Il Salame, storia e origini

Salame: la storia dalle origini del nome alla sua eccellenza

In origine, presso i romani, era insicia e salumen, nel Medioevo divenne salamem e salacca, per poi evolversi in salame per gli italiani e infine salami, in quasi tutte le lingue del mondo. Sono questi i nomi che nel tempo si sono succeduti per indicare il principe dei salumi, generalmente composto di carne suina scelta, macinata prima, speziata in vari modi poi, infine insaccata nel budello e lasciata stagionare. E ognuno di quei nomi (eccetto insicia da cui deriva però insaccato) contiene il riferimento al sale, che per il salame non rappresenta solo un ingrediente, ma una tecnica di conservazione. In realtà, non è raro che la vicenda di un nome si indentifichi con l’oggetto che descrive, ma nel caso del salame è particolarmente vero. 

Ed è una storia antichissima di saperi, sapori, contaminazioni culturali, tradizioni e innovazioni che in gran parte accompagna la storia delle nostre abitudini alimentari e della nostra civiltà nel suo complesso. In particolare, di un paese: l’Italia. In Italia, infatti, non solo si producono le più numerose varietà di salami al mondo, ma è anche dove quel tipo di preparazione ha origine e dove è diventato arte della tavola. Un’arte raffinatasi nel tempo, fatta di gusto e tecnica, che spesso associata ai suoi compagni d’elezione, il pane e il vino - il quale talvolta ne è anche ingrediente -, richiama sfere più intime della vita come famiglia e convivialità.

Anche Ulisse mangiava salumi

E l’origine del salame è talmente italiana da affondare le radici della sua tradizione al tempo degli Etruschi e dei Romani, esplodere e consolidarsi nel Medio-evo, per poi differenziarsi di località in località, di campanile in campanile, dando vita a decine di preparazioni diverse, grazie a tecniche di macinatura, spezie, stagionature tra loro alternative dalle quali si sono sviluppate le attuali tipicità locali. E allo stesso tempo è una storia tanto intimamente europea da conservare tracce importanti dell’incontro tra latini e germani.

Ma procediamo con ordine e senza fretta. Il viaggio è lungo e pieno di curiosità e attraversa i millenni e un bel pezzo di Mediterraneo. Infatti, ad essere rigorosi, prima di Etruschi e Romani, già in epoca preistorica ci sono le prime esperienze di conservazione e lavorazione della carne. Ma il sale ancora non è usato: al processo di essiccazione si provvede o con il calore del sole o con quello della fiamma viva e del fumo. Il salto in avanti avviene con gli egiziani: appaiono per la prima volta dei prodotti simili agli insaccati odierni che pare fossero apprezzati anche alla corte del faraone, tanto che se ne trova una testimonianza sulla tomba di Ramsete III. Il primo a scrivere di salumi è però Omero. Siamo un paio di secoli dopo il 1000 a.C., e in alcuni passi dell’Odissea si fa riferimento a un composto a base di sangue e di grasso.

Non è, però, ancora propriamente salame come lo intendiamo oggi, almeno. Come non è forse salame quella lucanica che viene talvolta menzionata da Aristofane molti secoli dopo – siamo nel IV secolo prima di Cristo - nelle sue commedie e di cui sembra rimasto intatto solo il nome. A dirla tutta, siamo nel campo delle supposizioni e delle ricostruzioni circa gli ingredienti e le tipologie di prodotto, ma una cosa è certa: fin dall’antichità gli uomini lavorano la carne di maiale con varie tecniche per conservarla a lungo e goderne a distanza le caratteristiche e il gusto.

SPQR, la storia diventa romana

Per avere testimonianze più certe occorre spostarsi, appunto, in Italia e attendere qualche secolo, quando entrano in scena prima gli Etruschi e poi i Romani e dove probabilmente gran parte della storia del salame si gioca lungo quella via Salaria che collega Roma con l’Adriatico proprio per trasportare l’elemento essenziale per la lavorazione e conservazione degli alimenti: il sale. Ma la carne in quei salumi, pare, sia solo cotta: occorrerà molto tempo ancora perché la base del salame diventi la carne di suino cruda. Di questo, si ritrova testimonianza anche in Catone il Censore, che dedica al tema della salatura della carne suina alcuni passi di un suo famosissimo trattato, il De Agricoltura del II secolo a.C.

