Thirty-nine years ago, today. It was a summer morning as clean as a story, to begin with. You weren't beautiful, you were more. I took you away knowing that you were the only one I wanted, the only one among a thousand. What I still couldn't know was if you also wanted me, because you always prefer to do, go, move, and you never talked much, almost nothing. But some silences are worth a hundred sentences: what counts is understanding one another, feeling oneself, knowing you want to go down the same road. And if you didn't choose me, I won't blame you. You proved afterward that it was right, that this was a story that could not have gone otherwise. Time decided for us. When two hearts beat in one chest, you can live by instincts and instants, but you can not be distinct and distant.
How much I wanted you, how much I waited for you, and how happy you made me. You changed my life, magnified my boundaries by taking me by the hand where I didn't believe, you updated the list of colors that knew my eyes, and instructed my nose, with smells and places he had never met. You taught me that loving is not endured, that contenting is not living, that you always have to find a goal together even if when you leave you don't even know what it could be. You, faithful and sure, have been the symbol of victory, because the fear, the greatest one, of not being able to guide you in the difficulties of the years, that helped me to face and overcome it. It was the most beautiful thing that you could give me, and that I could give to myself.
Even if a thousand times repeated alphabet is not enough to say everything, today I want to write you this letter. To say thank you. Which is a magic word, because when you pronounce it everyone smiles at you. Thank you for existing, thank you for resisting and never stopping. Even when I asked you too much, even when I left you alone because I was elsewhere. Never unfaithful, but often distracted by other paths, stupidly deluded that there were other possibilities. I was wrong, and in fact, I always ran to get back to being on your back. So, now that I know how important you are when I think about the precious things I have, I always count you twice.
There have been difficult times, of course. You stopped now and then, sulking, almost always without a reason. Maybe you were just jealous of the freedom you gave me. A lot, too much. You saw that it filled my eyes, and swelled my breath. And that's why you used to take revenge like that, turning yourself off. Motionless and capricious. To remind me that to leave together again we needed more attention, more care, more affection. But we never ran too much, no madness, there was never any need. Even today you are air, sun, space, horizon, goal. On foot, by car, I travel. With you, without thinking, I dream. And I can lose myself with my eyes until late, until far away.
Sometimes I think sadly about the day when all this will end. How will that inevitable, very long and definitive moment be, how can we draw a future in which we can learn from each other? It's incredible how one second is enough to say hello and sometimes one life is not enough to say goodbye. But goodbye, when it comes, is forever, does not allow reverse. The engine goes out and the flame doesn't start again. You can no longer even push that story, there are no more descents, shortcuts, navigators that can save you. But it's not right to give in to anxiety: I prefer to smile, to know that you will know how to leave me. Or that I will be strong enough to let you go without ceasing to believe that the infinite is a white and endless road. Meanwhile, I console myself, I live, and I repeat that it is always better to love and lose, rather than lose the joy of having loved.
Thank you then, thank you for what you gave me and for what you still want to give me: you were, you are and you will always be my motorcycle. The white Vespa that brings me the summer on, the wind in my face and noise in my heart that I would distinguish between a million others.