The 15th Leaf: Beba

I've known Beba since I was in my mum's womb.

When I was little I used to spend the whole summer in her house in Sardinia, an island in the south of Italy.

...I remember the white sand of the dunes along the blue sea, and the juicy peach that my mum would give me as a snack in the afternoon but I wanted the panini with salami and instead I had that peach, now I would like to eat a peach actually, and then the peach would attract all the wosps nearby and then its juice would drip down my chin and neck and then become sticky and then yes yes let's go to the sea, let's swim a bit more before the sun goes down and the sand gets cold again and all the heat goes into the light blue water with grey fishes and many many seashells, that every year I collected and ever year forgetting them somewhere before going back to Milan, to school, to another autumn and winter...

Beba is part of my childhood, and part of my best memories.



And now she is also part of my present and I am part of her thoughts. For a moment. A moment for picking up a leaf for me, and send it all the way to Japan.