“Yesterday I finally took some precious time for myself and I managed to finish the book you recommended to me. Wow…Several times I had tears in my eyes because between the words written in a simple and spontaneous way, between the letters of Anna and Brigitte, it emerges only Love and concepts so important and so delicate as to leave you speechless.”
F. from Italy
Dear F.
Whenever this book touches a heart, I’m happy. I do not know why. As if it was mine. I’ve read it many times and I’ve almost forgot what’s written inside. Maybe because it’s already part of me. I just know it’s important.
The writer says that it’s a book for older children at the beginning of a deeper journey and I say that it’s a book for young adults, at the beginning of a long and tiring journey but magical towards the end.
The book he talks about in the beginning, the one on the nightstand, is the one for grownups. It’s very interesting but more difficult (at least for me at the time I discovered it). I started it, but because of the level of difficulty, I considered other priorities that I had at that moment and then I never took it back. Its time will come. It talks about the life in the womb and before (always by the same author). Or maybe its main role was to make me discover this little book that gave me so much, to me and to other people to whom I gave it.
“One of the things that prompted me to reread the book you recommended several times is all the part that concerns fears.I realized that it is one of the most deeply rooted roots in all our lives and one of the reasons why we make many important choices: right or wrong they are.”F. from Italy
About fear
I have never seen an ally in fear. I’ve always seen the fear as an enemy and I’ve always tried to run away from fear. Actually I didn’t even want to face it. I only avoided and eliminated it from my life. I don’t want to fight with such enemies. Every time when I start feeling it, I leave it behind, even if, sometimes I leave it together with some very precious things for me…
I was lucky when I was very young (the first years as an university student) to hear this phrase from one of my first and most important Professors and masters of life: “FEAR is the opposite of LOVE. And as humans we have one of the two as dominant.” I don’t know why but I have stuck this sentence on me forever. It never stopped ringing in my ear. And that’s how it started a huge desire to work on this and to have LOVE as dominant party of me. The desire was so strong! It was difficult and I lived in fear for a long time until I managed to eliminate it completely. I am so happy to have succeeded, without being sure if it’s good for everyone. For me for sure it is. Many people say it’s okay to be afraid. Maybe it can work for them…
But I still believe that nothing born out of fear has pure origins. Fear paralyzes, distorts and mutilates.
And how much does love make …? That love that is not born from fear and does not even feed on fear, but above all that love that does not feed fear.
This is my choice that has so far brought me at this point. And I’m very happy with this point.
In between LOVE and FEAR I chose LOVE. I say it and I write it everywhere!
“I have often thought about you while reading and mostly lately.I saw your photos and your stories and I caught an expression in your last video, when you are lying on the grass, that touched me so much.Joy, serenity, love. Are concepts that I think it’s so difficult to achieve in life! And instead it’s so simple.”F. from Italy
Joy, serenity and love
“I loved it so much to see you on the grass. So much that I would have liked to be next to you and look with you at the same clouds and feel the wet grass under the head, smelling its perfume. Maybe somehow I was there with you a little bit. And I was so pleased.”
F. from Italy
“You know, for fifteen years I have been an alpinist and a climber. The difficulties of the rock have taught me a lot and I have also lost two dear friends in the mountains. When I saw that you hiked up to the snow it made me so happy.”F. from Italy
Nature vs humans
I would have loved to be an alpinist and above all a climber. I’ve had this idea for some time. I could see myself doing this…
I discovered the connection with the nature and the mountain in difficult moments and it was part of my salvation. But then the calling from the world was so strong and I took the human route.
Now the two routes intertwine even if one has priority. But nature is always there to welcome me every time I come back to her, whenever I don’t find the answer I need from any human, whenever no human is able to understand me deeply and to give me enough caress. It rarely happens but nature is always there and receives me without ever wondering where I’ve been all this time.
“If I can ask you … What food do you enjoy the most in the country you’re now and why are you so impressed with it? “F. from Italy
Food on the road
No particular food impressed me in this part of the world. If I think about the answer it means that it didn’t really impressed me. Both here in the Middle East and in Africa they have flavors that don’t fit my taste. I eat fairly simple in general and all the spices they use are not in harmony with my senses. But I eat everything, I try, I make the new tastes to be mine. I eat even when I don’t like it. Maybe the second time, if I can choose, I don’t eat it anymore, but if I can’t choose, I eat it anyway.
I’ve been a vegetarian for the past couple of years and I can’t taste many things, but I always find something that is good for me and that also has a local tradition.
