Evening facebook post, 21 November, 2015.
And Milan too, has something very special going on. A twinkle in its eye if you can pause to know it. Another city that loves its inhabitants whether they are aware of it or not. Gorgeous. Such characters, such lives!! Each different, each unique, each worthy of its own beautiful movie or book. It IS the clothes, people. The clothes are the start of the story for me, then the beard, the glasses, the coat, the hairstyle, the facial expression, the hand gestures. But how I LOVE these hand gestures. The bicycle riders and their different postures, the rose sellers from all parts of the world - each with their own stories.
Yesterday, I walked past a big group of Ghanaian and Senegalese (well I presume so because any of these trinket and gadget sellers who approach me and we have a small chat, (and there have been many), they've been from Ghana or Senegal. Anyway, this group were absolutely killing themselves laughing about I've no idea what, but absolutely bent over holding their stomachs laughing. As I approached and walked past, I had to laugh too.. so so funny to see people absolutely losing it over something - together. Fantastic. Small moments make my morning.
And yesterday, I took my first tram. Another of the peculiar satisfactions, albeit small, that one has when travelling is facing and mastering a new public transport system (I'm sure many of you know what I mean and how it feels at the end of the day realising you now know how to get about the city jumping on and off the various forms of transport - very liberating). Well anyway, this tram; old, rickety, completely wooden and polished inside, looks narrow on the outside but has a really quite intriguingly spacious and expansive feeling on the inside, is, gloriously, set up so that you must face or sit across from your fellow travellers, just like the trains in Buenos Aires. And how I love this! Not row behind row of cold anonymity, but a sharing - an opportunity to connect and make eye contact, however fleeting, if and when you want. These small opportunities to exchange a smile on the train make all the difference to a society. And I love it.
Anyway, little things, that explode with joy... a young teenage girl with 100s of beaded braids jumps off this tram and has left her phone on the seat. She runs across in front of the tram and is gone. A blonde old lady, but quite old, who many years ago had a great deal of botox and lip injections, spies the phone, jumps from her seating place opposite, grabs the phone, waves it in the air and yells "teléfono! teléfono!" The tram comes alive!! The driver, who had already started to take off again, stops the tram immediately and the windows on either side of the tram are slammed open with loud bangs and everyone yells out each side of the tram "Teléfono!!! Teléfono!!!" I laugh inwardly and have a huge smile. I LOVE it! My eyes water and my heart beats with joy :) Then we all spy the teenager on the opposite side of the road frantically rummaging through her bag. She looks up to the cacophony of sound coming from our tram and beams such a smile and races over to get her phone from the old lady's hand. Job done. The windows slam shut again. And the tram moves on. Inside, for us, (and I feel a part of it) everyone congratulates themselves on a job well done and proceeds to discuss just how easily it is to lose your phone like this "just slips out of your pocket without you even noticing! Nod, nod, si, si". All in agreement. Not that I can actually understand all the words but with the gestures and hurrumphs, clicks and all, it's clear. Little victories of kindness and teamwork win the day.
These things, happening in abundance, everywhere. Amidst the pretty awful, truthfully scary and unnerving events also going on in our societies, everywhere. It's my only antidote I guess, our only antidote, to keep looking and noticing the beautiful acts in front of our eyes, every hour, every day. I note then that they are much more numerous than the big acts of atrocity, and I'm comforted, moment to moment in this way. And just as I went to end this little piece, and after the euphoria (almost) of recalling these joyous moments, a flatness came as I returned to see the one glass, one plate, one set of cutlery at my table, I looked up to the 2nd or third floor window of a lovely big of apartment across the street from this great little enoteca, to spy into the life of another for a second. A guy is fastidiously cleaning out his refrigerator, it looks like, standing up, in his green undies and grey t-shirt. All I can see is his back, his white, hairy man's thighs, and his bottom in his green undies. Oblivious to the world, so comfy getting about his house in his green undies. Haha. I hope there's a woman inside who is loving that very small scene in front of her eyes, and that she really loves him. Good god how I love the unguarded moment, the people who can't help but be themselves. Divine, perfect, beautiful. Take care of the one beside you kids, you will miss the small moments when they're gone.
