Life
is a puff of wind we enjoy breathing together
On 25th October we celebrated our silver
wedding anniversary. It was a cloudy day at the time but there was plenty of
family and friends to share our joy with. We married at the Chapel of the
university of Rome La Sapienza, where we had met.
This time, for the occasion of the silver
anniversary, we went to Her Majesty’s Theatre in London on the Saturday after,
to see The Phantom of the Opera (a treat I longed for) and had a luscious
dinner at Carluccio’s in Woking. It was a wonderful day!
My eldest son and my daughter in law came down from
Leeds and my other son joined us from Oxford. Unfortunately my autistic
daughter Valentina couldn’t be with us and my other daughter wasn’t there either.
She was invited to the fashion week in Dubai just two weeks before the day of
our gathering, a great opportunity she couldn’t miss.
My mum was with us as she hasn’t gone back to Italy
yet. As a present, I asked my husband for several books by Margaret Atwood I
absolutely need for my PhD research, a gift that will last. We also received
presents from our children: DVDs, to watch together, and a ticket to see
Churchill War Rooms in Downing Street plus dinner for two; I am looking forward
the exciting experience.
Reaching the theatre in the centre of London on the
Saturday wasn’t easy as there were works going on in the railway line from
Woking to Waterloo. We had to take a bus to Weybridge and catch a train from
Weybridge to Waterloo, which stopped at every station. We arrived ten minutes
late but could enjoy the rest of the show. I was flabbergasted by the beauty of
the music and the charm of the songs. I found it very similar to a traditional
Opera, a genre I love, both in themes and in melodies. The story is rather
twisted in some parts with an appeasing ending, which doesn’t solve the
questions posed by the different ambiguous characters (Why is Christine
attracted by the Phantom? Who is the Phantom and why does he change so suddenly
at the end? What is the relation between love and success or power in the story?).
Nevertheless, the beautiful music suggests what is going on between Christine
and the Phantom, undoubtedly a complex passion where opposite feelings coexist.
The twenty five years my husband and I lived
together seem a long time to go but I feel now that they passed pretty quickly.
They have been very busy years; three children at first, with only two years
break one from the other, and the struggle to combine little children, work and
a bit of social life. When my autistic daughter Valentina arrived (we adopted
her in 2002) it was harder, but I must say we had great fun with all of them.
It was a blessed time I look back with nostalgia sometimes, though I shouldn’t
as I lived it fully.
The children have grown up now and are all
independent, or looked after like Valentina. They are away from home, sometimes
come back for short intervals or visits. Our life as a couple is reshaping and
mainly focusing on our jobs, interests and personal achievements, we
(especially I) couldn’t follow in the past because of family commitments.
Spending time together is not so easy because of our different jobs and
interests but our paths cross from time to time and we refresh the closeness
that has kept us together all these years. Remembering how we met and why we
chose each other in the first place is a source of endless reassurance that we
did the right thing.
My husband and I are very different people, both
physically (he is tall, blond, with blue eyes; I am short and dark, typically
Mediterranean) and in character and interests. He is more a mathematical and
‘rational’ kind of person, believing in science and facts; he loves music and
archaeology. I am definitely interested in literature and art, all kinds of
art, and believe that you need to go beyond and above facts to understand
people and the world; and, unfortunately, there isn’t much rationality in the
way things go (it would be much easier if it worked so). Our apparently
opposite natures merged and we managed to have a happy marriage.
Once at a social event in Italy, they gave us a
task. We had to concentrate on coffee for a few minutes and shape the thing in
our mind. When my husband and I talked about it afterwards, we realized he
focused only on the cup while I focused only on the content, the black stuff.
Together we made a whole cup of coffee.
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