I eat humus almost every day since I entered the Middle East. The best I had was in Lebanon and Syria, then the one in Amman, Jordan and on the last place in preferences it is the one I eat now in Saudi Arabia.
But the best one remains the one I use to do at my house in Milan. I don’t use tahini, that actually is essential for humus. I have two of my reinterpretations: one only with olive oil, lime and mint or basil and another with all this, plus avocado. Maybe even my Moulinex robot which is 11 years old does its part :).
Also in Lebanon I ate so much of that Lebanese bread that every time I wear the bike gears I feel guilty.
I ate the best baklava ever in Istanbul, a pistachio baklava that if you want to taste it well you have to stick it on the palate and let it melt in your mouth. And it literally melts.
I discovered in Lebanon, and then in all Arabic countries, a fabulous sauce called Zatar made from various herbs, sesame and olive oil.
Actually I just realized while writing, which is the best food ever that I’ve found in this place where I am now: the dates. During Ramadan, when I chose to respect the religious practice of fasting from sunrise until sunset for 30 days, the first thing I use to eat was 1 or 3 dates and then a glass of water. It has become a perfect ritual. Every day, for 30 days, always at the same time, when the sun went down and the sound of prayer echoed over the whole city.
And those dates I ate were special. I prepared it, after they taught me how to do it. First I made a paste from dates by removing the seed and modeling them into play dough. I put a toasted almond in the middle then I gave it again the shape of dates and in the end I rolled them in sesame.
This is the best but also the most important and symbolic thing that I have eaten since I started this journey. I will always remember that taste, that feeling of that “tamur”, as dates are named in Arabic, eaten after so many hours of fasting.
I guess I could live for days with only dates, almonds and water.
“I would love to know that you are fine.I don’t ask you questions because maybe I don’t feel entitled to do it since we don’t know each other so well and I would never want to be inappropriate.”F. from Italy
The door is open: I’m here
You are not inappropriate with the questions. I’m fine. These past few weeks I have gone through, and I am still going through, important and intense moments. These are trials that I delicately receive. I’ve always been ready for trials. I’m just in different outlines but my state of serenity (deep down) is always there.
I’ve been writing a lot. It’s less easy for me these days to “fish” the testimonies of my interiority and put them aside. So I let myself go into the details of my own answers, which are now becoming pages of my diary.
PS: In fact this answer turned into a new project from my blog: Endless letters from the World
Elena – Hele Biker June 15th 2020 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
The full letter from F.
Dear Elena,
Yesterday I finally took some precious time for myself and I managed to finish the book you recommended to me. Wow…
Several times I had tears in my eyes because between the words written in a simple and spontaneous way, between the letters of Anna and Brigitte, it emerges only Love and concepts so important and so delicate as to leave you speechless.
It’s a short but great book: it touches you deeply and shakes you inside. It makes you think and it pushes you to go back to reading it and reread it all over again.
In particular it’s wonderful that part where the girl wants to save the pigs by hating the keeper but then learns that hate it is not exactly the right way.
I have often thought about you while reading and mostly lately.
I saw your photos and your stories and I caught an expression in your last video, when you are lying on the grass, that touched me so much.
Joy, serenity, love. Are concepts that I think it’s so difficult to achieve in life! And instead it’s so simple.
I loved it so much to see you on the grass. So much that I would have liked to be next to you and look with you at the same clouds and feel the wet grass under the head, smelling its perfume. And maybe somehow I was there with you a little bit.
I was so pleased.
I would love to know that you are fine.
I don’t ask you questions because maybe I don’t feel entitled to do it since we don’t know each other so well and I would never want to be inappropriate.
You know, for fifteen years I have been an alpinist and a climber. The difficulties of the rock have taught me a lot and I have also lost two dear friends in the mountains. When I saw that you hiked up to the snow it made me so happy. Even if it is not the same thing, deciding to climb the rocky body of a mountain is always a unique experience.
Meanwhile, I hug you tight and I hope to see your preparation for the departure soon.
If I can ask you … What food do you enjoy the most in the country you’re now and why are you so impressed with it?
Here is the image I was talking about
P.S.
I completely forgot that one of the things that prompted me to reread the book you recommended several times is all the part that concerns fears.
It’s a concept that I have been deepening in recent times because I realized that it is one of the most deeply rooted roots in all our lives and one of the reasons why we make many important choices: right or wrong they are.
F. from Italy
June 14th 2020