Do we manage to share a story?

FINIS ORIGIN PENDIT*

A journey always needs continuous care. Maintenance made through adjustment, change o direction, bonds to create and nourish and guidance capable of interpreting the needs of people and the
necessity of the surrounding
environment. All this allows us to consolidate bonds and sustain each other reciprocally in the group (a kind of bidirectional
maintenance) in order to avoid that the travelling companions become former companions at the first crossroads or at the first difficulty …

How many squallide figures that cross the country, com' the life in the power abuses is poor.
On the bridge it waves flag white woman,
on the bridge it waves flag white woman,

Without doubt, the end of a journey, to which the beginning is connected temporally, is a magic moment. It allows us to be reborn with a new light, after having accumulated a series of new experiences, during our journey. These experiences are added to our own consolidated daily reality, transforming it, and it allows us to face future journeys with a different viewpoint, to restart and depart anew.

In the free Jerusalem, Tasso tells the story about Rinaldo, a Christian hero who must free the city of Jerusalem from the pagans. One day, after having left his camp, he entered a marvellous garden where he meets the enchantress Armida. The beauty and the freshness of this woman enchants the beautiful Rinaldo, and makes him forget his mission. The two lovers live a very strong and exclusive love story. Two friends of Rinaldo who are
looking for him, finally find him when he admires his image in a mirror that Armida holds up to him and who lets him see the reflected
image of his beloved; Armida
herself looks into the mirror in
which she sees the reflected image of her beloved Rinaldo. Suddenly a ray of light from the distance
distracts Rinaldo from his mirror: it is a sunray reflected from the shield of one of his army friends. Rinaldo approaches his companion and looks at his image in the war shield: to his despair he sees an effeminate and kind man with flowers braided into his hair and a rosy loving face. His companions hand his armour over to him, he puts it on quickly while he feels the fury of war growing inside himself and the sanctity of his mission.

Whenever I walk and feel you are near
Whenever I look around … Whenever she is not there when I look for her
Whenever
Whenever I …

In the film “The Fabulous World of Amelie”, the conviction that it is possible to transform the present situation without simply accept and interpret it is very much alive. Amélie has decided to intervene in the world that surrounds her, modifying it deeply, on the basis of a schematic and elementary morale, initially inspired by the principle to attribute that which is due to everyone or that which she considers to be best for an individual. Amélie takes over the lives of those whom she comes into contact with and decides their destiny: this happens to her father, the concierge, the "glass man" and a series of minor characters on which she applies her own extraordinary fantasy (a former tenant, a failed writer, a hypochondriac female ”tobacconist” the greengrocer who kills a young man). Only for herself, for her own love life, Amélie hesitates to apply the principles that have upset and oriented the lives of many people. The "glass man" must therefore intervene so that she can let go and accept her destiny.

This is not a journey constructed with rationalism, not a step at the time in the sign of fatigue, prudence and harshness that pay the price for certainties and offers a shoulder to boredom and habits. Journeys made with temporary companions (each one in his own journey), on the same road but with a proper destiny as individual (each one is different), but with a common destination. Journeys made of meetings, moments, fleeting moments in which we “touch”, in which everybody “touches” the people he meets, leaving a sign behind. Sharing a story, leaving one´s journey to the hands of somebody who may take control of it and give us a task he thinks is ours or who substitutes us with himself (as in Amèlie), in which the emotion leads us to a final objective that gives a meaning to being on the road and to the fatigue of the course. All these moments give Life a consistency. During the journey we may distract (everybody is lost in his own affairs). Somebody detaches casually, others voluntarily, deciding to follow other itineraries, somebody decides not to share the common destination any longer and, then, the Armida witches (or the enchantress Circe, if you prefer) take over. Everybody follows his own path, everybody thinks he can do it alone, to be able to find only the right direction and the right place and not need to be pushed towards changes on the part of the group, or the travel companion (only we do not respect anything anymore, not even the mind!)

Then: to wait for the reflected ray on a shield to understand the true course (what if the companions that support you in difficult times do not arrive?) or wait for the event that you cannot manipulate, that you have not foreseen and that was unforeseen (glass man/lucky star) to decide the end of your journey? In both cases, the sole hope is that that it really is worth starting the journey, that the ticket should not be thrown away and that you must not sing: “How many vicious characters that travel through our country, how miserable life is when abusing powers. On the bridge the white flag flutters, on the bridge the white flag flutters like in the song of E. Bennato”.

This is a little the story of Charlie Brown: when trying to kick the ball at the beginning of the competition season, he always falls to the ground. Every year, this event repeats, every year the procedure is identical, with the only difference that there is always a rational motivation to justify failure.