Say you come across one of those social situations that you can’t escape, one of those situations where you have to be content, you have to congratulate, you have the feeling that everyone wears a mask.
Say that you didn’t want to go, that all your life you feel you have to do these tasks even if you don’t understand why. The only reason you’re still trying is because you don’t want to be disappointing with the people you care about (and that’s important though). So you drive an hour wondering the whole way how to stay yourself in one of those situations you hate so much. Because you’ve never been the life of the party, because maybe you prefer calm, because you don’t like to talk and in these situations it becomes even more difficult. You always feel like you’re saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, being out of place.
Say your friends are there and even if you are different they know how to take you. Maybe put in a glass of wine that helps, maybe some music, a nice garden.
And then something happens: without needing to say anything a man takes a hand and takes you to the track. His hand is soft, he’s elegant, he smells good. You can see in his eyes that he wants nothing but a good time with you. No pretensions, no social duties, no masks.
So you take his hand and you throw yourself on the dance floor and you dance like nobody’s watching or judging if you move good or bad, if you follow the music, if you hit the waiter. You realize that he does the same thing. The dress does the wheel, his tie whirls, makes you turn and you make him turn. And you laugh because at that point everything becomes brighter and you realize the cast that held you down before and keeps others still.
Put that all this happens by chance one summer evening in a garden far from Rome then maybe it was worth it to feel out of place, to feel awkward, not to be able to put on the mask. Because then maybe you can approach someone else without that mask and for ten minutes you can dance like there’s nothing else in the world. As if all the problems were beyond the hedge of the garden, as if it is obvious that the whole world has to dance there with you and if it does not it is his problem. You wind up stopping and find that your heart feels lighter even if it beats faster.
Gioia Piazzi
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