! Kokokoko.
Ke! Kokokoko.
Ke! Kokokoko.
Ke! Kokokoko.
My city is unbelievably beautiful in April, when at 7 PM the sun still kisses the surface of the sea on the horizon. I haven't yet processed the fact that we're this far into spring. There's an old book by Patricia Monaghan, out of print, unfindable, called: O mother Sun! about the solar goddess archetype. I doubt I'll ever manage to get my hands on it. But today I went running without a jacket on for the first time this year. The sun's warmth feels so good these days: she's not cruel yet, she doesn't yet raze life to the ground, she doesn't yet flatten street plants to the cement, she's perfect. She's perfect, and while running amid everything that was lit by her splendor, I reached out and embraced her warm, fiery mane with my bare arms, and that is all I need to know.
I walk alongside the firebugs in my garden. When I was a child, walking this same brick path, I saw them as the emissaries of some sort of mystery, much like the white birds from some years ago - I've talked about them before. And, like with those birds, I didn't want to learn their names in order not to dispel that aura of mystery, but I eventually caved in. Their union, their impassibility as they walked around so tightly joined, used to inspire me with thoughts about passionless sex, about alchemy. And that was one of the first mysteries I knew.
I walk alongside the spiders in my garden. They've woven their webs between my helichrysums, my favas, and also my chamomile, so that my heart aches with worry every time I have to pull on a stem to pluck the flowers. The spider who lives there is black with a solid white speck or two; she's welcome here, and I don't wanna ruin her beautiful home, but honestly I don't let that stop me. I harvest greedily, I pull with eager fingers and gather with cupped hands, avidly, hastedly, a few flowers always fall to the ground in the picking; when the frenzy is over, I find my hands covered in yellow, mild-tasting pollen to lick off. I've been using my chamomile tincture every single night to fall asleep easier, and I also use it for period cramps, but I made a low quantity of it to begin with and now it's starting to run dry. I'm gonna make a lot of it this season.
I walk alongside the cetonielle in my garden. I finally learned the name of these insects that spend all their time in the calyxes of my calla lillies. They sleep in there, they fuck in there... I was surprised to read that they also eat the flowers other than just pollinating them, but I'm gonna leave them in peace, since I've also read that they're native. I hardly see them anywhere else: I think they deserve to stay here.
I walk - worryingly - alongside the wasps in my garden. They hang out all the time on my fava plants. I was seriously puzzled about why they did that, but then I realized that the helichrysum right next to the fava bean patch is riddled with aphids, so that might be the reason?... They really love the favas. It's strange to see wasps, such fearful and threatening insects, rest peacefully on the leaves and stems of my plants, a few inches from me. Yes, I'm so bold and stupid as to sit right in front of them. Everyday I crouch in front of the fava patch, shell the beans and eat them like a savage. I used to dislike the taste of fava beans - I only grew them for their beautiful yonic flowers - and I brought every pod I harvested to the old janitor woman in my school. I thought I'd do the same this year, I thought the first fruits of the season would be offered to her - "Betta! Le primizie! Ti ho portato le fave!" - but she hasn't come to work in a few weeks. I waited for her until I began to fear that the pods would harden on the plant, so I decided to try them out again, see if I liked them any better this year. The taste of fava beans is bitter and sweet. To shell them, you pluck them from the umbilical cord that connects them to the soft, luxurious inside of the pod, and their taste is bitter and sweet. When it first flooded my mouth, I was reminded of the ending of that poem from the great Barbara Mor (that I never even read in its entirety):
i have tasted
the ancient food
the ancient food
is bitter
and sweet
the ancient truth
is bitter and sweet
the dream to be born
is bitter
and sweet
[...] this works
this grows
this is food
eat
Since that day, eating favas straight from the pod is a ritual.
I won't walk alongside them all for long. This probably is my last season in the garden. But I don't feel like doing anything special about it; I don't feel like fretting about it, I don't feel like wiping my eyes with the fava leaves; I just don't want to put much emphasis on it. Not here in the garden, in a place marked by the seamless, graceful flow from life to death and vice versa. I should strive towards that same gracefulness and acceptance. I don't want to feel that specter hovering above me at all times. I do everything as usual. Or at least I try to. The thing that makes me seethe the most, honestly, is who the garden will be left to, that is, my retarded sister who barely showers and can't write a text message on her own; it seriously makes me clench my teeth, thinking that I'll leave it all to her. But perhaps the real tragedy is refusing to move out, having no friends and still watching Miraculous in your fucking 20s, which all concern her, not me. Whatever it is she'll keep the garden and I'm pissed off about it but ok. The city warned me, last summer, through a song on the bus' radio: "Prendila così, non possiamo farne un dramma". I tell myself all the time: prendila così, non possiamo farne un dramma. I talk to the firebugs, the spiders, the cetonielle and the wasps, and with their black eyes and passionless scuttering they tell me: prendila così, non possiamo farne un dramma. I grieve in front of them, and with the same wistfulness and composure that are in Lucio's voice they tell me: prendila così, non possiamo farne un dramma. The words drip like honey from the downturned horn of the moon: prendila così, non possiamo farne un dramma.
Prendila così, non possiamo farne un dramma
Conoscevi già, hai detto
I problemi miei di donna
Certo che lo so, certo che lo so
Non ti preoccupare, tanto avrò da lavorare
Forse è tardi e rincasare vuoi?
No che non vorrei
Io sto bene in questo posto...
No che non vorrei
Questa sera è ancora presto...
Ma che sciocca sei, ma che sciocca sei
A parlar di rughe
A parlar di vecchie streghe
Meno bella certo non sarai
Lasciami giù qui, è la solita prudenza
Loro senza me, mi hai detto
È un problema di coscienza
Prendila così
Non possiamo farne un dramma...
17 April, 2026
this entry is about: trains & outfits & adulthood, mad love, home, fog in April
L'ermetica, notturna melodia strumentale di Black Milk dei Massive Attack mi cigola costantemente in testa, così forte e chiara che non sembra venire dal mio cervello: è un'acufene, è una zanzara rinchiusa nel mio cranio. Durante il giorno mi sorprendo a far stridere i denti a tempo. È una porta che si apre.
I used to think taking the train was so chic, so mature-lady-like. I've taken it quite a few times this year, and this feeling has begun to wear off. It's not so chic when you're trying to silently unwrap a sandwich in tinfoil, or when the man three seats behind you is listening to arabian couples arguing on Tiktok at full volume, or when you're demolished after a 3-hour journey on a cramped bus. Yes, it may not be so chic, but I still like it.
It's hot enough now to start wearing one of my favourite blazers again. It's beige, a beautiful very light beige, with short creased sleeves. A few days ago I was going to a competition and I was unsure of what to wear; then I noticed this blazer at the back of my wardrobe, sitting idle since last spring, and I thought: if I don't wear this beautiful baby now, when will I?? One of my favourite pairs of pants is back in season as well, some very thin light brown jeans that came with a small golden-and-brown belt, and they matched beautifully with the blazer, so I wore them too. Girls, they're right... they're right when they tell you to wear your favourite things today, because today is all you've got..... I'd gotten a haircut the day before; I put my hair up - tied it and fixed it to the back of my head with a claw clip as usual - I walked up to the mirror and I was so happy with how I looked. I put on some brown-orangeish eyeshadow and a golden highlight on the inner corner... I wore the old watch I got fixed this winter... I wore my necklaces... my new earrings from the Easter market... I was, let me say this, enamoured with myself. I've been taking part in a lot of academic competitions lately. I don't expect to win, I don't want to win; I mostly do it because I like putting myself out there, and most importantly I like having the possibility to put myself out there. I beam with pride whenever I think about how my foremothers weren't even allowed to study, and now me and my female friends and hordes of other girls I don't know are traveling across the country, stepping inside schools & universities and proving our worth. It seriously makes me giddy.
That day I'd gotten up half an hour later than usual, which isn't much but it felt exhilarating. It was such a beautiful morning, the sky was so clear: I don't think I've properly registered the fact that it's already April. Nice weather, friends, beautiful clothes, intellectual stimuli, what more could I wish for? Wonderful opportunities, wonderful company, and the kind of outfit that makes you lean back just to admire yourself properly. And that day, in a friend's friend's car, I stared at my ghostly, elongated, diaphanous reflection in the window: I looked at the hairs on my arm, at the way my hand rested on my backpack, at my slender fingers, et vidi quod esset bonum. I'm becoming an adult.
Mad woman, why are you celebrating?
I'm becoming an adult and I can revel all I want in my blazers and train rides and academic accomplishments, but I'll eventually have to face the most unwelcome parts of it - like the choice of leaving. I have to decide on that one very soon, and I feel like the walls are closing in on me. I'm still procrastinating on the choice of what to study at uni and which one to attend, because I am a coward, and I don't like to think about it, but sometimes I start walking in the garden like a zombie, like I'm already far from here.
I don't know what to do. I define myself in relation to nature, to this patch of earth in particular. Parting from them may be an obligation at this point, but even when I acknowledge this fact I become paralyzed. I don't know what to think. It really ends like this? I've given you my blood and my flesh, and now we have to part? And you will forget about me: sturdier plants than the ones I've grown will rise and reign, they will draw up from the soil the molecules that came from my body, and within a few generations the memory of my presence here will be gone. I will be the only fool who leaves. The worms will console the soil, the mycelium will console the roots, the wasps will keep patiently building their nests on the underside of my empty pots; I will leave and die alone. Everyone else will go on without me. It'd be appropriate to quote Housman's last poems, Housman's poems of exile: "enchantress", "heartless, witless nature": but I could never bring myself to call you that. I think I'm hardwired to love you now. I love you like all terrestrial animals are forced to love oxygen, like all infants are forced to love their mothers. I love you: a reflex, an irrational impulse. I love you like mice with toxoplasmosis love cats; I love you like that one gardener who spent the whole day pruning his Datura bushes and came back wide-eyed, dry-mouthed, to his bed and to a night of terrible visions; I love you ποτνια τερατων, mother of all things beautiful and dreadful. I love you: I can't do anything about it. I've become stupid and servile, I burn with zealotry and I can't rein myself in. I love you because I move in you, and you encompass all the truths I know. Under the rising, uncertain light of the dawn of my senses, I seek the warmth of your skin. Under the dimming, feeble light of the dusk of my senses, I seek your depths to burrow in. The butterfly drying her wings before her first flight, the earthworm crawling back in the soil after sunrise: I am whatever you make of me, whatever you make of me and nothing else. From you, the strength with which I draw breath. From you, all the sweetness and bitterness of this life. From you and to you, all my vigour and my languidity, all my lust and the vastity of my sated passionlessness. When the ocean of my desire drowses between its shores, murmurs, wells up, and rages against the cliffs, at your tug and release, I admire it all with wonder and deference. At the dawn of my senses I seek the warmth of your skin and at the dusk of my senses I seek your depths to burrow in. Be it life, be it death, but may both of them be from you and within you; outside of you there's only the void of the unconceived.
And it makes no sense for me to fear separation from you because it isn't possible. Even inland, corpses still decompose, the stars still revolve, fungi still seek out tree roots. My Ma is everywhere after all, in the entrails of the deepest-dwelling tube worm, in the thick, scorching clouds of Venus and in the icy winds of Neptune. I could try to run away, travel a hundred light years from here, and I would still die in her arms. It doesn't make sense for me to fear, no: it's just that I've always lived here, and here is her most familiar and beloved face, to me: I've grown up in the land and I am like the land now, we share damp, laborious winters and fiery, smiting summers. This is what I am, and all I've ever known. Last Saturday I was walking back home in the darkness. I slipped out of the main road, away from the sounds of cars and into the quietness of my street. I looked up and saw the three stars they call the belt of Orion. Then the night air became tangible, became a veil; I pressed the folds of it to my face and I said: Ma.
Leaving would be a leap of faith towards something possibly even better, but I don't think I have the heart to do it.
Yesterday I rrreally had to lock in on studying history, because I had a test the day afterwards, but I kept glancing out of the window. It was drizzling slightly, the fog was thick, and I was restless with desire to go outside and run. I usually work out before I study, but yesterday the situation was rrrreally drastic. Time went by, I kept studying, and I wondered if I was gonna be able to go running at all; I kept looking at the irresistibly beautiful fog wrapped around the leaves of the olive tree in the backyard. As soon I finished jotting down the last damned concept map I leaped out of my seat, ran out of the door e ho offerto il mio petto al vento. I was so ecstatic over getting to run in that weather, I don't even know why. I thought: we're halfway through April and the drought is inching closer, when will I get this opportunity again?? Non mi sono mai sentita così viva e spiritata nel muovermi da quando scorrazzavo bambina nel giardino e credevo di aizzare il vento con un mio gesto. Le colline si velavano il capo, la montagna si velava il petto, così che ardevo di desiderio. Ansimando fendevo la nebbia. Che miracolo! Una gazza solitaria sotto gli ulivi, nella nebbia. Che miracolo! Passeri dispersi sopra i campi, nella nebbia. Che miracolo! Cento altri uccelli nascosti gorgheggiavano, nella nebbia. Che miracolo! Non si vedeva niente oltre la mesta congrega del grano giovane, nella nebbia. Che miracolo! Il mio cuore pompava, ero l'unica a farmi strada nella nebbia. Che miracolo! And when I turned the corner and began running uphill, I saw a bird pitter-pattering ahead. Her long neck made me think of a common mourning dove, but it seemed a little off, a little longer than usual; she didn't bob up and down like a dove, she swayed flamboyantly side to side. And if she was a dove, why was she running on the ground? She noticed my arrival and turned sideways to flee in the field: then I recognized her by her profile and her jutting tail. A female pheasant!! I was so delighted that, as I watched her fly low over the wheat field, I couldn't help but shout in the loneliness of the foggy road: "Ooo, fagiano!!! Mammia mia!!" Yes, we actually say "mamma mia".
