Two Seashells
I was driving. Thinking. Listening to music. Resetting my mind. Left and right, haze, flatland and cultivated fields. I watched the road markings follow one another, all identical, in time with the prog-rock I was listening to. Hypnotic. They seemed to do it on purpose. I smiled. Suddenly, the mix changed, and one of Ivan Graziani's masterpieces began to play. And my smile faded.
When I was a teenager, I regarded him with suspicion. He had been born a few kilometres from me, many years earlier, had studied in my city, and yet he didn't appreciate it. Somehow, I disliked him. I liked his sounds, not his words - so hostile towards the places I held dear.
And yet his music made me fly. I would travel, remember. The few memories of a teenager, but already precious. His sea - my sea - I could have written those words myself. Or perhaps not, but the feeling is the same. Too complex for a teenager. I didn't think about it.
One evening I crossed paths with him, right in "our" city. I recognised him and gave him a nod. He returned it with a smile - eloquent, communicative. To an idiotic kid who still hadn't understood a thing. He, on the other hand, had already understood everything. A few years later, when I read about his death, it didn't touch me. He was young - but old enough and distant enough from me. Very distant. But he stayed forever young, and I, year after year, drew closer to him. In age, certainly. But I gradually understood that he had been right - oh, how right he had been - about so many other things. And his warm words became a comfort, breaking through the solitude, knowing I was not the only one to feel those specific emotions.
As he described our sea, the asphalt turned to sand and the road markings to waves. Yes, it is our sea he is singing about! I can hear it in the details. In the depth of the emotions. How much he missed it, just as I miss it now. We are like two seashells, he and I. We can be anywhere, but hold one to your ear and you will always hear the sound of the sea.
My smile returned, wider, calmer. If I could go back to that evening in the mid-nineties, I would thank him. But there is no need. He had already understood. Long before I could understand myself, long before life taught me to listen to my own voice.
Thank you, Ivan.
I flick the indicator. Time to park.