A Corner Of The Soul: The Secret Place Of Memories

“The great follies leave great memories …”

–  Danns Vega

It would be nice, dear reader, if you read these humble words listening to the unmistakable voice of Maestro Vecchioni and moving you as I am doing now, with the memories, with the memories that each of us has and that pop up from time to time to make us cry. or to make us laugh …

Those indelible, wonderful memories that nothing and nobody could erase; the smile of our mother as she cradled us, our first kiss, the first love letter, the first drawing of our son when he ran like a madman to show it to mom and dad …

Those memories that remain in our mind and that sometimes reappear as the greatest of treasures, while we searched in a corner, on a sheet or in a drawer.

It is then that that photo of when we were just children or that yellowed letter of the boyfriend of the time, of the youth reappears … the letters are now so old that we find them only in our memories and in museums … it is so.

That withered rose between the pages of a book that still reminds us of our twenties and the unmistakable innocence of our first love; that cookery recipe book made by our grandmother with so much effort, and which still tastes like boiled meat and sponge cake, or that diary we were not aware of and that appears in our lives like a vortex ready to upset our hearts.

I remember that some time ago they found the first pages of what was to become a diary, my grandfather’s Diary. Unfortunately he could not finish what he had started with so much effort… life goes like this.

I never met my grandfather, so these written words marked a before and after …

When they began to read his writings aloud, while I remained silent and absorbed as in front of the best film, a great emotion flooded me, and suddenly I felt like I was traveling in a time machine. It was as if I were somehow getting to know my grandfather, that now elderly man, as he talked about his adventures as a young man with the same words and the same vivacity with which he used to tell them to my grandmother, his beloved life partner.

At that moment I felt that my grandfather’s words acquired so much force that I could feel him a little closer to me, despite never having met him. Yet at that moment it was as if through those words he had wanted his youngest grandchildren to know that grandfather they had never been able to enjoy.

The story was so beautiful that we lost track of time and continued to read and read … his pranks at school, his relationships with the people he loved … Until at a certain point silence fell … Grandfather had arrived to write only a few pages of what should have been his diary, he didn’t have time to continue …

It was then that we realized that he had gone too soon, and that although we hadn’t been able to appreciate his stories sitting on his legs, we had at least been able to relive his words that afternoon… That afternoon made of memories.

(Joan Manuel Serrat)
People believe

who were killed

by time and absence.

But their train

he sold them the ticket

round trip.

It’s those little things,

that left us a time of roses

in a corner

on a sheet

or in a drawer.

Like a thief

they spy on you

from behind the door.

You are completely

at their mercy

like leaves 

that the wind carries here and there,

who smile at you sadly

and fans yes that

we cry when

nobody sees us.

And now I will go back to listening to this wonderful song as I write these words and as I reread them and understand the mighty force that memories have in us, remember that ” Throw poetry into the fire, all the music that is mine, keep only the day before yesterday my cards with flowers… “.