Cotta o cruda che sia, i romani non sembrano farsene un cruccio e i loro poeti (Orazio per dirne uno) in molte opere citano con entusiasmo quelle preparazioni, in genere riservate alle feste e ai banchetti. In quest’epoca i romani chiamano i salumi ancora insicia (che richiama l’insaccamento della carne) o botulus, Solo nella tarda epoca latina si affaccia il nome salumen, che avrà però bisogno ancora di qualche secolo per diventare il nome esclusivo delle carni suine insaccate e stagionate: al momento indica tutti gli alimenti lavorati con il sale.

In ogni caso, il salame è già diventato una consolidata tradizione italica che si è diffusa nel resto dell’Impero. Non solo: la lavorazione della carne di maiale sviluppa in Italia anche altre specialità come il prosciutto, che pare abbia sedotto Annibale, e la mortadella, nell’allora Bonomia, ovvero Bologna. La passione dei romani per i salumi si ritrova ancora oggi nella toponomastica capitolina: il nome di via Panisperna - sede del gruppo di fisici guidati da Enrico Fermi - significa pane e prosciutto, rispettivamente panis e perna in latino.

Un salame barbaramente buono

Roma decade e l’Impero si trasforma in tante entità nazionali, di stampo cristiano e latino-barbarico. L’Italia, dopo gli Ostrogoti, diventa la casa dei Longobardi che provano a unificarla in un solo regno. Di mezzo c’è il Papato e quell’unione non “s’ha da fare”. Ma i Longobardi uniscono l’Italia in modo diverso: sotto il loro regno si diffondono lungo la penisola dei procedimenti che rinnovano l’ormai secolare tradizione della lavorazione della carne. E la vera novità è che si trova il modo di trattare e conservare in sicurezza anche la carne cruda.

Con l’intensificarsi del consumo di maiale, che allo stato brado è molto diffuso nei boschi europei, iniziano a profilarsi le zone a maggiore vocazione salumaia, che forse non a caso, coincidono con quelle a maggiore presenza longobarda: Sannio, Umbria, Pianura padana, in particolare Lombardia ed Emilia. In quest’epoca inizia, così, a emergere in maniera più spinta la tendenza alla differenziazione delle lavorazioni e degli ingredienti. I salumifici dell’epoca sono i conventi e le grange – la versione medioevale delle aziende agricole: è lì che convergono le carni provenienti dal circondario.

Per indicare il salame si usa ancora la generica parola latina salumen. Ma i tempi corrono veloci e, tra alti e bassi, dopo il Mille il consumo di carne suina e di pesce nordico aumentano. Tanto da rendere necessario distinguere il baccalao – ovvero il merluzzo salato – dalla carne di maiale. Si afferma il nome salamem, affiancato da salacca. Secondo alcuni, l’originaria comunanza del nome spiegherebbe perché nell’italiano familiare sia salame sia baccalà indichino bonariamente uno sciocco. La salatura, infatti, conferirebbe quella rigidità tipica dei meno intelligenti, conservandone l’intima bontà.

❤️

A

Her name starts with A, that name is a constant in my life, 

not because of previous girlfriends but because of the evocation that name carries.

I hope you find your serenity one day. May you learn to look inside yourself and make your insecurities your strengths, fears and courage. I hope that one day, far, far away, you'll find that a person capable of making you mature, grow, understand, know. And I hope that person is myself. I truly loved you, honey, more than you loved me and this, unfortunately, is a bill that only I can pay.

I wanted her like I've never wanted anyone before. I wanted her against all common sense, against all pride, against all reticence, hesitation, preconception, second thoughts, lucidity. I wanted her so much, too much, I wanted her more than she wanted me, and maybe she never wanted me, but she was there and continued to buzz around me, of course - I wanted her even more, to fill this obvious distance between us. I wanted her and I still want her, that's the problem. I want her even though she treated me like a "weird" because deep down I know I was strange.

I want her even though she's gone from my life, even though there's no longer a future together and maybe it wasn't even there before, but it might seem, even though she's dating others, even though everyone else — potential boyfriends, potential men who will win at the roulette wheel life and they will be able to make her fall in love like I was unable to do in thirteen months by giving her everything, even the benefit of the doubt which in reality was already a certainty; certainty of having become entangled in a sterile, counterproductive, burnt-out story.