2 April, 2026
this entry is about: a hymn, snow, camaraderie, birthplaces - belonging - a foreboding of exile, life as a linear graph, Sae-ism and its summer
I recently happened to remember Pierre Louÿs. I used to like him, years ago. To procrastinate on buying kitchen tools, I reread some of the Songs of Bilitis. I was impressed by the Hymn to Astarte: O Astarte, irresistible, hear me, take me, possess me, O moon, and, thirteen times each year, draw from my entrails the libation of my blood. I marveled at how something which I simply enjoyed reading a few years ago had turned into something I could've written myself. You know that feeling when you've read something good and it settles inside your mouth, nestles under your tongue, and keeps chanting itself? I went to sleep with these words vibrating on the tip of my tongue. And thirteen times each year draw from my entrails the libation of my blood. "But my period isn't coming anytime soon", I thought. I'd lost track of time, because the next morning I awoke to find I'd bled through my underwear and had to change the beautiful light-toned outfit I'd chosen for the day.
I still haven't chosen which university to attend and what to study. I might genuinely be fucked. I mentally berated my sister for choosing literally 2 days before the deadline, but I might end up doing the same.
I've recently been the guest of a inland university because I got into the finals of a nationwide competition they were holding. They chose the worst possible days to host the finals: it snowed and hailed and poured and the wind blew so hard that the rain was falling horizontally, every tree was plied double, every umbrella flipped inside out. One day, trying to get to my hotel, I got on the wrong bus and I ended up in a place I didn't know in the middle of the storm, literal alaskan rivers running down the roads through blocks of ice, with the entirety of my luggage with me. Also there wasn't a single sidewalk on the road somehow. I wandered in a panic and hauled my suitcase over fences looking for a place to take shelter in. I saw a private garage that was open, and I just went in. Then I called a taxi and everything was good.
Apart from this misadventure, it was a really good experience. I was taken aback by how friendly everyone was. I guess it was because none of us knew each other, since we came from all over the country, so we were all kinda stranded at first and we were forced to cling onto each other. I'm not used to the immediate kindness and openness I encountered there, and it was a very welcome surprise. I don't wanna forget our wordless, frenzied stampede towards the bus stop in the evening, under the pouring rain and the black sky, against the wind. For a few days we ate the same cafeteria slop and drank Spritz from the same straw, and now we'll never see each other again. I'll try to remember them; I hope they'll try, too.
I already knew there is a slight chance I'll end up attending this university, so I looked at the place carefully. I've already spoken about being stubbornly rooted in my birthplace, and I know that this stubbornness and closemindedness hinders me and I have to get rid of it, but... it's hard, I don't even know what to say?? This was the hinterland. I certainly didn't get a good impression of it during the few days I was there, because of the hail and snow in MARCH, of course. Here near the coast, the seeds in my nursery have most likely survived the lower temperatures we've had lately (though we'll see about that), but if I lived there, they would've surely died. Not being able to set up a nursery in late March?.... When do you sow seeds, then? These are really stupid things to factor in the choice of a university, I know, but I guess I'm built like this: stupid, superstitious, and prejudiced. I think I would die, if I was forced away from the wide breath of the sea and put into the cramped space between a mountain peak and the other. The city was arroccata on top of the steep hill, crouched with her arms around her knees - it looked painful - and all around her were high walls: she wasn't even looking at me while I was walking under her, poor girl, she had her gaze fixed awkwardly to the sky as if she couldn't handle eye contact. And streets of sanpietrini are very uncomfortable to drag luggage through. I don't know why the space between mountains feels "cramped" to me; it simply is, and it is because I simply am from here. I grew up satiating myself with the sights and the air of my birthplace, and I suspect that it's too late for me to learn to digest the sights and air of another place, let alone survive off of it. I am superstitious, deterministic, and prejudiced like this. I really don't know what to say: there must be someone there who writes odes of devotion to the mountains, and the hail, and the shade-loving comfrey growing everywhere; someone who would raise an eyebrow if told to come live in my hills. She knows and loves the hinterland: she grew up in the hinterland: leave her there, leave her to her hinterland and me to my shores. Do not try, hard-headedly, to change us: it's pointless! You can't change us because you can't go back in time to change the milk that fed us at the dawn of our lives, the sights and the air of our homes.
I feel this to the core of my bones, but I hope this doesn't mean that my heart is forever closed to every other place and experience. I'm trying not to make it that way. When I was in the hinterland, I kept my eyes peeled: I looked at every tree and every peak and I tried to name every wild plant that I came across, and I marveled at the comfrey - which is rare in my hometown - growing beside every sidewalk. I tried to be open and receptive. Then, when I was at the train station, I began to breathe wider and hungrier, hoping to catch a particle of salsedine in my lungs; by the time I was on my way back home, my longing, sharp to the point of becoming apprehension, ran forwards like the racing train. Oh, here are the seabirds, with their sharp beaks and their soulless eyes, pecking stupidly in the sand. Oh, here is the terrible sea, seething with rage, foaming like a rabid dog - sour mood today - gnawing on the bones of thousands, mother of innumerable beasts and poisons. Everything is right with the world.
And now I'm back home where I can pretend that everything's gonna be in the right place forever, that the libation of my blood will forever keep being returned to the One from where it issues; I can sit in my garden well-contented and think that this bliss is gonna last forever, that I'm never leaving, that I never have to make a choice about leaving. But I do have to make a choice about leaving. Not a clue. Again, I might be fucked.
And tonight is the full moon. I would not be able to exist at all if I wasn't inside the web of life - "connection to nature is impossible to sever for a creature born from nature" - but to keep myself sane I also need to be constantly reminded and reassured of my relationships inside it, like a child. Here, I see my own blood flowing out of me from necessity, from an irresistible pull; I return it to the earth, to the one under whose power I am, and so I know myself to be a daughter. Here, I walk into the garden every day and see creatures that have sprung from my hand and are fed by my efforts; I feel them growing under my fingertips, and so I know myself to be a mother. Imagine if I was forced away from these tethers to reality. The assiolo sings in the darkness, but that doesn't mean she goes unheard: the moon and the night listen to her. I would be a madwoman talking to myself in a blind void.
I'm used to perceiving my life as progress. I view my life exactly like 1800s Catholics viewed history: constant linear progress from darkness, ignorance and barbarism, to enlightenment and salvation. Constant linear progress from the primeval delirium of childhood, as I've said, to the (relatively) fine young woman I am today; in every season of my life I lay a new brick, I walk a little further towards an even better self. Life has effectively been, for the most part, progress. But perfect straight lines hardly exist in nature, and life clearly doesn't adhere to such a simple formula; no, life couldn't possibly be drawn as such a ridiculously basic graph. I'm not saying I DEFINITELY foresee a decline in the near future, nor am I unwilling to cling tooth and nail to my sanity should the need arise - I'm just saying I have to accept the fact that my life, in its entirety, is not going to be always constant linear progress. I have to accept this, and when it eventually happens that I find myself in a worse situation than usual, I have to remember that it doesn't invalidate the rest of my life and the rest of my progress. Infinite growth is impossible and all that jazz. I'm just being realistic: there will eventually, in the course of my life, come a time that will put me on my ass and invalidate this view of mine. I have to prepare for it, so that I'm not left desperate by the impact.
Sae the tenth is a marvelous creature and she deserves that I redesign her dedicated analysis page, but I can't come up with a layout for it. If it was only up to me, I would theme it after the oleanders whose flowers I smelled on my way to the hospital, when I had to get surgery in the summer of 2024, at the same time in which volume 15 was being published. I was scared, and I distracted myself by smelling different oleander plants and comparing them. There are some that smell like powdered sugar, and there are some that smell like nothing at all. Spring-summer 2024 really was the peak of my love for Sae-ism and, in my perception, the series is still tightly intertwined with the experiences and feelings of that time. Sae-ism isn't just Sae-ism to me, a story as it is written, a synopsis you could find on Mangadex. Sae-ism wouldn't be just Sae-ism to you if you read it: nothing really is, no piece of art stays still, glued to the screen or the pages or the canvas where it is displayed. It jumps out, it mingles with your time and your place. I happened to be in love with Sae-ism when I was walking to the hospital that day, so, to me, Sae-ism is also about oleanders and surgery. Sae-ism is also about painful dripfeed insertions, numb legs, and being too proud to piss in a bedpan. Sae-ism is also about openly crying inside a Decathlon while your mother is in the changing room, and it is also about Betadine and not being able to bend down. Sae-ism is also about going abroad and being heartbroken. Sae-ism is about a bright yellow canoe, a pair of hiking boots, and a foldable tent; it is about carrying a vial of LSA through the woods, isopropyl alcohol, and pointing a fan to the tray so that the solvent will evaporate faster. Sae-ism is about hairy legs and the white baseball cap that I wore. Sae-ism is my father's filthy garage. Sae-ism is the fast-moving shadow of a car blending with the slow-moving shadow of a bus on a wall, in the night, in the street that leads away from the beach. The phenomenon is inevitably perturbed by the observer; things are never really just their plain selves, you always unwillingly paint them with the colors of your mind, your experience, your time. So if I end up making Sae the tenth's webpage oleander-themed, don't ask me why: Sae-ism is also about oleanders.
23 March, 2026
this entry is about: a universal language, my home & the gift of smirnio, my speech & a pilgrimage in the harbor, the Treadmill again (deliriants, wisdom, arrogance, our deficiencies, me and Aeschylus vs. normal people)
I always let equinoxes and solstices slip past without celebrating them, and I sorta feel guilty for that. I think: every creature feels the change that is taking place today, from the phytoplankton to the gazelles grazing in the plains... and I don't do anything to acknowledge it?? But what am I supposed to do? I've already sowed many seeds this spring. Life's purpose is to be carried out every day of the year, not with occasional grand gestures.
My god doesn’t want my worship
Says She much prefers my remembrance
My favas are flowering. I've bent their stems back to inhale the scent of their blooms, just like that of soap, deep into my nostrils. Because of them, a new kind of bee I'd never seen before comes to visit my garden nearly every day, the long-horned bee: those antennae are incredible. I see how they splay the fava flower open in order to get to the nectar inside, but I also often see them just sitting on the leaves, all together, without moving. I wonder what they're doing and if they're alright, if they're just resting or if they're sick. I've also seen the carpenter bee around my favas lately, she seems to not really understand how to get inside such small flowers. My favas are very short this year, they only reach up to my knees: last year, there was enough of them to be bent double or triple during storms. I can't remember if I sowed a different variety. The janitor at school told me about how her favas' flowers shriveled and fell off without producing seed pods: I'm watching mine carefully now. I watch my favas, not knowing if health or sickness is brewing inside them; I watch the long-horned bees, not being able to read their compound eyes as they sit in silence. Are they watching something, too? Listening to something? Right now, right now, I am looking but not understanding. Do they understand? Perhaps, spending so much time together, the things I can't understand about them are no mystery to each other: if I understood the bees' language, they could warn me about the diseases of my favas. If I understood the favas' language, they could explain to me the behaviors of the bees. The lack of a universal language saddens me, but it'd be enough if we could be each other's middlemen in this manner; but not even that is possible, so I'm cut off from their conversation. Many have said: unhappy humans! our fellow creatures' oracular utterances are babble to our ears; we are children in this world, too small to understand real speech. But perhaps the bees and the favas do not understand each other either. Perhaps they wish they could. So the bee would say: unhappy bees! if only we could understand the language of those who feed us. So the fava would say: unhappy favas! if only we could speak with those who come to visit us every day. Perhaps, as all creation is bound by the law of reciprocity, we all also share the longing for a universal language. And so our ignorance coupled with our thirst for knowledge would be even more proof that we belong in this world.
One time these days I came back home in the mid-afternoon; I was waiting for the bus in a stop surrounded by tall weeds, as is customary in our peripheral ass periferia. Smirnio was next to me. An interesting wild plant; she was used as a substitute for celery, in the past. I don't see her often, and even when I do, I can't take a moment to look at her properly. But this time she was right next to me, and I had some time to spare. I found out that she was blooming, with weird little white flowers that bees seemed to love: they spent some time with us too, rolling around on the wide umbels. When they gave me enough leeway, I bent down and I smelled the flowers too.
Their smell was very touching in a way that's difficult to explain. It was touching because I didn't know what smirnio flowers smelled like, previously. I have spent years wandering my hometown, lavishing smiles on every single crack on the sidewalk, every fencepost, every discarded car wheel, every brick in every abandoned house, every wild plant and every tree: I have loved everything, I have felt (Pascolianamente) a magic speech issuing from everything, and I have listened to much that it seems ordinary to me now, and I have loved so much that my love seems almost old and frail at times. The smell of smirnio's flowers was something I didn't know, something I hadn't discovered: something new, to love with a renewed love. A new secret revealed. Smirnio dried the tears that I'd shed thinking there was nothing more to discover about my home.
Last week I skipped school because we weren't going to have any lessons anyways. I rode the bus to the city to go buy some loose leaf tea and take a long, leisurely walk like I'd been THIRSTING for. During the trip I met a record number of foreigners, from Albania or from the Balkans or so. A young man and an old woman agreed in saying that they didn't think I was from here, because they've observed that people from here are generally ill-mannered and racist (it's true and it's well known, we are gente imbruttita di periferia) and because they could not tell by the way I talked. It's weird, because I think I talk in very strong local dialect. The way I talked confused them and they couldn't tell where I was from, like emperor Claudio in Seneca's Apokolokyntosis. They couldn't identify my weird grammelot of erre moscia and parole mangiate.
