Words: Raffaella De Lia
Illustration: Olha Polonska
Dearest T.,
Here I am, almost two years after we met, or 21 months, to be precise. And here I am saying goodbye. How to explain? No fault on your side. You welcomed and embraced me during the most difficult time of my life: my heart was shattered by a huge loss, I had just relocated to Italy after 22 years in a faraway land, and I had started a new job that literally submerged me. I was just at a loss. Yet, being with you gradually eased my pain, put again a smile on my face, and made me happy.
Despite spending most of my time alone, I have hardly felt lonely; you have kept me company with your beauty, your light, my discovering you and the many facets of you little by little. I have unexpectedly felt that I belong, probably for the first time. Don’t ask me why. It has been just so.
Opening the window in the morning and breathing in your salty air, my time cadenced by the nearby church bells. Strolling in your small lanes filled with locals and tourists alike seated at cafés and just enjoying the good life you so generously offer. Taking in the sea view in my commute to work and cherishing every single day your beauty, a beauty at everyone’s reach, yet elegant, precious. Admiring the nature of the Miramare Park during my lunch breaks, while discovering every day a new path, a new plant, a new tree and a new see view. Eating and drinking with new friends in a Karst osmiza, where the culture and the joie de vivre of this beautiful land harmoniously merge.
Clambering up your steep streets just to be always rewarded by a dazzling view or the ‘suspended’ atmosphere of a side road, where you usually show another side of your intriguing personality—quiet, reflective, still—, so different from your social side, the one of the summer nights with bars oozing music, people and bustle. Going to theatres to enjoy your musical and intellectual vocation, while feeding my spirit. Stopping in Barcola in summer on my way back from work to swim at sunset in your waters while taking in the whole Gulf, with a bronze mula watching over me.
Observing the days becoming shorter from the window of my office, when the blue of your skies gives way to your reds and pinks and oranges and melts my soul away, and when tree leaves start dismissing their green and dressing in bright hues of orange, rusty red and maroon to display the full spectrum of your gorgeous foliage. Or when the bushes cover themselves with berries anticipating the magic of Christmas wreaths.
Walking endlessly with my head up to admire the details of the façades or the top of your buildings, surprisingly decorated with statues or friezes. And filling my eyes with the soft light that hits the tops of those buildings at sunset, geometrically dividing them in angles of shadow and light. Or filling my ears with the silence of your winter nights and of your Sunday afternoons, or with the joyous chattering and music of the summer, when youths sing their nights away for a new diploma, a new love or yet another drink.
Or travelling back to you on a train and filling my eyes with the whole Gulf in the attempt to carve those images in my memory. Watching you suddenly changing mood and becoming extreme, when you decide it’s time to force clouds away or to sweep them in during your bora days.
Dearest T.,
I knew from the beginning that my time with you was meant to be limited. I did not know that I would have fallen in love with you and that the idea of leaving you would have been so hard. I could see myself staying with you forever—a word that I have hardly used before—and calling you my home. I am just realizing, as I am writing, that this letter of mine is much more a love declaration than a goodbye. Words, however, fall short.
I am leaving you with the hope that there will be a sequel to our story, that this goodbye is only temporary and that we will be then reunited and happy ever after.
Grazie di cuore, Trieste.
Yours,
Raffaella