I want her so much that I learned to tell myself: to clarify, to vent, to calm myself, I learned to tell about us, about her, therefore about myself, a new me that I discovered day after day and hour after hour, re- building me after her mere presence - but even more so her absence - had shattered me, approaching me in an indifferent, superficial or rather, weird way - a word she likes a lot.

There is no future, I know it. We will never be a couple (but always never say never is the mantra). Yet I would trust her. She will never fall in love with me because, as a wise man said with that brutal honesty that only those familiar with life have: you have given yourself too much, she already knows you, she has lost interest. To paraphrase, I'm trite. The truth is that she doesn't know me at all, I would like to point that out. But she didn't want to do it, I would like to clarify this too. I, on the other hand, had to get to know myself again. I had to introduce myself again, new, unpublished, unknown, like a distant relative who you have never seen before but to whom you are linked by sharing a surname, blood, family trees.

I had to present myself with this baggage, these new experiences: hello, I'm the new you who only retains appearance and generality of the old you; I bring you new doubts, I bring you old wounds with new pain, I bring you your insecurities - the usual ones, did you by any chance think you had overcome them? — and the conflicts, the conflicts against the usual you and the new unknown — you will not win, so you better make him a friend, this unknown enemy of yourself that you cannot defeat, you better learn to live with this unknown troublemaker who chases an unrequited love and throws himself into the void against all common sense.

She was my void. In everything. The leap into the void. The emptiness in my stomach. The void of substance and content and feelings and perspectives and investments. She gave me a little that seemed like a lot, and with that much that was in fact little I was reassured that I had achieved peace of mind and it would be an understatement to talk about giving or donating. She gave me so little that sometimes I think I even dreamed it. She gave me, for my perspective, for the nothing I had given up until that time - that, in the evident imbalance of the relationship, I remained anchored to my scale while she, in the lightness of hers, was already flying towards new destinations, other stories, new interests, more tantalizing pleasures.

And then, let's face it, she's not the one who's strange. She is the representation that most conforms to the average Vietnamese woman - interested, shrewd, straight forwarded, perhaps apparently superficially and falsely modern but internally linked to the values of the traditional family, but only in words, then in reality I didn't know or perhaps I deliberately ignored, unable to invent scenarios reliable ones that could justify my way of thinking about her. Was it me who was stupid? Am I the one who believed her words, who saw sincerity in them, who fondled her when perhaps she should have been slapped to make her see reason and recognize our relationship? I should have helped her to be found when we had to get lost, to be there when I had to leave. Love is an ironic twist of fate. And a sarcastic joke about life. I thought she was the one after our first pseudo phone conversation with Zalo? It was there, in those hours condensed in a pleasant conversation with an almost stranger whose photographic features I remembered well but not the look, not the look because we had not yet looked intensely into each other's eyes, that I understood, I hoped, I believed that finally after so much wandering in vain, finally after so much waiting, I had finally been rewarded: finally I said, her. And I felt it was mine from the first time we went out, I felt it was part of my life, like a phantom limb: it wasn't there, but I felt it. It was there, we had already met in another time and another space, it was destiny that had told us, inspiration from the oriental idea of love, perhaps perfect or imperfect but it suited both of us perfectly: we just had to meet, it was just that the effort and once made, here we are.

But we weren't here. Or rather she was there, there, everywhere, with the gift of transmutation of those who do not anchor themselves to any shore. It wasn't mine, it was hers, of herself, of her past, of her limits, of her preconceptions, of her present of which I was part to a minimal extent - an ephemeral, unrealistic, surmountable, set aside extent - of her future of which I would not have done but part, I just didn't know. It was hers, of herself and of the interest she never had in me or maybe she did but she never told me openly, of the superficiality with which she treated me, apparent love, of the lies she foisted on me, and I reconstructed with unfailing sagacity, the fruit of my eidetic memory, which was once called photographic, of the apparent respect it has granted me, of the lack of education with which it moves in the world and with which I have allowed it to move in mine and with which I myself have downgraded, degraded, devalued to an incredible and smoky lover like a reflection for his luminous image, the result of skilful exercises in creativity.

She belongs to herself and it is right, very right, sacrosanct that she is, she belongs to herself. I just wanted her to share with me part of her belonging, of her existence: this is what I wanted. The truth is that someone who wants to leave and travel and discover cannot be forced to love and stay - even if that departure then becomes a return, even if the journey then becomes the road home: even if she returns, she doesn't stay - she leaves she will go again, and she has done so countless times, she has done so now too, the last one, in which she ideally turned to the web, almost running away, she smiled at me aware that we would never see each other again.