But I am from here, I swear. When I came into the city, I didn't know where to go first. I gravitated towards the harbor, as always, and I decided to walk it in its entirety, something I've been wanting to do for years. The last time it happened, I was with my mother: it was night, about 11 PM or something, and I remember following her through that strip of cement in the sea, a voyage that seemed infinite and imagistic under the sparse streetlights, a endless ride of wonder. At the very end of it, she took me on some sort of long, narrow platform high above the sea: I looked down and I was utterly horrified, horrified and amazed in hearing the waves crash and roar against the pillars which held us up, and seeing white glimmers of light scatter rapidly on the surface of the water. It was in that moment, more than anywhen else in my entire life, that I understood what "void" means, that I was utterly gripped by it.
"the inward, moonless waves of death."
I'd been wanting to find that platform again for years, but I never had the time to walk the entire length of the harbor. So, that morning last week, I took my chance. However, I couldn't remember exactly where that platform was. I decided to just entrust myself to the harbor and I figured that I'd reach it eventually. I love the harbor. I love the harbor so much, I can't explain, I can't find any words for the long, flat, wide, symphonic love I feel when I am in the harbor. I walked, I walked, I climbed and ducked, and at long last, I reached the final, thinnest strip of cement stretching over the sea. There was a small, dingy stairstep on the side. I climbed it, and I found myself on a long, narrow platform high above the sea. I looked down at the waves and I recognized them. This must be it, I mused. I remembered it differently: of course, in my younger age and in the night, it had looked much taller and much more sensational, but I still loved it nonetheless. That is a place, I think, where a small piece of my consciousness was forged.
Also last week, after a month of having a driver's license, I drove alone for the first time ever. I'm still very wary around driving and, especially, SCARED SHITLESS of driving alone. Usually, when I drive, my sister's in the car with me, and her company calms me down. But last Saturday, some fiolacci underage acquaintances of mine wanted me to buy them liquor, so I cursed and huffed and puffed and got in my car to go to the grocery store literally less than a km away. I was genuinely SHITTING MYSELF. I got into the store's parking lot unscathed. There was one of the fiolacci there, he gave me the money and I bought what they wanted with my ID, then we got out and he said "damn I have to get home now". "don't tell me I have to drive you there" "so you came with your car????? 😀😀😀😀😀" HO BESTEMMIATO LUI E DIO....... his house was close by and I couldn't refuse so in the end I actually did drive him home, and it went well, we laughed a lot.
I've recently thrifted a black crossbody bag from a good vintage brand, because I'd gotten tired of the backpack I've had for 3 years. All good so far, it's big and roomy, it's pretty and it looks very sturdy. What this bag has seen of me so far is me walking alone in the harbor in a spring morning, and me driving a friend home for the first time. I think I'm becoming an adult.
Back to what I was talking about last entry...
Because παθει μαθος. Because Angelica, who would trade her life for her chastity, is the ghost of herself is not a person. Because I wouldn't know the value of some things if I didn't have to spend years in their absence. Because I've lived life truly, I got smacked with Real Life so hard that I had to retreat from it for a (long) while, and I've felt all the weight of the horns on my head.
But that is the biggest cope ever, of course.
And in my dreams I read the phrase "Narkissos potente veleno e farmaco da rispettare", so I guess I'm planting daffodils this year, if I can find a variety that resembles our native one. The potente veleno e farmaco da rispettare I really wanted to grow, however, was of course datura. I love brugmansia more, but she's a perennial, so it would've been more feasible for me to grow datura, if only we didn't have turtles, dogs and cats roaming in our garden: I asked if I could grow it, but the ubiquitous answer, even from my own conscience, was "better if we don't". But it rends my heart, not being able to honor her like I want to. I could grow her in a container and prevent her from fruiting, ma non ho l'ardire di farlo, I wouldn't dare to keep her in shallow soil and to take the scissors to her seedpods. Non ho l'ardire di farlo, e non ho l'ardire di guardarla in faccia: mi si piegano le ginocchia al solo pensiero: non ho l'ardire di guardarla in faccia, come non ho l'ardire di scendere le scale e frugare tra le mie vecchie cose, capisci? La vita mi ha tolto tanto. I've never taken them of course, because I'm not that stupid, but I have a high regard for datura, brugmansia, belladonna, giusquiamo and deliriant plants in general. Again, I've never taken them; they're just sort of a symbol for me. Another one of my weird, very heartfelt personal symbols that are near incomprehensible to anyone else. The goat woman signifies the gloating woman; favas signify ancestry; and deliriants signify what I went through in the distant past. They signify what has been, how it felt, and how it left me. It's very hard, almost impossible to explain. They've been a very strong symbol for me, especially during a certain period of time (end of 2023/beginning of 2024) when I was beginning to unravel the threads of my past (that sounds so dorky ffs sorry) and to acknowledge some very sucky things that had happened as, in fact, very sucky. I was absolutely terrified of rediscovering and revaluing such things, and establishing connections between them and the unfavorable position which I held in life at that moment. Coincidentally, that time was also my druggie phase lol, and again I never did deliriants but I was in psychonaut spaces a lot of the time and I inevitably heard trip reports and such. So, despite never having experienced chemically-induced delirium myself, I ended up establishing a symbolic connection between these two things. Again, it's very hard to explain. The all-pervasive feeling of sharp dread, not being able to trust what you're seeing or remembering, the distrust in your surroundings, the terrifying vagueness of some things, the horror in unmasking some delusions only to enter others... I likened delirium to what I was going through, and to what I had gone through. I likened my whole life to delirium. I had gone mad from terror.
That was an important time in my life, a lot of things/ways of seeing things changed and have stuck with me since then, as is obnoxiously clear even now whenever I talk about my childhood. A symbol is a very complicated thing to explain rationally: it runs so deep into the subconscious that all of its meanings and implications are unclear even to those who use it. I kinda, at least partially, cracked the code while writing that long, crazy entry back in August, where I said that what I'd meant all along whenever I spoke of "delirium" was the void of consciousness and direction at the beginning of life. Not knowing right from wrong, etcetera, staggering blindly through life at the exact time when everyone can hurt you and when that hurt will cripple you forever. I guess that's at least a big part of what delirium is to me; I guess what Datura symbolizes for me is that - very simply put - Bad Things Happen and life can be very very very scary, incomprehensible, crushing, cold and uncaring. (Poor Datura certainly never laid a finger on me when I was a kid, and yet I still drag her into this.) There are many revelations to be had de rerum natura, about existence and the state of things, and sometimes the revelation is frightening. The fact is that the tree of knowledge isn't only the luscious, fleshy, sweet fig. Sometimes it's the borrachero, the one who drives mad, staring blindly in the darkness; and the fruit bursts in your hand, the thorns jab at your skin, the seeds explode to acrid clouds in your mouth; and your pupils are wide unto the world, but black like pits of tar; you stumble off unsure, and sometimes you don't make the journey back. Don't know if I've made the journey back. And I still madly love ma' Datura and her other sisters in delirium because there is none who better represents this blind, parched, dazed, bitter side of life; I love them because I believed myself to be under their power, and perhaps I'm under their power still.
Now that I grow stuff I wanna grow Datura, because for me she's one of the biggest symbols of the divine in all its uncaring majesty and crushing viciousness. I'm not able to yet, though. Disappointing but not surprising.
But, despite how involved I am in all these attempts at gouging a meaning out of past suffering (sticking it to Angelica, παθει μαθος, at least I value things more teehee), it's all just that pesky treadmill again: the Treadmill of Trying To Make Sense Of It All, the one I was talking about, the one that doesn't lead anywhere because there is no meaning. We people who have lost in at least some aspect of life toil and pour sweat in trying to come up with reasons as to why our deficiencies actually make us more whole, in trying to alchemically manufacture the legendary substance known as copium, if you will. In doing so we must overcompensate because, despite pretending the contrary, we are intimately, acutely aware that we are lacking some things that our pain stole from us and that we see intact in other people; hence the boasting about "παθει μαθος", "soffri e sii grande" or "it was the voice of ma' Datura". Normal people don't need to convince themselves or others of that, because they already have their self-evident wholeness and health. We assert that we have seen deeper layers of reality. We brag about the knowledge we have earned in comparison with others, but there is no absolutely true knowledge to be held about life: everyone has their own μαθος and their own way to navigate through life and interpret it, we only think our μαθος is holier because it was sanctified by παθος. But, if anything, we are more likely to have been made blind or nearsighted by it.
8 March, 2026
this entry is about: bees and wild plants, labor, the Treadmill, barefoot shoes, purity
The prugnoli in front of my house are beginning to lose their flowers; the slightest gust of wind makes them fall. The pavement is strewn with petals. But this is not a loss: they, the earliest of wakers, are ushering in spring for everyone else. When you're walking below them at this time of year, you hear a loud, pervasive VVVVRRRRRRRRRR almost like that of machinery, except that it's from the dozens of bees swarming over each tree. I've been watching them lately, over flowering Prunus trees, over thyme, over rosemary... were they gone all winter, or was I just not looking? I've even been seeing some bumblebees, beautiful, beautiful bumblebees, way too heavy for the spindly stalks of aromatic herbs they cling to. Can I say something silly? I love bees; I love bees; I can't believe I forgot how much I love bees; my life, your life is legitimized when a bee eats from a flower you planted.
The book about local ethnobotany I've recently read has put me back on this earth, because it has reminded me of the names of so many native plants. I can't believe I forgot them either. Now running is a way to train both my heart and my memory, as I try to name every plant I rush past. CAPSELLABURSAPASTORIS, I blurt out in my head all at once every time I pass her by. Senape, favagello, this might be crespigno, acetosella, pimpinella, here's lamium coming up again with her purple flowers, there's ortica! the real ortica!, parietaria in front of her; here's veronica, ever-present caglio, sulla, biancospino I've been preying on, wondering if I should harvest some of her flowers. Arum, agazzino, romice, ivy with her black eyes to the world. I rubbed the underside of a wild calendula flower, like I used to do with my own domestic calendula, and the resin smelled the exact same.
Sometime in February I heard of barefoot shoes. I was intrigued, not because I have any health problems, but because I really liked the idea of being able to feel the ground below me. For some time I tiptoed around the idea of buying a pair, because lately I'm very careful with my money, and I had no idea if I would actually use them that much or if I would even find them comfortable; then I found a pair on Vinted for less than 10 euros including shipping, so I decided to take the plunge. I should trust myself more with the ways I spend my money, because I'm actually really glad I bought them. They're a perfect fit (another thing I was really worried about it, since I bought them online), super comfortable and it's insane to be able to touch and feel the ground, to tell the difference between concrete and soil. To the dismay of my dog, I've been gravitating towards the latter more and more in our walks. I love feeling variation in the ground, the little mounds and holes left by the footfall of others; concrete hurts a bit to walk on now. In fact, that's the reason I don't wear them when I'm going to school, or when I'm going out, or in any situation where I'm required to be snappy and functional; but I always wear them when I'm taking a walk, just a walk to nowhere in particular for my own pleasure. It really does feel like an awakening of the senses. I seek earthen paths now: it amazes me to feel the skin of the earth, this unfathomably complex... entity?, right under my feet, so much life and so much death brewing below me.
The egg bursting free, the corpus luteum shrinking, the myometrium contracting mechanically, mechanically. I've been having slightly more painful periods lately; nowhere as bad as they were when I was younger, but now I look back with nostalgia to last year, when I had almost no pains at all. It's okay. I've been watching nature documentaries and thinking about labor, as in the set of foundational struggles that allow us to live. After a shower, I rub body cream into my legs, thinking these are the ones who have carried me up the mountain, these are the ones who run with me uphill, and they will have to do it again and again; I rub body cream into my arms thinking these are the ones who lift heavy for me, and they will do it again and again. I've come ashore many times after paddling for long, breathless and sore, but with my eyes full of wonderful sights; I've come ashore many times and seen the cormorano right in front of me, standing motionless with her wings spread to the warmth of the sun, after her mad dives and chases. The myometrium contracts mechanically, mechanically, and you can feel it. I lay, I get up, I wash - the cold turns my fingers red, the water seeps into my nails and cracks them - and the corbezzolo rejoices in my labor, because my blood drenches her roots. The pearl octopus brooding her eggs for years, eyes fixed inwards; the squirrel writhing in a tree hollow as she gives birth, still looking out for predators; the assiolo, of whom I've only ever known the sweet song at nightfall, must spend so much time laboring in the hunt. The nematode pushing against the soil, burrowing, hard-headed, the mighty nematode chasing after bacteria; all of life striving for betterment throughout the ages, collapsing and expanding, "mounting through all the spires of form." Studying Leopardi has given me an headache: he put words of desperation into Sappho's mouth when, it was known, she jumped to dissolve her mad love-thirst into the salvific ocean. The foundational struggles that allow us to live, as in not merely survive, but also prevail, triumph, and create anew; not merely perpetuate life but also improve it and add to it continuously. Men have called it meaningless suffering, have called it pointless struggle, have called it torture; but I am a woman and women labor, so I call it labor. I think it is labor.
I've been having dreams on my period. It's been a long while since I had any dreams at all, let alone ones I could remember. I was watching an assiolo on a tree stump in the darkness, when a bigger owl swept down, grabbed her with her claws and turned to look at me. We went on a school trip to Patagonia on foot, reaching it via a long thin strip of land on the ocean that was teeming with every kind of wildflower. I was on a full bus, people were going around, and the Riace bronzes were there too, just walking around along with everyone else.
And then another one of those nightmares, I really don't know what to do with them. (I hate the mind-body dualism, but) Our bodies can behave so ambivalently about sex: sometimes it's a simple, meaningless physiological need on par with eating and shitting, and sometimes it's the finest tool with which to elevate your soul or tear it down completely.
