It is possible to recreate this experience in Biellese, Biella area in North Italy, but with some adjustments. The focus is not time but space. A place. The car is left in Rialmosso village, Alta Valle Cervo municipality and then it goes on foot along the main road accompanied by chestnut, birch and alder trees. You walk for a mile or as long as one feels. Walk and take your time….
The first curves form a kind of embrace and lead to a rock gym, a flashy boulder. Along the way there is Giovanna aged 78 and her dog and we start to talk – knots, back pain. She is originally from a close village named Tavigliano left by her in the fifties when she married. Since then she lives in Rialmosso. “But I have my children and they help me”, she says. “I keep staying here because I feel good in this place except when it snows a lot; a real life – word underlined – without traffic and noise. It is a little uncomfortable go to the shops but – as I said – I have my children. I would like tell you a lot to stay here up to tomorrow morning but the most important thing is to live peacefully.
The doggie is cold and it trips back and forth. Giovanna walks down this stretch of road every morning; she takes care of a little Virgin Mary (Madonna) settled in the rock to whom she always dedicates a prayer. After a while her eyes point towards the village as somewhere there into the trees she hasher home.
The road moves forward Pila Bassa named place where the eyes caress around without being disturbed. A buzzard flies and two hawks glide… It is our silence, made also of listening or precisely of adjustments, regenerates us far from Bali but close to the soul. Who likes to walk, the road brings to Oriomosso, a pretty place like many others in this valley. A short trail next to the monumental cemetery brings to Pila Alta.
Published 23 March 2018 by Anna Arietti, copyright
Translation from Italian Saulè Karpseitova
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