Maybe we won't see each other again but I don't know this yet, and neither does she, because perhaps I will no longer have the courage to flay my soul to discover her heart. I will no longer have the courage to believe in a future that doesn't exist and to delude myself into what doesn't exist and what I thought was. I don't want to give her the time needed to understand if he is the right one for her. And if not him another? One without a face, without a name for me, but with a precise physiognomy for her: the money as a defined and constant presence who will be able to live with it in a way I can't, not because money causes distance, of course, but and above all emotional distance. I won't have the courage to deal with a bastard but true reality: she doesn't want me and I don't want to allow myself the luxury of falling apart when she tells me that someone else has reached the finish line? I won't survive today's, I won't even survive tomorrow's, and then how many others?

I will no longer have courage because everything was exhausted when I persisted in continuing on viscous, slippery ground, on which I fell and got up and fell again: when, aware of defeat, I went to the bottom of the abyss, to the bottom of the the ocean, to touch the lowest point of my existence with my own hands in order to possibly go back up.

I still love you very much honey, I know I wanted to take care of you: of your wounds, of your good eyes, of your insecurities, and also on your securities, of your ambition. I wanted to undermine your superficial frankness only with words. I wanted, I wanted, I wanted and then I had to unhinge my wanted because you didn't want.

Il formaggio a casa mia

Realizzare il formaggio a casa invece che comprarlo al negozio non è risparmiare ma realizzare un sogno. Qualcuno tempo fa mi ha chiesto se era possibile realizzare un formaggio utilizzando varie qualità di latte - latte vaccino, o di capra e pecora nella stessa cagliata - e utilizzare anche scarti di formaggi di diverse qualità. La domanda rimane intelligente quindi una risposta la merita!

Ogni preparazione alimentare è sempre frutto di almeno 2 elementi:

La materia prima e..

Il PROCESSO

Il formaggio si produce sempre con latte, sale (non obbligatorio) e caglio (non obbligatorio), ma anche restando negli ingredienti manca un pezzo fondamentale:

I microrganismi.

Sono davvero pochissimi i formaggi prodotti senza l'intervento di batteri o altri microrganismi, nel 99% dei casi sono fondamentali sia per acidificare la cagliata, sia per fare maturare il formaggio, vedasi il Parmigiano Reggiano (R).

Ma il processo nel complesso è ciò che permette di creare migliaia di formaggi diversi. È possibile scremare il latte o lasciarlo intero. È possibile usare latte pastorizzato o latte crudo. È possibile aggiungere uno starter al latte sottoforma di lattoinnesto, di sieroinnesto, di scottainnesto, di liofilizzato, in forma liquida.. o anche di non usare nessuno starter e lasciare che l'ambiente di lavorazione contamini il latte. 

Si può lasciare acidificare in diverse condizioni per favorire lo sviluppo di alcuni batteri o di altri. Si può scegliere con controllo parziale o assoluto quali batteri e altri starter complementari/accessori utilizzare e questi saranno molta variabilità al prodotto. Poi si può scegliere un tipo o un altro di caglio, lasciarlo agire a temperature e per tempi diversi. Durante la coagulazione si può favorire o meno lo spurgo di siero anche grazie alla rottura della cagliata. 

La cottura della cagliata ha anche un'enorme influenza sul prodotto (l'importante è non portare mai la cagliata ad ebollizione, massimo 95°C). Anche la messa in forma e i possibili ribaltamenti delle forme influiscono, così come le quantità di sale aggiunte a secco o in salamoia e la durata di mantenimento nella salamoia. Infine si apre un ultimo enorme ventaglio di possibilità in funzione del tipo e della durata della stagionatura.

Insomma, gli ingredienti sono pochi, ma già con lo starter diversifichi tantissimo il prodotto che verrà. Considerando poi l'intero processo, capisci che i formaggi che è possibile produrre sono pressoché infiniti.

Un caseificio può produrre virtualmente qualunque formaggio, salvo requisiti dei disciplinari, che comunque stabiliscono se il formaggio può avere quel nome specifico, non se può essere identico ad un formaggio DOP. Ricordo a tutti: siamo andati sulla luna più di mezzo secolo fa': ricreare le condizioni in ogni luogo del mondo per riprodurre un prodotto alimentare tipico è possibile, assolutamente possibile.