That nightmare was exactly what I feared, it was the exact same evil that I've been turning over in my head for months. It was so uncanny to have it actually happen. My fault, my fault - I don't remember having this kind of dreams before, and if I did, I must've thought that they meant nothing because the real-life events they were referring to also meant nothing. My fault, I've been unkind to myself. I've been unkind to the child I'm sure you all know. I've called her a whore, I've hated her - I hate her? Though it kinda seems cartoonish at times, in retrospect, the intensity with which I hated her. Not that it doesn't come back sometimes, like when she inconveniences me like this. The nightmares come when I least expect them, after I think they're finally over. It - and not just dream-life - is all a endless treadmill of trying to make sense of it all. I'm sure other people have lived this treadmill, I'm sure other people's lives consist of this treadmill, and from them I know that it will never be truly over. There is no sense, there is no reason, so every conclusion drawn is preposterous. Yet we try to survive by finding meaning. I've often thought that death would have been preferable. Would death have been preferable? Would I prefer death to defilement; I would be where they want/wanted me to be. perhaps I would be blank, abject, angelica/Angelica.
"Aita, aita!
La mia verginità ti raccomando
più che l'anima mia, più che la vita."
2 March, 2026
this entry is about: bird sounds, hard times, singing in cellars, birthdays, being a net positive, the lesson of the old boar, dreams and debts
I really wanna learn how to identify birds based on their songs, but I have no idea how to get about it. It's such a shame to hear them singing every day, to be able to tell the difference broadly - there's the one who's always the first to sing in the morning; there's the one who sounds so mournful; there's the one who only sings when the shadows start creeping over the earth, sounding like a ship's sonar in the ocean - but not being able to name my neighbors up in the sky. I know my dearest tortora, whose song is the soundtrack of my life - ho hoooo-ho.... ho hoooo-ho... - and the sonar-like song (keeee!!! keeeee!!!) is probably an assiolo's, but I would like to know all of my neighbors. Some days ago while walking I got to see the iridescent blue and green hues of a crow's feathers from below. And some days ago I saw two big birds flying together above the hills, circling each other and then separating; one went up on my neighbor's roof, and all the while they cried, KEEEAAAOOWW!! KEEEAAAOOOWW!!
When me and H went to the cliffside on Halloween night in 2024, we heard an animal's call from between the trees that really freaked us out. He recalls it sounding kind of like YEAAAWWW, but I think it was more like AAAAAAA, straight and simple. We still have no clue what animal it was. Some nights ago, I had to go sleep on the couch, and after seething about it for a while I crashed into brutish sleep. I awoke some time later, even though I had my earplugs on, because of a freaky ass cry coming from just outside the window. It sounded so close, whoever she was she must've been perching on the old olive tree just outside the living room. She went YEEOOWWW!!!! YEEEOOOWWW!!!! At first I rolled over and listened to it half-asleep, until I told myself "what the fuck cellula, what are you listening to??? What animal is this???" and I jolted awake to hear it more clearly. She kept on crying YEEEOOOOWW, YEEEEOOOOW and I think I fell back asleep before she stopped. I guess she was a night-bird?? But the day after, I looked up nocturnal bird cries and none of them sounded quite like that. YEEOOOWWWW. Maybe she was a fox? I don't know, but it was very cool.
It's honestly been some rough nights - and I don't know when they'll stop being such. That night, the fox, or the bird, or whoever, was awake with me and shrieked outside the window, and I fell asleep quickly with dry eyes; the night after, she wasn't there and I cried. It's been literal years since I've had even just two bad nights in a row, literal years, do you get it? I used to sleep badly, but in the last few years I've been sleeping very well. So this is like, a sort of throwback/"relapse" that feels really bad. On the positive side, it's entirely because of external circumstances so it's not because of me and it'll get fixed once I'm out of this situation; on the negative side, it's entirely because of external circumstances so I can't control it and I have to get out of this situation in order to fix it. It's because of external circumstances. I won't sit here explaining all of it because it's personal and complicated, family stuff. The crux of the matter is that I can no longer stand sharing space with my retarded sister who can't pick her own underwear off the floor or figure out when it's time to shower. And that's all I'm gonna say lol I typed out this sentence and then a whole ass paragraph-long rant came out but I deleted it, this is really not the place for these things. Anyways this is the way things are right now. Yes, it's honestly been some rough days and nights, and I don't know when they will end. I think my mother is disappointed in me being disappointed with my sister, I think my mother is done with me being done with my sister, I think my mother thinks I'm hysteric, and I feel so alone right now in this house. I've understood that I should leave. Goodbye to my garden; goodbye to my lavenders and my helichrysums, I'll leave you to those who don't care if you live or die, and once the cardboard melts under your stems there will be nothing to protect you against the sun and the weeds. Oh goodbye, I wouldn't do this if I didn't have to. I've understood that I should leave, but where to? And will it actually be better? But this is just another time in my life, however long or short, like any other time that came and went. I know I gotta focus on myself a little bit more than usual, look after myself, combat the natural drive towards anger with openhandedness and kindness, but also cut myself a little bit more slack than usual. This surely won't kill me. I don't know if it's just a legend - it probably is - but it touches my heart every time to remember the tale of Saint Francis writing the Canticle of Creatures in a musty cellar, nearly sightless, unable to even see the rats crawling all over him.
And my birthday just went past. This year I've felt somber around my birthday because it makes me think about how, even after 19 years of existence, I really haven't affected the world around me all that much. I really haven't made a lasting positive impact on many lives. I never did make that bird feeder I wanted to make. This year I've restocked the girl's bathroom in my school with pads only once. This autumn's carrots are small and deformed, and my radishes and my arugula weren't enough to feed all the cavolaia caterpillars that found themselves in my garden. I've had to confront a lingering sensation that my birth wasn't really a net positive event for the world, that perhaps I'm not worth the things (the creatures, really) that I eat every day, that I don't give as much as I take.
There's also another reason. I'm lucky enough, now, to be surrounded by people who ask me: are you doing anything for your birthday? what are you doing for your birthday? And it's mortifying to have to answer every time: no, I'm not doing anything, sorry. I explained that it's because many of my friends are also ex-friends with each other, and they either are very lukewarm with one another or they straight up hate each other, so I don't think putting them all in one place would result in a nice atmosphere. And this is of course partially true. But the main reason, which I struggled to even admit to myself, is that I'm not used to celebrating my birthday. I'm not used to celebrating my birthday. And when I faced this secret reason, this fact, it left me kinda... dull? I'm not used to celebrating my birthday; I don't usually do it. No, even far back, I don't remember anything of the sort. I'm not used to celebrating my birthday so I won't do it. I remember just one time, my 15th birthday, when I was opening up to life and I was aware of it; I had a dinner party, it was fun, and I thought "I finally broke the cycle of not celebrating my birthday!! I finally reclaimed this date as MY day and I'm gonna do it every year from now on!!" I never did it again. Not ever for any particular reason aside from the general, subconscious discomfort from not being used to it. I'm not used to it and facing this fact has left me dull, yes, and hollow with wind blowing through me. I'm surrounded by people who talk to you about their plans a month beforehand, who rent entire houses, who giggle as they make you try to guess what dress they're gonna be wearing, what nails they're gonna get done, what makeup they're gonna have. I'm happy for them, sure; all I can do is be happy for them and bumble off back into my corner because I'm not used to it, for myself, I've never been made to feel comfortable with sticking a bunch of people into a room and demand that they celebrate my existence. Why is that so? Why exactly don't I feel comfortable with such a common thing? It must be because I subconsciously don't think I deserve it; it must be because, again, I was never made to feel like I deserved it. It must be like this. So what now? Is it gonna stay this way forever? I'm 19. Some things never change, like in that fable about the boar.
When I was a kid I liked the book "Storie del bosco antico" by Mauro Corona. Years later I found out that he's a sort of lolcow who sits in the woods carving statues and misquotes Dante on live television but I didn't know back then. There was this one story whose ending always stuck with me: it was the origin story of the boar. A pig runs away from a farm because he doesn't want humans to have a say over his time of death. He goes to live in the woods, his body changes over time and he becomes more rugged and adapted. He starts a family: the race of boars is born, they're free and they only die when it's their time. But one day the patriarch hears a gunshot, and he sees two men carrying away a boar they'd just killed. Then he understood that it all had been useless: man still ruled over their deaths. Allora capì che era stato tutto inutile. Era sempre l'uomo a decidere della loro morte. I first read this story when I was small and now I am all grown up, hairy and fanged. Throughout life you become stronger, you think that you're the only one who has power over yourself, you think you've outgrown some things that used to burden you, but then you get humbled, you find out that they still lord over you, that they still stand above you deciding your life and death.
And on the day of my birthday I didn't want any gifts, I didn't want to be looked at, because my birth was not a net positive in this world. Being conscious was kind of uncomfortable, but it's spring, and for the first time in a couple months I got dressed to clear up some garden areas and sow valerianella. I lifted old mulch sheets from the ground and told myself I'd dig until I found an earthworm, and with just one swipe of my fingers I uncovered one, thrashing around covered in bits of dark soil. I laid down more cardboard, I pulled out some weeds that had gotten through the mulch and laid them to rest above it, I sprinkled seeds over the earth and pressed them together like I used to, and all the while birds kept me company with their songs. I worked slowly. I got back inside and I sat down in front of all my seed packets; it's spring, I forgot that it's the beginning of spring and I can sit down and dream my garden into being. I have a lot of celery seeds: I remember my grandmother's garden with her giant bushy celery: I want mine to be just as big, even bigger, I dream, I'll grow enough celery for the brodo of all the nonne of this town.
Did I ever tell you that noble ciclamino has chosen my garden as her dwelling? Yes, the wild kind, the kind that is endangered and protected locally: a couple of them live in a shady part of my garden, just in front of the laurel hedge. The cavolaia caterpillars are all grown up now, one of them decided to go into her chrysalis right outside our door, and she's the first thing I see when I go out; and there's another bird who sings only at nightfall, similar to the assiolo but not quite the same, and she drilled her monotonous, rhytmic call into my ears as I worked in the garden today: I heard it as one who doesn't hear anymore, I listened to her as if she was already far away from me. You see, this is the biggest reason why I'm afraid of leaving: how else would I repay my debt to the assiolo, to the cavolaie, to all the nonne of this town?
(I GOT COOL WATER BY DAVIDOFF FINALLY AFTER WANTING IT FOR 6 YEARS AAAAAH)
15 February, 2026
this entry is about: the coming of spring, the place where I was forged, the goat-woman again, I have a driver's license now, severing the head of the beast of perfectionism, the fruit fly's offering, collapse and Samson as a woman
I'm gonna be honest I think ovulation affects me
It's halfway through February, and I'd forgotten what happens halfway through February... I didn't see spring coming; I wasn't thinking about spring coming. I found a very nice road for running near my home, with almost no traffic, between villas and the kind of dogs that grew up in the country and have barely ever seen another human apart from their owners, so they bark like crazy when you pass by. Last week I was there and I saw a Prunus tree that was already flowering, and I told myself: so early?!?! the world is doomed... And it deadass took me some days to realize that we are halfway through February, and this is technically the right time. That tree on the road broke the news. Since then, I have been keeping an eye on the prugnoli near my home, who have always been the heralds of spring to me. Their buds are swelling now, and they're colored deep purple, but they're still closed for now. There is playfulness, there is complicity in this gioco di sguardi, where I turn towards them and they pretend that nothing's happening, only to bloom when I'm not looking. There is complicity, there is trust in this game, and I had forgotten that it even existed, can you believe it?, I forgot that I was gonna play it again. It's time to make plans for the garden, I guess. The daughters of cavolaia have almost completely destroyed my radishes, and they've moved on to my arugula: it's okay, I'm not greedy. It's halfway through February: elsewhere it is snowing, but here, the prugnoli are about to announce Spring's arrival: I can hear them breathing in before they shout it. A few days ago we were taking a test, the classroom windows were open, and I could smell the spring, I swear: I could smell the blue color of the sky, I could smell distant afternoons spent playing in the garden. I'd forgotten that spring has her own scent. I'd forgotten about it all. I live in a place where winter isn't the death of the world; fava seeds love to snuggle under the cold earth, and veronica, shy ranuncolo and ruchetta color the fields under the fog and the bleak sky. Here, the world doesn't die in winter, no: almost no snowfall chokes our soil, and the earth enjoys her affair with the rain; I live on thirsty land, who prefers the showers of November and the covering of clouds to the bare skies and the voyeuristic sun of May. The cold and the rainfall are not our end; the world doesn't die in winter. No, not in winter, here the world only dies in summer: burning from the unbounded passion of the Sun, withering for love, the ground cracking under the unbearable beauty of the season. This is my world, this is where I've always lived. This is where I was temprata. This is my temperament.
I finally got my shitty ass fucking DRIVER'S LICENSE!!!!!!!! Looking back, it's insane how badly I wanted the whole thing to be over - and now it's over, and I didn't even think much about it in the end. This week I did my first real drive as a CERTIFIED DRIVER, from the city to my home, in the night. These are the roads where I first started dreaming, I think, years ago when I was being driven through them; it's only natural that I should be the one driving now, it's a rite of passage. To see, right in front of me for the first time, the glow from the headlights reflected on the smooth concrete, a sight that has always made my imagination fly to lunar landscapes and sci-fi cities; it's a rite of passage, now, it's a honor to be the driver on these roads.
