Over the riverbank

On going project through my roots and the land of my youth

Cross that riverbank was to repeat a ritual that my body recognised perfectly. Leaving behind the village and its rules, to find a space of freedom.

I instinctively decided to cut straight through the tall vegetation to quickly reach the river.

On that short journey I remembered many things.

Hide-and-seek with the neighbourhood kids, the first joints with friends, the first drink, the naive sex between teenagers, and the big fires with the “ballotta” on summer nights. Yes, me and my group used to take refuge in that strip of wild land to escape from the system, the country's system.

Work, get married, buy a house, be elegant and composed in public, to prevent others from speaking ill of you. For us, the country just had to keep fucking its liver on some stool in one of its many bars.

Come to think of it, as a kid that green wall of dirt and grass seemed totally unnecessary.

The river seemed too far away to be a danger to me, until my dad took me to see the flood on Christmas Eve in 1998. The civil defence was reinforcing the embankment with sandbags. Everyone was in a strange frenzy, I wasn't scared.

I look at the wood that surrounds me and I realise, perhaps for the first time, how special it is. It is the thinnest forest I have ever seen, from the time it leaves the mountains to the sea, this strip of trees and vegetation accompanies the river all the way, only widening by a few hundred metres.

I grew up in a long forest and I wonder if this peculiarity has affected my psyche.

I feel happy, it's been years since I found myself alone on the other side of the riverbank, savouring its smells.

Every winter this strip of land changes because of the floods, it changes the forest, the paths and the course of its little rivers.

In spite of this and my long absence, I manage to get my bearings and recognise the conformity of the land, I understand where to go.

Among the swirls of water, I can still see the circle of stones that contained our rebellious fires on summer nights.

I stop and perceive something unique and glaring, the country I used to carry inside me has changed.

Among the foliage of the trees and the flowing water I feel that something has risen.

For a moment I see myself, I am in my father's house and I am looking out of the living room window. I study the netting, which divides our garden from my uncle's, and notice a protrusion in its lower end that runs the length of it, a sort of bulge. I wonder who would notice it, I wonder if my dad ever stopped to look at it.

I see my dog, Rex, wagging his tail and walking, leaning against the fence in an attempt, absurd to us humans, to feel closer to that world beyond the fence. Ten years must have passed and I think with nostalgia of his invisible sign. Visible only to those who know, destined to be forgotten.

The river has changed, its skin is different, like mine.