L'incredibile varietà di formaggi dipende esclusivamente dalla tecnica usata per produrli, anche se gli ingredienti sono sempre gli stessi:

Il latte di partenza può essere usato crudo e mantenere tutto il suo contenuto naturale di microrganismi, o pastorizzato, quindi senza microrganismi naturalmente presenti

Il latte di partenza può essere usato intero, parzialmente scremato o scremato. Questo porterà a formaggi molto grassi o molto magri

La cagliatura può essere ottenuta con l'uso di caglio o addirittura per acidificazione naturale (l'abbassamento del pH porta a risultati simili a quelli dell'azione enzimatica del caglio)

Il caglio può avere un diverso rapporti di pepsina e chimosina, dando risultati diversi e può essere liquido (più puro) o in pasta, con ancora le lipasi gastriche dell'animale, dando lipolisi nel formaggio e sprigionando diversi aromi a carico degli acidi grassi a catena corta

La cagliatura può durare molto o molto poco

La rottura della cagliata può essere fatta lasciando pezzi molto grossi o molto piccoli, fino alla dimensione di chicchi di riso. Più la cagliata è rotta in piccoli frammenti e più questa perderà i suoi liquidi, risultando in formaggi più asciutti e consistenti

La temperatura durante la cagliatura può essere molto variabile, avendo anch'essa effetti sulla consistenza finale del formaggio

Durante la messa in forma della cagliata questa può essere premuta con forza per rilasciare molto siero o può non essere affatto premuta

Al latte in cagliatura possono venire aggiunte (e spesso avviene) delle colture starter di microrganismi come batteri e muffe. L'incredibile varietà di colture starter esistenti può portare a formaggi dai sapori molto diversi, alla formazione di muffe superficiali o interne e anche alla formazione dei buchi tipici di alcuni formaggi per la formazione di gas da parte dei batteri innestati

Prima della stagionatura le forme possono essere lasciate anche molte ore o giorni in salamoia (acqua salata), salando il formaggio, contribuendo alla formazione della crosta e possibilmente disinfettandola, e facilitando la disidratazione del formaggio

Prima della stagionatura la forma può essere forata anche in moltissimi punti da degli aghi sterili. Questo facilita l'ingresso di aria e ossigeno nella forma facilitando enormemente lo sviluppo di muffe interne, è quello che accade nei formaggi erborinati come il gorgonzola, lo stilton o il roquefort.

La stagionatura può durare pochi giorni o più di 2 anni. Immagina quante differenze possono esserci tra un formaggio di 2 giorni e uno di 36 mesi. Inoltre può avvenire in un range di umidità e di temperatura, e di circolazione d'aria

Durante la stagionatura la crosta può essere lavata periodicamente, raschiata o lasciata intatta. Anche questo rende ogni formaggio diverso dagli altri.

Questa carrellata non esaustiva e non precisa dovrebbe darti un idea su come sia possibile ottenere infiniti formaggi diversi partendo dallo stesso latte.

IL FALLIMENTO DELL’ ONU

Mai come quest’anno l’affollato show dell’Assemblea Generale dell’ONU sta confermando a New York che - a dispetto dei politici-attori che si contendono il red carpet e il microfono sotto gli obiettivi delle TV – il grande ed elegante “mondo blu” del Palazzo di Vetro non è stato in grado di partorire nemmeno un topolino.

Neppure uno degli scontri in atto nel mondo vede infatti l’ONU attore principale di mediazione o almeno compartecipe alle iniziative per il ripristino della pace: in Libano i razzi si incrociano sulla testa dei nostri soldati del contingente UNIIFIL che sostanzialmente non toccano palla, in Ucraina le forze ONU non sono nemmeno nominate, in Myanmar ci si ammazza a volontà con l’ONU totalmente assente, ma che non è neppure capace di dire la parola “fine” anche alle troppe crisi politiche locali.

Nessuno tiene più il conto delle miriadi di “risoluzioni” man mano approvate (e non parliamo poi di quelle respinte con diritto di veto) dall’Assemblea Generale o dal Consiglio di Sicurezza tanto che i dittatori o i colonnelli di turno continuano indisturbati a violare i principi fondamentali della “Carta” senza neppure più preoccuparsi di salvare la faccia. 

