Exterior.
San Sebastián, spring of an indefinite year, Andrea Laszlo sings, “the world is an irrational guy, it does what it wants, it gives no explanation.” A north wind blows, carrying away clouds and uncertainty. On a bench without corners, a man in a honey-colored jacket buries his head, eyes, nose, and mouth in a book so dense it seems to recount the entire universe. The sea sways, the world lives, the air lets meaningless words set like the sun.
It’s all laid out in that book.
Interior.
Skin is not made to be glued. For instance, if my fingers are stained with strawberries, freshly cut into pieces so small they rest upon the air particles and scent the whole kitchen with spring, well, if my fingers are like that, I run immediately to put them under water. I can’t stand that sensation where, every time they touch, they can’t quite say goodbye properly; they just stick there for hours before telling each other, “Hey, hi, happy spring”. It’s the same with stickers, like the ones from the last page of a school diary. Some shined so brightly you just had to stick them on your hands, your wrists, your forehead, to see if you glowed brighter than your classmate to the chant of “Moon Prism Power, Make Up!” (Millennials, do you hear me?). But it was no use; even the best ones always peeled off in the end.
Skin is not made to be glued. Too much air, too much salt, too much movement, too little uniformity, too much life.
And so you say: if it peels off, I’ll sew it.
Are you crazy?
Just a tiny stitch, you won’t even notice.
Clothes are meant to be sewn, not skin. Ah, right, perfect! Then I’ll sew it onto a tight-fitting t-shirt; you slip it on, and you’re done.
If there is one thing I’ve always done, besides reading the last line of a newly bought book and never sharing desserts at a restaurant, it’s tearing the labels off new clothes. I have refined several techniques over time.
Technique No. 1: Cutting flush against the seam, being careful not to snip the fabric.
Difficulty: Medium.
Outcome: If placed at the back of the neck, you’ll always feel like an ant is there, rolling its breadcrumb, indifferent to the fact that you’re trying to watch your favorite movie. If placed on the side, it feels like being poked by the Jiminy Cricket of your conscience saying, “You’ve received three reminders from the gym; have you decided to sign up yet?”
Technique No. 2: Unpicking the thread that holds together the little slip with the material specs, the country of origin, the washing instructions, etc.
Difficulty: High.
Outcome: Often, even though it seems that thread is there specifically to hold those slips, you realize it’s actually holding the garment together. Once unpicked, it leaves you with a nice hole to patch up. And naturally, you were just about to head out, so you have to change in a rush, go out with a holey shirt, or try to apply the famous “patch”, the first one you find in the sewing drawer. Besides, who even has a sewing drawer anymore?
So: skin is not made to be sewn. It is not made to be glued, and it is not made to be sewn.
But then, how do all the labels stay on?
For example: the label on Sofia who, at seven years old, “does not meet the parameters of speed and accuracy in reading.” The label on Tommaso who gets distracted, is impulsive, and can’t stay seated in class while the teacher explains the human body—he likes animals, he wants to be a vet-, the label on Anna who, at thirteen, feels different, so she locks herself in her room one night and, browsing here and there, finds an autism test. A bit frightened, she starts ticking the multiple-choice boxes.
Undoubtedly, it is important to give things their proper names. The work and responsibility of a clinician are exactly that: to study, study, and study some more; to understand, to think, to express. With attention, caution, and care.
But it is equally right to use our eyes not just to see, but to look, to observe, to know how to wait. It is equally right to listen, to understand in what context, relationship, or moment certain difficulties bloom.
Because if that label fuses with the fabric, the human fabric, for instance, it becomes hard to remove. And maybe Tommaso won’t go to university to become a vet; Sofia will enroll in a technical institute because “how could I possibly read Catullus in verse?” and Anna, a bit agitated because she found a ‘ready-made answer’ to such a difficult question, but mostly distressed by how blind that answer was, shields herself from the Icelandic climate of relationships, one moment it’s wind, then gusts of snow, and in the blink of an eye, the hot sun of a Mediterranean August.
Removing that label at that point risks leaving a hole, not in the t-shirt, but in the deepest essence, in the heart of every human being: their identity.
Some time ago, I was given a book by Michele Zappella, a child neuropsychiatrist, who was for a long time head of the Child Neuropsychiatry department at the General Hospital of Siena, where the author writes: “The label of ‘different’ begins in school and is realized above all through those difficulties regarding the skills most in demand by the world of work today: knowing how to read and write and knowing how to relate adequately to others (…) there is a tendency to set children and young people aside because of certain characteristics deemed inadequate, reducing their existence and their potential to a label often used without any principle of confidentiality (…) a disqualifying ‘stamp’ that erases both the real sense of a person’s difficulties and their strengths. Freeing oneself from labels (…) means laying the foundations for a more democratic society that starts in school and continues for the rest of one’s life.”
Exterior.
The man in the honey-colored jacket wets his fingers and closes the back cover. He lifts his head, closes his eyes, and breathes in the north wind. The world seems in order; it is the color of the sky at noon, on a peak, on a day in March. In his head, the last words he read echo, sounding a bit like this:
“Being different is the only salvation against the asteroids of blindness; for diversity is of the same consistency as silk. And yes, things so impalpable they seem undefinable are the ones that cause the most fear, but they are the very same things that always add to, and never subtract from, life.”
Susanna Lucatello
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