Now that I've gotten my license I'm actually thinking I shouldn't relax too much and become dependant on my car. I used to go biking to the grocery store and whatnot until one day I was seized by the sudden, intense fear of being run over; that fear settled in, and I haven't touched my bike since. Now that I'm technically used to being on the road again, maybe I should pick it back up. I shouldn't get my car every time I have to go to the grocery store that's 2 minutes away to get some fucking chickpeas and chia seeds. It's perfectly possible for me to bike to some of my most frequented places, but..... I gotta get used to biking on the road again, if I was ever used to it in the first place. I really don't wanna die yknow. The majority of drivers IS in fact completely shit-headed and nothing guarantees my safety on the road. At least in my own car I'm more protected. .........I have no idea if I will really get back into cycling, I'm probably too chickenshit to follow up with this resolution, I guess I'll see about it. But I'm certainly not giving up on public transport. Now that I have a license my use of public transport is a CHOICE ✨ and therefore really chic
I DID pass all of my trials this week!!!! And yes one of them was the driver's license exam lol. Lately, I feel like I've really been able to prove to myself how much I'm capable of. Speaking of resolutions that are maybe too good for me to actually stick to... I've always wanted to learn how to draw. Always always. It's really been like..... what, ten years of wanting to learn to draw?? but I've never even tried, because I've always been a huge perfectionist. It's something that at this point is deeply rooted in me and my experience of life: I've always been disgusted with even small, private, inconsequential failures. But I've started dealing with this thing - high time for me to do so - and I think that I would really be severing the head of this beast, if I tried to learn to draw and actually stuck with it despite the probable feelings of DISGUST and FAILURE that will arise. Learning to draw has always been The Dream, The Goal That's Definitely Out Of My Reach. What if I finally tried?... I've been doing many things, lately, that I was convinced were out of my reach, and I've been doing them beautifully. I'm sure drawing is just another one of them. I don't know if I will actually try it, mostly due to lack of time (I'm in my last year of highschool I shouldn't even be taking up this much stuff in the first place), but I have little doubt, now, that it's not actually out of my reach and that I can handle those feelings.
I'm thinking about the people who, like my grandfather, have spent their whole lives huddled between the mountain and the sea, and have no intention of changing this fact; the frayed old men and women who want to die here - and the cliffs stand blank above. If a fruit fly came up to me and said, "You are the dearest thing I've ever beheld with my eyes, you are the whole world to me: I offer you every last second of all the hours of my life", I'd probably have to stifle my laughter at first, but overall I would be honored.
"Any civilization that does not recognize the female is doomed to destruction": unironically yes, Wonder Woman, yes. (And yes I do actually think that the vast majority of the world's ills have misogyny as their root cause.) I often read theory regarding the perfect world - the theory, and I kinda get stuck in those tomes; so when I raise my head and see the world that we currently have and the world that we have built, I'm dazed, I'm confused. Years ago, I was into the whole "collapse" stuff: it made me desperate, back then, and my last bout of suicidality was almost entirely because of that. Now I honestly don't think much about it. When I do remember, however, I don't feel desperate anymore. Instead I feel sort of vindictive, sort of haughty, thinking that if the worst comes to pass at least I'll get to drag such a bulk of ignorance into the grave with me (again, fundamentally, stupidly optimistic); I recall the death of Samson. I should disregard these stories, I know, but I grew up with them and I can't help recalling them sometimes. Samson was a man, a particularly unpleasant man at that, but the way he died, I can tell you, is a woman's. I can see her in my mind's eye, in the temple, scorned by everyone, and they said, call for Samson, that she may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house; and she made them sport: and they set her between the pillars. And I don't see her cold, disgustingly stoic: I see her crying, just like crying was a heroic act in the Homeric poems, I see her face tragic and undone (tragico, disfatto) as she tosses her long hair back, and she doesn't think there's a god who assists her, no, so all she wants, all she says is: Let me die with the Philistines! Che io muoia insieme con i Filistei!, I remember that phrase. And she bowed herself with all her might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which she slew at her death were more, more, many, many more than they which she slew in her life.
Picking back up the goat-woman talk from last entry. I really do think she is the perfect symbol, holy shit. Do you see it too?? Consider the overall symbolism of the goat. Consider the scapegoat as opposed to this satyress. Consider the satyress as one who refused to keep being the scapegoat. Consider the fig branches with which the scapegoat was beaten, as opposed to the the sacred living fig. Consider that the goat-woman wasn't born from goat-people; she's the anomaly in this world, she's the black sheep.... uh, goat. Consider that running a razor through the goat-woman's hair is physically impossible. I love the goat-woman, I think she's the perfect symbol for me and women like me, can you see it?? But I'm probably no good at explaining; you should just read "Deviling" by Susan Griffin.
Last year or so, when you looked through my writings all you read was Mother, Mother, Mother, the great Mother through the fig mother, the ocean mother etc etc.; at the start I was very focused on the mother figure. Now it appears I've switched over to the daughter, the wide-eyed daughter, the last-standing daughter, the strong young goat-woman. Of course! It's self-respect! I am a daughter who's nothing like my mother!
7 February, 2026
this entry is about: our mothers (their revelations and their silences), parenting, evolution, trials, the goat-woman
Nah cause I still love the layout I did for the dreams page with my whole heart. If I took it and just shamelessly repurposed the page would it be too trashy?
Upcoming week FULL OF TRIALS....... important shit. if I pass at least one of them I'm gonna be really proud of myself.
I think the moon likes it when we are under her light, especially when we go outside just to gaze at her, hard. I think the sun delights in warming our skin and the waters in which we will bathe. Why shouldn't the big care about the small, I've always wondered? Like I delight in carrying the lives of bacteria in my gut, like I delight in being the home of the million face mites on my skin. Like I delight in the trillions of cells that make up my body, that move as I move. I think the ocean churns in sympathy for us; I think that even the trees share a reverent whisper when we pass by. In the waters of our wombs and in the damp flesh of their fruits, we carry the first memory, the memory of the first cell that awakened to life in the primordial sea.
My biology textbook from last year said something about reptiles that "with the amniotic egg [...] emancipated themselves from water". I think the choice of the word "emancipated" is funny. The fish who saw the first amphibian crawl onto land must've called her crazy, for wanting to forego the all-giving matrix of water and to walk on the harsh, dry earth. The amphibians who saw the first reptile leave their pond must've called her crazy, for wanting to completely renounce the water that had given them all their birth. And the first reptile must've felt so proud in saying, "with my body I will attain the same miracles that the whole wide sea has kept to only herself thus far". But why "emancipated from water", why does living in a habitat equal being a prisoner of it? It's perhaps the same thought process that makes some of us fret so much over leaving Earth, leaving flesh behind, when without them we would be deficient in ways we can't yet grasp. I don't think water imprisons; I don't think that reptiles emancipated themselves from water, but the discovery of earth must've been exhilarating anyways. I think that the first amphibian must've rejoiced in feeling something firm under her feet, in knowing that there are mothers other than water. There are mothers everywhere, the sea and the earth and the sun and everything on which we complex, fragile creatures depend; especially us humans, who stand on the shoulders of the first reptile and the first amphibian and the first fish and the first cell that awakened to life in the primordial sea, we who have so many and such illustrious foremothers.
"Space filled by the presence of mothers, and the place where everyone is a daughter." I've written before that joy : universe = wonder : observing creature, more or less. And I loved it when Jan Raymond told us to define ourselves and others as daughters first and foremost, to have the daughter figure as a fixed star inside of us, because daughterhood has a universality that motherhood lacks. I think that these are holy words. I am a daughter first and foremost. I am a daughter, and I wash my face with the water from this spring of wonder - the spring of relationship, of correspondence, of indebtedness, of gratitude - this water that leaves my eyes gleaming, and I hope that this gleam will never leave my eyes, I hope I never forget I am a daughter. I hope I never stop acknowledging that there are mothers everywhere, from the sun to gravity to the chamomile in this tincture that makes me unclench my muscles, now, and unbend my back. When nothing works, when I cramp and hunch down, I recall the first mammal who bore, who braved the pain and in solitude brought forth a new world; the first reptile who tore herself from water, the first amphibian who walked on hard, dry land, the first cell who endeavoured to wake to life in the night of the ages.
I count all my mothers, their deeds and their struggles that make me alive today. I am a daughter: that's my only certainty. When I get up and I haul the bucket of blood to my plants, I can only hope they are dreaming, in plant dreams, of their mother.
Often, when my mother and grandmother talk, I'm somewhat peeved because I can feel the extent to which their relationship eludes me and will forever elude me. As in, I'll never get the full picture, the real, living picture of their relationship, what they did to each other. I know vague, painful details: my mother being married at my age; screaming at her father, a suitor at her door; my grandmother calling her in tears after her divorce, for the purity of her soul in Jehovah's eyes. Just like I only know vague, painful details about my grandmother's life: the soldiers and her mother, how she was afraid, how she didn't recognize her father, the nights toiling in the hospital. And of my grandmother's mother, I only know that she was desperate, scared, and quick to violence: I can't even recall her name. I haven't gotten deeper than that, I don't know if I want to or if I'd even be able to.
I can never sit my mother down and ask her to tell me everything, everything from the day she gained consciousness to what she feels today as she calls her mother on the phone. Ask her what she hears through the speakers, if she really hears what she's saying or if she hears those conversations from years ago instead, those threats and those whines. Or perhaps posing these questions is not totally outside the real of possibility; I could ask her, but even if I asked her, she would not tell me everything. She would not tell me more than half of it. And if she did tell me everything, if she did tell me more than half of it, I wouldn't be able to comprehend it. I wouldn't grasp that material merely with intellect, merely with thought, because I wasn't actually there through the shunning, and the screaming, and the poverty, and every other horror I can't imagine. Trying to grasp it merely with intellect would be ridiculous, when she's actually lived it. I know, I know there are many things that remain in the seat of memory, that swirl around, dark and ominous, and that never coagulate into words. I know, because I could never speak the whole story of how it was between me and my mother and my grandmother when I was little, for example. There is nothing to say about the bedsheets, the classroom door in preschool, the tangled hair. I could never tell my daughter about it, not if she sat me down and asked to know everything. And if my daughter had a daughter, she wouldn't be able to tell her how it was between me and her, too: one of the major things that dissuades me from the idea of having children is that you inevitably hurt them. Inevitably: they're literally so vulnerable, so vulnerable, that the slightest thing can scar them forever - physically and emotionally. There will be things between me and my daughter that will forever stay confined within the walls of our minds, there will be things that we never speak out loud. I would love to believe that I'd never do anything wrong while parenting, but that's too good to be true: it takes, again, just the slightest thing, that slips past you without a thought and stabs her in the brain to stay there forever, festering, festering. And I know we live in a world where we have to wrong each other. And I know we live in a world where the mother has to wrong her daughter, and where they both have to hold dreadful silence about it.
There's a friend of mine whose family is very well-off. Her grandmother has a villa, her mother likes to buy and repair vintage gramophones as a hobby. Women of all classes face sex-based oppression, but it takes on different forms sometimes, and women don't warn each other about the different kinds of danger that they can face throughout their lives - like some women nowadays being so detached from our history that they see the "tradwife" role as desirable, for example. So whenever she gives me a ride home, and her mother advises her to get an older man "because they're more mature", I get a real itch to tell her she doesn't know what she's talking about. Likewise when this friend gushes about marrying young - she grew up on old romantic fiction, and that's poison for straight girls, I think. The distance between our worlds astounds me. Sometimes I find myself looking at them with a bitter sort of amusement - a nasty, rotten feeling, really, with some victimization burrowing in there too; but then I remember that, again, not a single one of us can escape pain and oppression. All that went on between her and her mother I will never know. All that went on between her mother and her grandmother I will never know. These things will never be spoken at all.
All that went on between my mother and my grandmother will never be known. All that went on between my grandmother and my great-grandmother will never be know. All that went on between me and my grandmother will never be known. All that went on between me and my mother will never be known. If I have a daughter - if I manage to raise her with a sense of hearing keen enough to notice it, and with enough brains to know that it's wrong - she will be haunted by this same silence, filling unbridgeable spaces between us; and if I raise her with keen eyes, she will see it stretching far behind us, this line of secretive ghosts and the silence that encases each of us. The secrets of my mother's pain I will never pry from her tongue. And it startles someone like me, who's used to singing on high, you know? The contrast is jarring to me. All around us are mothers, and the non-human ones speak in bright voices of gladness, chattering in riverbeds and circling each other in the night sky; but the mothers closer to us, who could speak the same words as us with the same tongue of flesh, all weep and veil themselves in mournful silence.
Though I sometimes fantasize about bridging the gaps between us in the bubble of my own small, personal life, as well as I can. Bridging the gaps between my understanding and theirs through experience, through binding myself to their same yokes and pulling. I imagine being left to work a land of the same acreage as the one my great-grandmother had, with the same tools she had. I imagine giving birth without medical help, going through a period without painkillers, in a fucking cave or something. I imagine tasting the same poisons they tasted, carrying the same weights they carried to become closer to them, to become as strong as them, to win over the evils that sapped their life-force; and after such a life, I'd steer into death like a conqueror. Things I'll never do, clearly: why such self-flagellation? Their pain is shut behind the closed curtains of their lives; it was theirs only, and now it can't be soothed in any way, certainly not with this bizarre sympathetic magic. The gaps are unbridgeable, the silence can't be broken. I imagine doing such things sometimes out of this desire to bridge the gaps; probably also out of a subconscious desire to prove my stupidly naif, optimistic worldview, where there's nothing so dreadful that it can't be overcome. All that these trials would do is give me an unending list of things so dreadful that they can't be overcome, but I digress. (me when i have to wash the dishes by hand) I've written before that I'd be afraid of having a daughter, in case she happened to be like I was when I was a child. But I was thinking - with this perspective, wouldn't this be my own trial, my own way to resolve the pain behind the still-open curtains of my life? I'm absolutely NOT saying I would have a daughter as a tool to get closure about my own shitty childhood, this is just something theoretical that's interesting to think about. If that situation arose - and it's obviously better if it didn't arise in the first place, and if it arised I'd surely have done something wrong - if the ghost that's been haunting me my whole life incarnated itself like this, wouldn't it be, Ma, something to tackle head-on, as my own trial? I'd do what those around me weren't strong enough to do; I'd achieve the impossible, guiding her right, guiding her back into the realm of the living; and Ma, I'd die content if the last thing I saw was my daughter healthy and happy. And after such a life, I'd steer into death like a conqueror.