L’Onu (che peraltro è travolto dai debiti dei paesi inadempienti, che non riescono o non vogliono perfino pagare le quote annuali) è veramente in crisi e non va meglio con le sue Agenzie di vario ordine e grado che dovrebbero alleviare le sofferenze dei civili ma – dove ci riescono – portano a  risultati costi-benefici davvero inquietanti anche perché alle spalle dello “show” è nata, cresciuta e si è ben radicata una ressa di delegazioni, funzionari, ambasciatori e mantenuti vari che pesano come macigni sulle casse comuni, ma molto spesso senza dare concreti risultati.

Il vernissage dell’Assemblea plenaria è comunque da anni un “must” per i potenti della terra (salvo quelli inseguiti da mandati di cattura internazionali, non si sa mai) che arrivano, parlano per i pochi minuti loro assegnati nel disinteresse generale, salutano e se ne vanno rigorosamente senza neppure ascoltare quello che hanno da dire gli oratori successivi. Alle spalle dei leader stuoli di portaborse, diplomatici, assistenti, parlamentari che approfittano di fine settembre per qualche giorno di shopping a New York.

Resta davvero poco dello spirito originario dell’ONU, il valore almeno morale delle sue decisioni ha perso d’importanza anche per i “grandi” non vogliono cambiare neppure i regolamenti e si mantengono stretto il loro diritto di veto per bloccarsi a vicenda andando spesso contro la logica e soprattutto la giustizia per i propri interessi.

D'altronde i quasi 200 paesi partecipanti sono tutti equiparati tra loro e teoricamente San Marino e le Isole Barbados contano come gli USA al momento del voto: principio di equità e democrazia, ma che si inceppa poi al momento di concretizzare qualcosa.

Anche la Meloni è venuta, ha parlato (in buon inglese, un bel passo avanti rispetto a troppi premier italiani alla Renzi che neppure lo spiccicavano o si facevano ridere dietro per il loro accento) ha ricevuto un premio dalle mani di Elon Musk e se ne è tornata a Roma sull’aereo di stato. Biden ha invece salutato tutti con commozione: comunque andrà il 5 novembre, per lui era l’ultima sua uscita internazionale ed appare già come l’ombra di sé stesso.  Umanamente colpisce, ma pensare che fino a due mesi fa era lui il candidato democratico resta davvero sconcertante.

 

Thoughts of love dedicated to an Angel

I don't love you as if you were a salt rose, a topaz or an arrow of carnations that spread fire, I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul. 

I love you like a plant that does not flower and carries within itself, hidden, the light of those flowers, and thanks to your love the dense aroma that rises from the earth lives darkly in my body. 

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, I love you directly without problems or pride, I love you like this because 

I don't know how to love otherwise than in this way in which I am not and you are not, so close that your hand on my chest is mine, so close that your eyes close with my sleep.

LET IT GO

Don't go back to where you were happy one day, it's a trap of melancholy, everything will have changed and nothing will be the same as before, not even you.


Don't look for the same landscapes, nor the same people, time plays dirty and will have taken care of destroying everything that once made you happy.


Don't go back to the place where you were happy one day, always keep it in your memory, as it was, but don't go back.


Life goes on and there are new roads to travel… new places to visit and other people waiting for you. ❤️

ANNA

She knows this picture when and where was taken

I wanted Anna like I've never wanted anyone before. I wanted Anna against all common sense, against all pride, against all reticence, hesitation, preconception, second thoughts, lucidity. I wanted her so much, too much, I wanted her more than she wanted me, and maybe she never wanted me, but she was there and continued to buzz around me, of course - I wanted her even more, to fill this obvious distance between us. I wanted her and I still want Anna, that's the problem. I want her even though she treated me like a "weird" because deep down I know I was strange.

Predictable. Grantor. Conniving.

I want her even though she's gone from my life, even though there's no longer a future together and maybe it wasn't even there before, but it might seem, even though she's dating others, even though everyone else — potential boyfriends, potential men who will win at the roulette wheel life and they will be able to make her fall in love like I was unable to do in thirteen months by giving her everything, even the benefit of the doubt which in reality was already a certainty; certainty of having become entangled in a sterile, counterproductive, burnt-out story.

