Just Spotted

A green feather on the wall.

The Aloe

Notwithstanding its menacing and defensive aspect, the aloe that I took as a small bud more than ten years ago coming back from Ischia island has grown silently and peacefully in a corner of my balcony despite the heat of the dry summers and the ice of the long winter seasons. It's the only plant that doesn't suffer our absence. Moving the forefinger on the edges and false thorns of its surface provides a unique and pleasant tactile sensation. It's green nuances are so vivid that it nearly looks like it was made of plastic or a marzipan cake that are traditionally made in Sicily.

I have been tempted several times to move it into a new and nicer vase and put it somewhere else, in the lading of our apartment or directly in our living room. I haven't done it as I'm sure it would not love the change and would die in short time. For a wild plant as the aloe there's nothing comparable to open air and to the company of several others green species, starting from the moss that grew into its vase.

A colorful invasion at the door

One after one, every pot on my balcony is starting to blossom. I think I have taken thousands of pictures like this. Still, when a small masterpiece of nature peeps through the foliage the instinct to take my camera is hard to keep quiet. Behind the archival usefulness (it's nice to leaf thru our pictures folders and see how our small "urban garden" has changed with time) I have always the hope that the new pictures I take could be better than those I took in the previous years.

In the coming days roses, lilies and some more samples will bloom. I'll take care to post some pictures of them.

The Piano

After many years of waiting and postponements a new object has eventually entered our apartment. To our children the arrival of the piano has been an event that compares to the arrival of their first bycicle or their first large size bed. It's been some kind of a family intimate cerimony.

I had always had in mind to start playing an instrument that I somehow felt more natural to me and that I never could afford before. I have loved and still love my guitars but for several reasons finding the right time for training on them has become more and more difficult in recent years. So I took the opportunity to buy a second hand piano with the excuse that my children were asking for one.

Some evenings this new family object turns into our family fireplace. We sit around it and, one after one or together, put the hand on its keyboard and attempt to improvise a tune that passes through our minds. I have discovered again the allure that the white and black keys make on a young kid, as I was forty years ago.

I couldn't believe how much classical music still attracts a young boy's or girl's attention. Beside playing, I have seen my kids' growing attention to those CDs that had nowever been covered by dust. And it's really amazing to stare at my son as he sits at the piano and repeats the same passage several times, careless of the hours that pass by.

Rebirth

Every little plant in my "garden" is waking up again.