Wrote some days ago: "Been feeling strong and horny like a satyr-woman lately." I've been feeling really intrigued by the "archetype" (?), or image, of the goat-woman lately. Not sure if it can be called an archetype, it's not that widespread. The satyress - which by the way doesn't exist, because satyrs were traditionally male only; and I'm greatly interested in stealing from men this image of vitality, of lust in all its meanings, of joie de vivre, of vigor. Other women have reclaimed for themselves the werewolf, or the she-bear: good for them, but sadly I'm not that physically imposing. The goat-woman is less threatening, herbivorous, not such a fighter; but her gait is unnerving still, her bent legs are unnerving, her fur is unnerving, her cloven hooves are unnerving. The goat-woman is not so aggressive, but still she cackles loud, she sings on high, she's unnervingly passionate all around. And the goat-woman can get so, so sublimely wistful when she's blowing in her flute. I think the goat-woman is the symbol of a full life. I don't usually focus my view on one specific aspect of the whole; I don't know exactly why the image of the goat-woman speaks to me so much. It must be because of her animality, her unbridled life-force, at times baneful and at times creative, which has always been mine too. When I wrote some entries ago that I've always had horns on my head, I meant it. Sometimes I feel like I've come back into possession of some characteristics that have always been mine, that had been choked out of me by whatever-the-fuck. Still writing, still pouring my soul out by writing badly. Extroverted, outgoing, too loud, prefers cracking a horrible joke to silence. Likes to be showy. Prideful, hot-tempered. Lusty. Finds meaning in dust particles floating around, in a stray beam of sunlight falling inside an empty room. "Am I becoming someone new or returning to myself?"
1 February, 2026
this entry is about: the new webpage, caterpillars and spiders, running, scrotes
Absolutely refused to update the site until I published the new reading log/general books page! Forgive me if it looks ugly. I was struck with sudden divine inspiration after watching this video, and I was gonna try to design a layout with the same vibes, no matter how shitty it would end up looking.
Today was an unusually sunny day, so much so that, as soon as I came home from school, I immediately got my dog and walked back out. It's been so long it seems to me, since we've had such a beautifully bright sun shining on our faces; a nice breeze, not a punitive cold wind, blew on my neck. I couldn't stop looking at the blue sky, and the moon hanging there was big, almost full. I wondered how long it has been since I experienced the divine in anything other than my bizarre, cervellotici writings.
This garden season hasn't been good, mostly due to my neglect, as I've already admitted. I've let the radishes grow far too much: I was wondering how the hell I would even use them, but today I crouched in front of them and saw a bunch of caterpillars, daughters of cavolaia (the white cabbage butterfly), munching on the leaves. I'm very familiar with them: I've given up on growing turnips because they would get eaten by 100000 pests, mostly these caterpillars. The daughters of cavolaia have a good life, because as long as there is just one dutiful daughter of woman who sows her cabbages and turnips, they can spend entire days crossing from leaf to leaf across an immesurable bounty. They don't sweat over anything, not even when the gardener's face is inches from them, staring. But everything in the world is right and good, because the daughters of cavolaia were created with a desire to raze our gardens, and the daughters of woman were created with enough goodness in their hearts to let them do it.
On the other hand... I really didn't mean it - today I was putting cardboard mulch under my fava plants, because they've gotten tall enough. I picked up a piece of carboard and I noticed a sort of silken sac on it. I had no idea what it was, and I didn't think I was going to destroy it, but when I tore apart the cardboard I accidentally teared the sac open, too, and there was a pale spider inside it. I immediately laid the piece of cardboard upside down on the ground, because I was ashamed and I didn't want her to see my face. I don't know much about insects, I don't know what kind of spider it was. Was she a hunter spider, and did I destroy her house for a day? Or did she keep her eggs in there? If I killed the daughters of spider, even accidentally, what can absolve me? I hope that I've done, am doing, and will do, enough good to offset the damage I've wrought upon that small world.
I used to not do cardio at all, because I thought it would make me lose weight and I want to gain it. But then I started considering the fact that one of my actual biggest fears is my heart malfunctioning, so. A while ago I started using the old ass stationary bike we have at home. All good, but of course a stationary bike is a little bit boring. Recently I got the idea of replacing it with running, but I was hesitant because I live in a very hilly area. I have a couple friends who run, but only in the warmer seasons, so I decided to say fuck it and go for it alone. This week I finally tried it out. The first day I went running was DISMAL. ARCTIC WINDS were blowing and I didn't have a hat on, so my ears actually unironically hurt like hell the whole time. My fit was ridiculous and I felt like a huge bumbling dumbass, especially since I stopped every two seconds to catch my breath. The very first thing I faced was the ungodly steep hill right outside my house. I'm gonna be completely honest, my running stamina is not good at all. (I tell myself: but that's why I'm working on it, right?) Also running in general makes you look embarassing, and I have yet to integrate the notion that "nobody cares". I'm gonna try to keep up with it... if it's really unbearable I'm just gonna go back to my stationary bike. What made me want to try running, though, was the fact that I'd be outdoors and I'd be able to see which wildflowers were growing. I'm content with just getting my heart rate up and seeing borage bloom on the edge of the fields.
Remember that guy who'd been trying to win me over for months? The thing finally ended, I hope, and if it didn't end this way I don't know how it will. Basically the whole thing, from September until about a week ago, was just a crescendo of him embarassing himself in worse and worse ways (and also getting creepier and creepier). In particular, before winter break, he had decided to lean onto the romantic approach, telling me my eyes were beautiful under the sun and that he wanted to take me out dining etc etc. He waited for me to pounce on his chode and when this didn't happen, he decided to completely change course and violently thrust his alleged sexual prowess in my face, embodying the alpha male wolf inside him. So in a single day he sent me a flurry of texts saying how he'd eat my pussy for 45 minutes (apparently he keeps a timer on him during sex) and joking about how he'd grab my tits in the improbable occasion that I'd show them to him. To this twenty-messages-long display of pure penile hubris I responded with just three words, "Madonna che schifo", which he treated as a joke and simply carried on. This made me even more disgusted and I proceeded to ghost him for the entirety of winter break. He kept talking to the wall for days, until he noticed that something was wrong and apologized. I told him point-blank to find another girl. And at THAT point I thought it was over, but he kept being creepy and following me around to tap me on the shoulders and wave hi at me with a ridiculous sadboy betrayed-anime-protagonist kind of smile, I literally can't make this shit up. I kept ignoring him and ghosting him, until one day at recess I walked out of my class to find him standing out there, with a cross-eyed friend of his that I had never seen before, saying "I FEEL IGNORED". (You ARE being ignored baby, and there's a reason!) It's always been clear that this guy is... unorthodox, but that final interaction was something so unspeakably weird that I don't think I can do it justice by describing it in the English language. The whole time, I kept meeting the gaze of the VERY cross-eyed guy behind him that stared at me continuously, or rather, stared at my right and left shoulder; he never spoke a single word. I think he was there for emotional support?... Anyways that interaction ended with me laughing in the main guy's face and leaving. Haven't heard from him since. I think it's really over with this, and if it's not, I'm gonna have to drop an atom bomb on his house because I don't know how else I can get the point across. What pisses me off, though, is that his friends know about me; but I embrace my new renown as the frigid bitch who refused a good fuck.
This makes me think back to all the people I dropped that now probably hate my guts, because they were cruel, because they were whiny, because they were insipid and self-aggrandizing, or because they were downright evil. There are some in which I hope to have made wounds, there are some who I hope are bleeding out in my absence, but, regarding most of them, I really don't wish for such animosity between us. It almost makes me feel sorry, but I'm sure that there's nothing to be done about it, and that life is also about leaving behind you a trail of those people.
18 January, 2026
this entry is about: the battle between longing and mindfulness, memories (the trail - the deer - the moon - the hills - the building - the books - the birds - sweet sixteen), donkeys, fishing, a scar, irrational hopes and fears, horns, crossword puzzles, destroying memories for the sake of a goddamn centro sociale
Can you fucking believe this? I'd been planning to go to the mountain all week long. This morning, Sunday morning, I got up early, I filled my backpack, I got dressed, I put my hiking shoes on for the first time in so long and I marveled at how comfortable they were. I was all ready to go, I went to take a piss for the last time before leaving the house, looking out the bathroom window, and in that precise moment, not a second sooner, it started raining. I waited fully dressed for half an hour but it only started pouring more. You can't make this shit up.
But oh and woe for my bonny hind
Beneath the Holland tree!
Towards the end of last summer, I went to see the lunar eclipse with a local environmental org. It was a wonderful night, we walked through the empty city streets and up the hills... We went back in the dark through country roads, where the hills laid down their great flanks. We walked past a big country house - most of the other people in that organization are old, and they tend to know each other; they whispered among themselves about the couple that lived there, and about the donkey that they had, Luna. They joked that her name was spot-on for the occasion. We stopped in front of her enclosure. And I thought to myself, oh, I love donkeys, they're so sweet, I haven't seen one in like six years, too bad this one is sleeping right now. I know nothing about the sleeping habits of donkeys, or if they respond to their names, but after some time standing there whispering among ourselves Luna, Luna, Luna, she walked out of the darkness with those big eyes gleaming bright white against our flashlights and she came to us. We cheered for her, she was the queen of the night! And she stood in front of us with those big, understanding eyes. None of us touched her that night, but she was so beautiful and calm. I really do love donkeys. I wish I could see them everyday. But these days I rarely get to walk roads where the hills lay down their great flanks.
I miss having the earth, the roots, the rocks beneath the soles of my hiking boots. I miss my city; the trail that opens off the side of the main road, I remember, she tears the civilized facade of the city open to let the wildness through; and she tears my thoughts open now, she rips through the drone of the homework and the competition and all other drivel, to let wild longing through. How long has it been since the last time I was surrounded only by trees? This is a desire that even the best of friends can't fulfill; I need to alone in the woods, on top of the cliffs. I need to go down the steep trail, reaching for tree trunks to support me, and I need to go back up under the scorching midday sun like I used to do: it was so hard that I would drop to the ground from exhaustion and get leaves and dirt all over my bare skin, but that was honestly fun, and I need to sweat over something beautiful, you know? I need to sweat over something beautiful, not these hunks of metal that I move up and down and up and down endlessly, and not this bike-looking thing, stubbornly rooted in this house, whose wheels spin and spin endlessly, going nowhere. And by the love of our great flowing ocean-woman I miss the fish in the sea, their wide eyes. I used to fish for fun: it was a rite of passage, to have my father teach me, as all the people who grew up in this place must've had. And I pestered my grandfather, will you teach me, will you teach me how to gut a fish? I fished for one summer, and I stopped after one time where I threw the fishing rod back and the tip of the hook got stuck in the skin above my fucking right tit, squirming worm and all. I guess that's karma. To the sea that holds them, to the mountain that watches over them - if I ever come again seeking to rip your children from your breast, it won't be for play, it won't. And by the love of our red, warm, coarse mother-tongue I miss the strength with which the sun burned when I was finally on top of the long stairway from the city to the sea. And I need to live in the present, I know, I can't count the days down to the time I'll be back on the seashore with bare breasts, but it's so hard not to!!..... Oh and woe for the sweet donkey I met under the red moon; now I can barely find time to go visit the frogs in the creek next to the grocery store. I know there is also meaning in what I currently do, I'm trying to be mindful of the here and now, but the start of the trail off the side of the road tears through my mind, and longing overpowers me.
So strong is the longing that I haven't been caring for my garden as much as I should've. It's sacrilege, probably. I'm sorry to my helichrysums: do you understand why I haven't been spending time crouched at your side, smelling your leaves? It's not because I don't love you anymore: I'm chasing the memory of you growing proudly out of the rocks, on the steep slopes of the mountain. And if I was there, oh, how I'd risk my balance to reach out with my arm and rub the tip of your branches.
I have a scar on my knee that marks me as the mountain's; I may carry these limbs wherever but they are always hers. I have a scar on my knee that saltwater got into; always slightly raised as if it was full of something, and I used to stare at it, wondering if perhaps it was a pouch of crab eggs, wondering when they were going to burst out of my skin. The reminder is painful when I look at it while sitting at home far from those places. But what can I do about it? And I know that my life is here and now and nothing more, I know that if I'm not present here I wouldn't be present there, but what can I do about this longing?
"Well, memories will burn you / Memories grow older as people can / They just get colder / Like sweet sixteen". Yes I miss the sea, the mountain, even the fields of young green wheat I used to trample upon, years ago when I started exploring these hills. I just wrote about wildness and longing - the news just came out that they're going to buy the abandoned building near my grandmother's house, the one that I loved so much, and turn it into a fucking centro sociale! But it's oh and woe for my bonny hind beneath the Holland tree! Nothing sacred is left, is there? I loved that place. I used to call it Coral Castle, because I was obsessed with Sweet Sixteen by Billy Idol at the time. The first time I listened to it, I thought that it was about a father whose daughter had run away (yes... and I was confused by the mentions of an "engagement ring"), therefore that it was about the deepest kind of pain a human being could experience: I heard it in the weird kind of moans that he lets out after a particularly defeated-sounding part, trying to express and to soothe, again, a kind of pain that can't be put into words. It used to be my favourite song. I even wrote on the walls of that building: "And I'd do anything for my sweet sixteen". Now those walls are getting brought down. I wonder if anyone's even gonna go to that centro sociale. Are they gonna repaint it, change the hue that I've always loved? That building has always been abandoned, since as far back as I remember, and even before my birth according to Google Maps; and in the wonder-filled, wide-eyed view I had of the world when I'd just started dipping into life, it would stay that way forever. I could write a lot about back then. But. I still have my writings from back then. I don't think I need to add anything, even though some of them are so cringe that I can't get myself to read more than one sentence. What was brewing inside me was... certainly something, and a lot of it is now foreign to me, a lot of it is alien to me in the same way that the ocean is alien to us even though we were formed there. Trudging up the hill towards the big abandoned house, and two deer started skipping past me. But oh and woe for my bonny hind... I remember being that wonder-filled, angst-filled, bewildered, resigned, peaceful, visionary, and even before that, nauseatingly lovesick, when I first started high school. Recently, my sister was ecstatic to find a physical copy of the italian translation of Gesta Danorum. It was laying on the table, and I passed by - I had other things to do, but I could not resist the call of familiarity: my fingers turned the pages with love, with sweetness, with bitterness, until I found those words:
Chi premerebbe le dita
su una spina, o darebbe caldi baci
al fango? Chi unirebbe a membra irsute,
ingiustamente, un corpo levigato?