I want her so much that I learned to tell myself: to clarify, to vent, to calm myself, I learned to tell about us, about her, therefore about myself, a new me that I discovered day after day and hour after hour, re- building me after her mere presence - but even more so her absence - had shattered me, approaching me in an indifferent, superficial or rather, weird way - a word she likes a lot.

There is no future, I know it. We will never be a couple (but always never say never is the mantra). Yet I would trust her. She will never fall in love with me because, as a wise man said with that brutal honesty that only those familiar with life have: you have given yourself too much, she already knows you, she has lost interest. To paraphrase, I'm trite. The truth is that she doesn't know me at all, I would like to point that out. But she didn't want to do it, I would like to clarify this too. I, on the other hand, had to get to know myself again. I had to introduce myself again, new, unpublished, unknown, like a distant relative who you have never seen before but to whom you are linked by sharing a surname, blood, family trees.

I had to present myself with this baggage, these new experiences: hello, I'm the new you who only retains appearance and generality of the old you; I bring you new doubts, I bring you old wounds with new pain, I bring you your insecurities - the usual ones, did you by any chance think you had overcome them? — and the conflicts, the conflicts against the usual you and the new unknown — you will not win, so you better make him a friend, this unknown enemy of yourself that you cannot defeat, you better learn to live with this unknown troublemaker who chases an unrequited love and throws himself into the void against all common sense.

She was my void. In everything. The leap into the void. The emptiness in my stomach. The void of substance and content and feelings and perspectives and investments. She gave me a little that seemed like a lot, and with that much that was in fact little I was reassured that I had achieved peace of mind and it would be an understatement to talk about giving or donating. She gave me so little that sometimes I think I even dreamed it. She gave me, for my perspective, for the nothing I had given up until that time - that, in the evident imbalance of the relationship, I remained anchored to my scale while she, in the lightness of hers, was already flying towards new destinations, other stories, new interests, more tantalizing pleasures.

And then, let's face it, she's not the one who's strange. She is the representation that most conforms to the average Vietnamese woman - interested, shrewd, straight forwarded, perhaps apparently superficially and falsely modern but internally linked to the values of the traditional family, but only in words, then in reality I didn't know or perhaps I deliberately ignored, unable to invent scenarios reliable ones that could justify my way of thinking about her. Was it me who was stupid? Am I the one who believed her words, who saw sincerity in them, who fondled her when perhaps she should have been slapped to make her see reason and recognize our relationship? I should have helped her to be found when we had to get lost, to be there when I had to leave. Love is an ironic twist of fate. And a sarcastic joke about life. I thought she was the one after our first pseudo phone conversation with Zalo? It was there, in those hours condensed in a pleasant conversation with an almost stranger whose photographic features I remembered well but not the look, not the look because we had not yet looked intensely into each other's eyes, that I understood, I hoped, I believed that finally after so much wandering in vain, finally after so much waiting, I had finally been rewarded: finally I said, her. And I felt it was mine from the first time we went out, I felt it was part of my life, like a phantom limb: it wasn't there, but I felt it. It was there, we had already met in another time and another space, it was destiny that had told us, inspiration from the oriental idea of love, perhaps perfect or imperfect but it suited both of us perfectly: we just had to meet, it was just that the effort and once made, here we are.

But we weren't here. Or rather she was there, there, everywhere, with the gift of transmutation of those who do not anchor themselves to any shore. It wasn't mine, it was hers, of herself, of her past, of her limits, of her preconceptions, of her present of which I was part to a minimal extent - an ephemeral, unrealistic, surmountable, set aside extent - of her future of which I would not have done but part, I just didn't know. It was hers, of herself and of the interest she never had in me or maybe she did but she never told me openly, of the superficiality with which she treated me, apparent love, of the lies she foisted on me, and I reconstructed with unfailing sagacity, the fruit of my eidetic memory, which was once called photographic, of the apparent respect it has granted me, of the lack of education with which it moves in the world and with which I have allowed it to move in mine and with which I myself have downgraded, degraded, devalued to an incredible and smoky lover like a reflection for his luminous image, the result of skilful exercises in creativity.

She belongs to herself and it is right, very right, sacrosanct that she is, she belongs to herself. I just wanted her to share with me part of her belonging, of her existence: this is what I wanted. The truth is that someone who wants to leave and travel and discover cannot be forced to love and stay - even if that departure then becomes a return, even if the journey then becomes the road home: even if she returns, she doesn't stay - she leaves she will go again, and she has done so countless times, she has done so now too, the last one, in which she ideally turned to the web, almost running away, she smiled at me aware that we would never see each other again.

