THE BLUE PAGES
Dear Papillon, After reading the article ‘Brothers become’ I wanted to tell you my story. I am the youngest of three sisters, with the oldest is not only the 6 years difference that divide us but much more. Years of misunderstandings and different characters, I have no memory of indelible memories a…
BUTTERFLIES AND EXAMS
Middle school exams, excited looks from boys and girls cross the classroom, they sit down, they observe us with shaking hands and intimidated expressions. If you step outside the institutional role of teachers, or in my case, principals, even for a moment, and stop to observe how they speak, how they…
COME, COME IN, THIS IS MY HOME
Dear Papillon, I have seen many butterflies since summer broke out. I have also seen them in places where I thought, “Of course poor things! While you only live for one day you might as well have chosen a better place to spend it instead of the flower beds at Exit 25 of the ring road!” But what do th…
SIBLINGS: BORN AND MADE
Ah, siblings! That mysterious, fascinating, and often exasperating phenomenon that occurs when two (or more) human beings are born of the same mother, raised by the same father, grow up in the same house, yet end up being the living antithesis of one another.
Who are siblings, you might ask? They…
I AM SO UGLY, A MONSTER!
Anyone familiar with psychotherapy work with adolescents knows perfectly well that feeling ugly is very common in boys. Boys who would have absolutely nothing to reproach themselves with regard to their aesthetic appearance.
It is a symptom, dysmorphophobia, that we find in various clinical…
SEPARATE
There are stories that when you try to explain them you feel like they lose their meaning, “Life of Pi” is one of these and when I find myself talking about cinema and saying that this is definitely one of my favorite films, I often hear people ask me “What do you think this film is about, what is th…
GEOMETRY OF RELATIONSHIPS
The straight line is the utopia. It is the relationship without beginning or end. But we do not trust it… it is a religious, non-human relationship. While true, but still difficult, is the semi-straight one, a relationship that has a beginning but not an end Is this the relationship we’re look…
AWAY FROM THE EYES, AWAY FROM THE HEART
“There is something in the air that winter is not, I don’t know why…”
It’s certainly a phrase that we all said or heard, even if few of the readers of Papillon will know that it is also the title of a beautiful (and very old!) song. Certainly not a “HIT” summer eh, but it could sound current, al…
THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY TO FIND YOUR LEGS
Aperitif with women in Piazza Anfiteatro, soft lights, street musicians, bars and picturesque restaurants envelop me on this early summer evening. At the table, needless to say, we talk about men and I am amused by the idea that, despite disappointments and, fortunately they are still at…