Se la natura recalcitra
non si può cogliere il pieno diletto di Venere.
Non ha a che fare coi mostri, l'amore consueto alle donne.
Perhaps the biggest thing about that "sweet sixteen" period was that I was, again, wakening to life and I felt that there was a secret meaning, a secret speech, going on in the places that I loved. (Not like, in the literal schizo sense obviously, but I guess that normal people reading these entries DO see me as schizo and it's inevitable to be perceived like this if I keep on publishing my weird ass thoughts lol). It's hard to explain. But. I have my old writings from back then, and I spoke to a puzzled future historian-self, and I don't need to add anything more: "tutto è pieno e anche io sono piena di questa strana sensazione che non saprei spiegare ma sembra magia, non saprei, per capire ascoltati gli White Lies. Spero che la bici arrivi presto. Tra poco mieteranno tutto il grano e allora potrò di nuovo salire sulla collina e visitare la casa abbandonata che vidi ad aprile." She already said it all: the wheat was ripe and about to be cut, the abandoned house on top of the hill was waiting for me, the music was powerful and with my whole self I was hanging on to the voice of the world: if you tell me to jump then I'll die. The voice of the world was unclear, wordless, but unmistakable, and my wonder welled inside my chest whenever I heard it. It mostly came through my tender, unconditional love of whatever was in my hometown. The crooked utility poles like giants stumbling across the field. The writings on the wall next to the school. A grocery store receipt left on the ground. When I was walking back home at night, and strange sound rose from the water treatment plant, I clutched my heart and listened reverently. It was the music of the spheres to me - and I had the feeling that there was something hidden in there. A meaning, a message. It could be death, it could be life, I was listening carefully. A mystery in my hometown: the mystery of life, the mystery of my life and death. It was all very vague but all-pervasive. The biggest delegates of the mystery were the strange white birds who sometimes came to peck on the fields. I still don't know their names. They bobbed strangely while walking, they looked like little herons. They were rare and I only saw them from afar, I only saw a small snow-white body wobbling along on a distant field.
I see a rare-looking bird out the car window,
Flying like a sign, like (s)he's saying "I know"...
And perhaps it was because of their own mystery that I made them, in my mind, the delegates of the new mysterious world that was baring itself in front of me. Everytime I saw them - reverence. It was often just for a few seconds from a car window, but I stared avidly as if I was really going to learn something. Again, not schizo, I felt that all-pervasive feeling of mystery and meaning but I knew that it was just a feeling; but the white bird's presence was such an... indescribable event that it made me almost believe it all for real. I was listening in wait.
Now I'm in another era; I've given a new meaning to my life, and the white bird is just one among thousands of sisters; but anytime I see her, I remember, and I give her a special greeting in my heart. A few days ago I invited S over. We got lunch and, when we walked outside, for some reason the sun felt exhilarating on me. The bus had leather seats and seatbelts and it was all for us, we were alone. When we got off, in the field next to my house there were... those white birds, bobbing along, pecking around, flying above our heads; I'd never looked at them that closely. We stood and watched before coming in: they're so beautiful, she said, and I just nodded. Yes, now the birds are just some of my many sisters, but there are old correspondences I still honor, and their appearance will always be a miracle to me. She wanted to play on my PS5: I gave her the controller and put on Ghost of Yotei. "Is that me? Am I Japanese?"
She'd been waiting to get invited over. She'd asked me, with some offense in her voice, if she was the only one of my friends that hadn't gotten to see my house. Really, I've only recently gained the... courage to start inviting people over. You know how I always talk about the house, and my fear of the house? When I say that I fear this house, it's not just metaphorical. It trascends everything else (fear of the child, of childhood and whatnot) and becomes a fear of the house as in, like, the building. I'm irrationally terrified that anyone who sees the inside of this house, these rooms, etc. will also automatically know what went on inside it. I feel like what happened in this house is embedded, implicit in its walls, its furniture, everything, and when you see those things you see it all. It's hard to explain because it's entirely irrational and I know it, but the fear is just there, and it stays: I'm sure some people will understand these fears that come from, like, not-great events in the distant past. I only recently started inviting friends over, and I still don't let them into my room to see the bedsheets, the desk. Some days ago an electrician came and had to go inside my room, and it was so hard to look him in the eyes once he came out; but I did, and I didn't falter, and even though I know this is all entirely irrational, I still felt like I could say about myself: I think that on my head are horns, sturdy horns.
I've always had horns on my head, but only recently have I learned how to defend myself with them. (I've always been a rough, bestial, enspirited woman, but only recently have I learned how to defend myself through it.) The horns still signal the scapegoat, but now I can't be persecuted without consequences; I take pride in my horns because they mean I can be mighty. I have a scar on my knee that marks me as the mountain's; these legs must be strong enough to skip over stones, this heart must carry me without faltering and my breath must be steady. I train with my lover in mind; my lover is stone and doesn't speak. Now I sweat with dignity, and with dignity I lay down to rest. I don't seek the signs of illness in myself anymore. I've even learned how to withstand cold showers! Besides, the cold has never done me anything wrong; for my entire life my enemy has been fire, desire, shame branded onto the nerves.
I've learned something, though, from a ripoff of the Settimana Enigmistica. I keep like 5 different puzzle magazines in my backpack, because with this year's new legislation if you're caught on your phone at school Valditara personally comes to spank you, so anytime I'm bored I pull one of them out. My mother buys them for me when she comes across one; I mostly do crosswords, but recently she bought a magazine that only has the kind of puzzle where you have to find certain words hidden in a jumble of letters. I used to dislike them, but now I find them pretty fun, I've figured out the right technique. You do have a set of words you have to find, but you shouldn't look too hard for them, you should soften your focus and just let your eyes glide all over the page. You should stop looking for the words, in fact forget you're looking for them, put aside any strategy. Just look at what you have in front of you with no pretenses, no purpose, and play with every possible combination: you won't be disappointed with what you find. You have to remember that it's a game. When you're overwhelmed by frustration, unfocus your gaze and let it glide over the full picture.
11 January, 2026
this entry is about: snow, daughterhood again and old myths, youth again (blood, hips, knees) and the vision in a sunrise, nightmares, time, impatience, trust, italian folk and the omnipotence of the mother
Back to what I spoke of last entry, about self-respecting women and their mothers - we honor the mother so much, we acknowledge her hand in our creation so much, that we are perplexed to see her scorning some parts of us that she herself has created from her blood and bone. My mother, it's clear (always has been clear), thinks some part of me undignified. When I speak of wanting to lift more, she is disgusted, it's clear, and she says: what do you even wanna lift for? What do you need to be strong for? But mother, I want to be strong so that I can be your Kleobis and your Biton, so that I can have the honor of carrying you in your old age. Would you scorn this? You could have a daughter who plants trees, leaves a mark on the world.
Maybe a big part of the problem is my sensibility: there are disagreements between me and my mother, that may be objectively slight; my mother may perceive some cracks in between us in her mind, and in my own I magnify them into giant abysses, because I still fret for her approval. Whether they are cracks or abysses in her mind, I don't know; our relationship lies on the unsaid.
I've been reading Momolina Marconi- I've been TRYING to read Momolina Marconi, because her writing style is very... very... uh.... academic..... But I'm still trying to power through it. I liked reading about ανασυρμα. I knew about Baubo, but not about the women of Lycia against the waves, the woman of the Congo against the lion, the women of Lapland against the bear!... I love it. Baubo, I knew her, and I know no Goddess more powerful than her, Baubo, Βαυβω, I know of no other who will help us now - the one who conquered Demeter's unbreachable sadness, the one who ripped a smile out of the tear-streaked face of the mourning mother...
Back to what I spoke of last entry, about our allotted time - I'm young: blood rushes easily, I can feel it thumping in my hips sometimes. Perhaps one day I'll miss my libido. I don't know know what youth is; I don't know how long youth lasts; I don't know what I can do with mine or what I'll actually be able to do with mine; but perhaps one day I'll miss youth. I think - I fervently hope - life won't end with the end of youth, but perhaps I'll still miss it. I think of all that could happen in my old age, from a health standpoint... I'll probably miss my knees. My youth overall has been a mixed bag, I've only awakened to life relatively recently, but, even though I still lament having lost precious years of my life to... circumstances, I'm glad to be myself right now. I say it gingerly, timidly, almost too good to be true: I'm glad to be myself right now. There are many other girls like me whose youths are lost in things like chasing after men's approval or chasing after the image of a "perfect", unhealthy body, and many of them never exit this chase. I often think of what we could be. I often think of what young women could be, if we weren't preyed upon, drugged, deluded, trapped in these chases and in these houses of mirrors. I think that being a young woman would be beautiful - could be beautiful, and I hope that I'm living at least a part of that potential beauty right now. Are we not meant to be proud, hard-headed, spear-headed? Are we not, in this time when blood rushes easily? It leaps in our wrists, it thumps in our hips, it overflows and spills into the world; there is much work to be done, and much pleasure to be had. I understood one time what the holy Maiden was (which has always been hard for me to grasp - I don't even share that belief about trinity anymore, it doesn't quite speak to me) when I was on my canoe, and I saw that the horizon lying low on the sea was incredibly, blindingly, ecstatically white, like if that summer morning's sun had evaporated and blended seamlessly with the rest of the sky. And the mountain was bathed in that light.
From the darkness of the room the child comes, just out of my half-lidded gaze. As I start to drift into sleep, she comes at the foot of my bed. I've been having some nightmares, on and off lately, the kind of nightmares that crush you into something small and terrified; the kind of nightmares that you can only imagine being hurled at you from the void/the divine, but it hurts too much, so I imagine that the child stands at the foot of my bed: she waits for me to fall asleep so that she can enter my body and become me again in my dreams. I've become wary, I know that she's there now, but I don't get up: what am I gonna do, not sleep? I know I can't keep her away, and I'm not ashamed anymore of what she might do or say while I dream: I've decided to simply not concern myself with shame, when she comes to visit. I see you, I tell her. I know what you want to do: why again? What do you hope to achieve with that? You know I fear her and I hate her - oh by now you know I do - but she grins now, out of the corner of my eye, a simple childlike grin like a million others. Nothing, she says. It just feels good. She says this, simply, clearly, and she grins that innocent grin: you know I hate her, I've always hated her, but now my heart warms up and in the darkness of the room I think I'm starting to believe her, I'm starting to believe her with my whole chest (and it's a relief I didn't think I deserved).
I feared that January would be dark and bleak, and she brought snow. Not directly to my doorstep, but in towns near me, it has snowed. It's been about ten years since I've seen even just a little bit of snow. It just doesn't happen around here, near the coast; and indeed it didn't in my hometown, but if I look inland, the fields are white and they finally start to match the peaks of the highest mountains, who must've been waiting years for the lands at their feet to join them. It's been so long: I barely remember ever seeing something like this. The fields are white... It's beautiful, though I wonder how people survive in climates where this happens every year. I've never felt this COLD before.
I miss being in nature. It's absurd to think about and to admit, I wanted to go to the mountain at least once during winter break, but it ended up being way more about slacking off than anything else to be honest, and now my mornings are no longer free. And neither are my afternoons. And the world is never free from this cold. Before winter break I'd taken up the habit of sitting outside, first thing in the morning, under the still-dark sky and the still-glowing moon, and just pay attention. But after these snowfalls, these rainstorms, these gelate, it's gotten so cold that every evening I tell myself I'm definitely gonna do it tomorrow, and every morning I face the window and my whole body & mind say... no. I guess I'm gonna wait until it gets just a little bit warmer. I don't think it'll snow again.
As a sort of resolution for this school year I've decided to not be too hard on myself if I can't manage to do everything on my to-do list, everyday, perfectly, in the exact way I want to. I've decided so because if I'm not more patient with the amount of things I have to do or want to do + the amount of time I have, I'm gonna go kinda insane I think. If one afternoon I have to skip a study session because I have to do cardio, it's okay. If one evening I want to write and I skip a meditation session, it's okay. There are many things I have/want to do and it's okay if I don't get the time to do them all in a single day every single day. I often chase delusions like "fuck!!! I didn't manage to do everything today but I'll definitely make tomorrow The Perfect Day where I will read 10000 pages + strength straining + cardio + 2 hour study session + 30 min meditation session + long walk + write + code" The Perfect Day doesn't exist. There's only so much time in a day. And it isn't a problem, because my life probably won't end with this day. And I've come to a time in my life where I feel that I'm reliable. I trust myself and I want to cultivate this trust. I trust myself to do my best and to choose the best possible things in both the small and great paths of life.