Maybe we won't see each other again but I don't know this yet, and neither does she, because perhaps I will no longer have the courage to flay my soul to discover her heart. I will no longer have the courage to believe in a future that doesn't exist and to delude myself into what doesn't exist and what I thought was. I don't want to give her the time needed to understand if he is the right one for her. And if not him another? One without a face, without a name for me, but with a precise physiognomy for her: the money as a defined and constant presence who will be able to live with it in a way I can't, not because money causes distance, of course, but and above all emotional distance. I won't have the courage to deal with a bastard but true reality: she doesn't want me and I don't want to allow myself the luxury of falling apart when she tells me that someone else has reached the finish line? I won't survive today's, I won't even survive tomorrow's, and then how many others?

I will no longer have courage because everything was exhausted when I persisted in continuing on viscous, slippery ground, on which I fell and got up and fell again: when, aware of defeat, I went to the bottom of the abyss, to the bottom of the the ocean, to touch the lowest point of my existence with my own hands in order to possibly go back up.

I still love you very much Anna, I know I wanted to take care of you: of your wounds, of your good eyes, of your insecurities, and also on your secutrities, of your ambition. I wanted to undermine your superficial frankness only with words. I wanted, I wanted, I wanted and then I had to unhinge my wanted because you didn't want.

I hope you find your serenity one day. May you learn to look inside yourself and make your insecurities your strengths, fears and courage. I hope that one day, far, far away, you'll find that a person capable of making you mature, grow, understand, know. And I hope that person is myself. I truly loved you, Anna, more than you loved me and this, unfortunately, is a bill that only I can pay.

Trains are passing many times, not once!

There are trains that are better to take the second time they pass.

They told us many times that trains only come once in a lifetime and, therefore, we took that opportunity when we weren't ready. In this way, we get disappointment, frustration and a bitter memory of a journey that, in another moment, would have been wonderful.

These trains arrive full of hope, of opportunities, of progress for our lives, and letting them pass seems like a luxury that we cannot afford. An unwritten law tells us that if we do so, we are doomed to failure.

Fortunately, this is just the umpteenth result of another of those irrational beliefs that our society has in common, which do nothing but generate anxiety and suffering. We have been taught to pay attention to any passing train that brings us closer to our future, even if the obstacles this entails are greater than the tools we possess in the short term.

Nothing is irreversible

Life is a journey full of trains and, every day, there is a new station where you can choose which of these to take. Decisions in which the sacrifices are as important as the tickets you buy. We often think that if that golden opportunity comes along, and we let it slip away, we won't be able to have another one; this is the result of illogical, unreal thinking.

We live in a world where when one door closes, five open, and when an opportunity is missed, lessons are learned and learned, better ones presented, and so on, throughout our lives. Whatever age you are, therefore, you can continue to bet on changes.

Few things are irreversible, fewer than what we believe. Think about it: if you didn't seize an opportunity because you didn't feel ready, because you didn't realize it was there or because it wasn't the right time, don't worry, because the world doesn't end nor do other trains stop passing by.

We believe that "the love or work of our life" exists, but it is not true: there are loves, people with whom we get along more or less and better or worse jobs, but nothing more than this. The problem is that we believe that our happiness depends on it.

We are the ones who use the qualifier "of my life" and, for this reason, we feel bad when something slips away. You must keep in mind that everyone, absolutely all of us, have missed that "train" at times, but we survived, we learned something and we took the next one, which came full of exciting surprises.

Sometimes we even got to thinking: luckily I let that train pass, because the second one was even better.

Trains returning to the station

These trains you believe have left forever will return to their departure station. Maybe with other passengers on board, maybe with new things to offer you: new routes, different landscapes, but they will certainly come back.

It is important so that you do not fall into demotivation, so that you know that life is cyclical and changeable, that nothing is decisive, that things are not black or white: you get on board or you lose it forever.

You must realize, therefore, that at any moment, in any corner, your train can pass, one of the many that you will take during your life. What is really important is that you are careful and do not give up.

It is essential not to give up, to continue to persevere, to continue knocking on every door, without anything stopping us: neither fear nor age nor limiting thoughts.

Perseverance is the mother of success and what we don't know, in reality, is that we are the trains.