In a little village at the foot of the Apennines that no longer exists, I keep small treasures of the mind. One of those places so small that you could play one giant game of hide-and-seek across the whole village, finding yourself shouting “Found youuuuu!” between breathlessness and laughter after the great run. Those places where you could wander off without having to tell anyone where you had been all day, whether picking blackberries from the brambles or discovering just how funny the tadpoles in the stream looked. Those places that no longer exist, whether an earthquake carried them away or growing legs carried you towards other horizons.

Perhaps it is because it is September and the air smells of new beginnings, of sun-caramelized skin embraced, of excited, stolen, long-awaited “I have so much to tell you” at the school gates, of sadness gently let go into the memory of suns set along the timeline at the bottom of the sea; or perhaps it is for having found, between the warm, rough ivory pages of a red-covered book smelling richly of inhabited paper, a crumpled note written in pencil by a hand from another era, reading:

Good morning, everyone. Today I’d like to take advantage of the fact that psychotherapy sessions are on hold – it’s the so-called summer break – to step out of my role as a psychologist and discuss with you a few topics that have come up over the summer.