At the bus stop, kids were picking up straight ice from the roofs of parked cars and they were throwing the chunks at each other. 🎵 It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas 🎵
Today it wasn't cold, though. It was a Sunday morning, the light coming in from the window was beautiful, the road was still wet from the night's rainfall, and the sunlight felt so good on my skin - but I had things to do. I was taken away to my tasks, to my chores; along the road I saw the pines and the brooms and the brown-and-blonde brush beneath them, and I clutched my heart. I was taken to my city, but I couldn't be with her: I had my mind on the hiking trail that opens up just beside the road, and the woods and the glimmer of sea you can glimpse from there, but I couldn't be with her. I am from here, though, and the people here speak my same dialect, they eat the same fish and drink the same wine, they hike the same trails and swim in the same sea: they'll understand if I grab one of them randomly on the street and say, me devi portà a [REDACTED] o muoio. ("Allu mari mi portati"...)
There are a few songs that have, like, an almost religious significance to me. Very few songs in fact, and most of them are italian folk for some reason. Allu Mari, of course, because... Mary Daly already said it. And then, Il Testamento Dell'Avvelenato, which is the italian adaptation of Lord Randal basically, but in some versions his mother has conspired against him too. Like this version that I love the most out of them all. Some other versions sound somber in a way that's excessive - that tone matches with the story which is being told, sure, but the problem is that it matches too well and it all ends up being predictable, almost boring. But this version is not like that: it's not defeated, limp and moping, and you can tell from the very beginning, with that loud, solemn bagpipe that seems to spread over the surrounding air and float over the hills and command you to listen and respect. The whole song is so majestic and whimsical, playful, danceable at the same time. The ending: the crescendo until the final, supreme exclamation of "Mi devo confessare, mama la mia mama", and then the sudden drop into the most beautiful part of all, probably: M'aveeeeete avveleeeenaaaaaaaatoooo, maaaaaaaama la mia maaaaaaama; m'avete avveeelenaaaaaato eeeee 'l mio core sta maaaaaale... All but the bagpipe stop in front of the most sorrowful crying out of the dying man, the revelation of the most painful sort of betrayal that exists; and in comparison to the curses and hellfire that the man sends out in other versions, this cry mostly sounds pathetic, tearful, disbelieving, still bending down, even after betrayal and murder, to the omnipotence of the mother figure. Who gave him life and now gives him death. Not a single surge towards revenge, and no figurative speech, not a metaphor or a hint of irony (Lord Randal, "I leave her hell and fire"), one could even read no recrimination; the whole sentence is so simple and literal, just a description of how things are: m'avete avvelenato e 'l mio core sta male. Such innocence in the face of tragedy brings tears to my eyes almost every time. And after this world-shattering, life-destroying, heart-destroying cry, the music picks up again, in the same solemn but danceable tone, to show that the world goes on, uncaring, powerful despite the dying man's faintness, beautiful despite his hideous death, thriving despite his heartbreak.
2 January, 2026
this entry is about: meaningless coincidences, pasta al forno and the time of our youths & lives, January, piety, motherhood, daughterhood, closure or lack thereof
On the morning of the 1st, a sequence of dreams that I was having ended with the janitor, the blessed old woman whom I often talk to about gardening, sitting down next to me in bed, putting a hand on my back and speaking softly to me. She began by saying: get up now, to begin the new year in the spirit of responsibility. Then she said other things that I don't remember, other advice, other "here's what you're gonna do"'s, and I jolted awake at the end of it. I really did get up, I saw that it was only 9 AM, and I'd gotten little sleep, so I went back to bed. Sorry, old woman. But I DID technically get up for a little while... I wish I could remember what she said.
Last year, I'd gotten my period on New Year's Eve, and I lifted my head in wonder. The timing has obviously shifted a bit since then, and I did not expect, this afternoon, to start bleeding. I said oh, it's too early - one week early, it must be spotting, a lot of spotting but spotting nonetheless. But it kept going, so I guess I've got my period now, on the 1st of January. What a coincidence - trying to not show my giddiness here - I wonder why. Maybe it's because I needed to write: it's been a long time. Maybe it's because of all the excesses of New Year's Eve. We had dinner at a friend's country house, by the fireplace (and then for the countdown to midnight we went to the city square, but we ended up going back to her house because they were playing motherfucking Gianni Morandi.) It's been a long time since I ate this much: crostini con paté di olive pasta al forno rustici arrosticini freschi di griglia pollo and spumante, and wine, and Baileys, which left me sober as a fucking nun for some reason, but I still had a lot of fun.
I follow this woman on social media who's very concerned with the passage of time and with the shortness of life. It's gonna pass you by, she says, and shakes her head endlessly. Reading about her worry is sobering. She's so right: why doesn't it haunt us every step of our life? The year has turned and I'm alive, and I'm young, but I won't be alive forever and I won't even be young for such a long time. I'm very good at handling food, TOO good at handling food, I can never gain weight: even though I always complain about this, on New Year's I was very happy that I could gorge myself on Baileys and pasta al forno without seeing the consequences on the scale. But let's be real, it won't be this way forever. People usually lose their fast metabolism as they age. One day, if I eat pasta al forno and Baileys on New Year's Eve, I will have to suffer the consequences and pay my penance on the treadmill. My days of drinking Baileys and eating pasta al forno carelessly are numbered. Not only that, but my days of drinking Baileys and eating pasta al forno AT ALL are numbered, because when I'm dead I will never taste Baileys or pasta al forno again for eternity. It's stupid but it's true, do you ever think about how you will never experience things ever again, when you're dead?? I have a certain, limited, allotted time to taste delicious things, and once it's over, throughout the span of all eternity as countless galaxies merge and dissolve I will never get the chance to do it ever again. I have orgasms and it's great. I have an allotted time to have orgasms and once that time is over, once I'm dead, I will never experience them ever again, not even after all the stars in this universe have fizzled out. I'm on my period: I light incense and candles for this day. One day I'll enter menopause (I wonder how I'll deal with hot flashes...) and once it sets in I'll have to say goodbye to periods, forever, and eventually say goodbye to all of myself, forever. One of the things I miss the most about summer is being naked or half-naked all the time. Now, in the shower, after a shower, I like to take time to look at myself. This body that I love, it won't last for a long time; old age will ravage it, probably, and even after that, it will disappear into the earth. I have an allotted time to be with it, and an even shorter time to be with it as it currently is. The face that stares back at me when I look in the mirror, I know it well, but before long it will change: I have an allotted time to see it at all, and an even shorter allotted time to see it as it currently is. Once the time allotted to me is over, I will never again feel pleasure, joy, pride, even pain or grief, in all of eternity. It's all so stupid, yes, it's so obvious, but don't we hide it from ourselves a lot of the time, too? And it's one thing to say: I'll die, and it's another thing to expand on it and say: I'll never have an orgasm again, I'll never look at myself again, I'll never drink Baileys or eat pasta al forno again... Isn't it important to be aware? I'm very grateful for the time I have to drink Baileys and eat pasta al forno. I'm still full from all that pasta al forno, it was so fucking gooooooooood holy shit. Creamy.........
Winter break is being super good, and I'm trying not to think about it but I'm kinda afraid of when it'll be over. I've never really trusted January; I've always found Giano Bifronte to be really creepy. I can't stop referencing an old italian Burger King commercial that aired years ago after winter break, it went: "Feste finite. Freddo. Triste." ("Holidays over. Cold. Sad.") and that's LITERALLY HOW IT IS, holidays are over, there's nothing to look up to, it's cold and you can't do anything... I hope it won't be so bad. The saying, "L'Epifania che tutte le feste porta via"... doesn't it sound so sad??
Where will piety lead me? Piety towards the closer mother, not the greater one. I grew up reading about and studying pietas, and eventually it stuck with me; not Aeneas' or any man's pietas, but the concept of it, "piety" as in the sense of duty and devotion towards bigger things, towards divinity and towards the parents. I love the word "piety", I use it a lot now, and when I use it I mean its old meaning, I mean pietas. Where will piety towards my mother lead me? The closer mother, not the greater one. The greater one is a metaphor, yes, I'll admit, she's a construct: she exists in order for that piety to exist, and that piety serves as the framework for a proper life. But the closer one is right here, right in front of my eyes, and I came from her: she doesn't exist for piety, but her existence demands piety nonetheless. And I'm not saying I disacknowledge this, no, nor that she doesn't deserve piety: I do, and she does, she certainly does. My mother loves me, she confides in me, she asks me for advice, she takes pride in my achievements, she smiles upon me, she cares for me. And I love my mother. In fact, maybe the problem is that I love my mother too much. I have a deep respect for my mother, isn't that clear by now?... The greater one and the closer one: one reflected in the other. I have a deep devotion and, again, piety for the mother, for my own mother, and maybe the problem is that I expect such great, all-encompassing piety from her as well. It's normal for it not to be there, it's normal for my mother to not think as I think and feel as I feel; it's just disappointing sometimes. It's normal. Every self-respecting woman, every feminist or feminist-leaning woman feels disappointed with her mother sometimes, with her old-mindedness: I think we all have felt this, I think we all know. We love our mothers and we are perplexed as to why she doesn't see the spark in herself that we see in her, and as to why she doesn't see the spark in ourselves that we see in her.
And I'm always looking up to my mother, trying to satisfy her in every possible way: but with the way that I am, and with the way that she is, and in all the ways in which we are so different from each other, it'd be possible only if I renounced my self. Of course she doesn't demand this of me, of course I don't want this either - of course this want of mine is irrational, of course this fear of mine is irrational: I think it's common among those who grew up as I did. I fear that my mother's fed up with all my eccentricities, me and my unshaven legs, me and my weightlifting, me and my colorful eyeshadow, me and my tacky nail polish, me and my reusable cotton rounds, me and my washable menstrual underwear, me and my refusal of her Jehovah, me and my reluctance to yield to wooing, me and my hikes, me and my nighttime trips in the wilderness. And... maybe she IS a little bit fed up but it shouldn't infringe on a mother's unconditional love, right? The problem is that I don't believe in unconditional love. I don't believe in unconditional love from anyone. It isn't a bad thing - it's an unrealistic desire to have, it's too high of a demand. And I wonder if and when my mother stopped loving me, started loving me again, somewhere during the course of my life. She can't have loved me when I was really young. That's the other problem: the fact that I remember, and my mother remembers too, probably, even though I wish she didn't; the fact that my mother was there and remembers being there, and that perhaps she doesn't have any regrets regarding how she handled things. That's the other problem: that's the biggest problem. I can't imagine my mother loving me when I was a child: even apart from the basic fact that I was impossible to love, if she loved me she would have guided me, she would have helped me, like a mother's supposed to.
The fact is that my mother wasn't ready. My mother, my poor mother, it isn't all her fault. Soon I will be 19, the same age she first got married. Me and my sister are not from that marriage, she had us when she was older, but still: I don't think she ever had the chance to learn how to deal with being a mother. Not in her mother's house, not in her low-level schools, not in her Kingdom Hall, not in her early marriage. I don't think she ever had the chance to learn how to deal with me, specifically: the child that I was. I cannot speak of it all. The entirety of it will forever lie in silence, to the rest of the world as well as between me and her. They should have warned me that I was about to be born to her, they should have warned her that she was about to birth me: she couldn't possibly have been ready to handle something like me. And the fact is that she hardly did. My poor mother, she wasn't ready, but I was a child: I wasn't ready either, I didn't know what to do either. The fact is that I wasn't ready, and she wasn't ready, and I couldn't possibly have done anything about it, and she didn't do anything either. I've already wrote that I was born as a mass of everything that was alien to my mother. She wasn't ready. She didn't know what to do. I must've frightened her for years, with my mere existence, with what I did and what happened to me unknowingly: my mother dropped me like a bunch of hot coals, my mother avoided my gaze, because she was terrified of me. Mother, I'm sorry to have been such a leech on you, I'm sorry I must demand this much of you for my survival, but I think I am allowed to say this: a mother's indifference is hatred; a mother's neglect is death. And I am afraid, exactly as I was back then, of being under her gaze. Back then, I was afraid. I didn't know anything, except that I was afraid of being under her gaze. Mater, iudice te, vereor. That I was afraid in general, that if I had just a little bit more awareness I would have clung to her and cried for help, for guidance; and she would've turned her eyes from me. How could this be my daughter? I bet she thought: how could this be my daughter? How could this thing have been created from my flesh and blood?
And, again, the problem is that she remembers and that she probably doesn't think she did anything wrong. My mother loves me, now. My mother confides in me. Years ago, when my sister started going to therapy, nearly every night she took me by her side, and she lamented: why do you think she ended up this way? Do you think I've done anything wrong while raising her? Do you think I've been a bad mother? Do you think it's my fault? I don't know if these were rhetorical questions: I don't know if she ever really had these doubts. (She should have them, she really should have them.) I had some recrimination to do, sure. But I love my mother. If honesty was going to hurt her, then I'd bite my tongue. And everytime she asked this, I answered: no, mom, you never did anything wrong, you're the best mother we could've asked for. I said it again, and again, and again, every time she asked. I'd say: it's not your fault, NOTHING is your fault; and by doing that, I put the blame on us. I put the blame on us, as children, for anything that was ever wrong with us. Looking back, I regret debasing myself like this. But if she asked again... I love my mother. If honesty is going to hurt her, then I'll bite my tongue. Me and my mother don't argue - that's another problem, probably: we have never settle things, we always gloss over them, and that's how you DON'T get closure on anything. But, I can deal with not talking about it, my mother can't deal with talking about it - so it's okay, I'll bear this weight for her.
I've said before, when I wrote our Genesis, that I could not write the rest of our holy book even if I wanted to: it's still true, I cannot speak of it all, it goes too deep and it's too painful. But I've woven - blindly, unthinkingly, frantically: I think it shows - this tapestry and it's not such a bad way to find some relief, some closure, if every other avenue is closed. It goes to show that the child has grown up, at least somewhat.
Oh, you know me - I can't help but feel like this is a good omen. I hope that this year my blood runs copious, flaming, red...