NEVER BE SCARED OF AN END, MY ANGEL!
Robbie Burns at 26 years old was ploughing in the fields when accidentally destroyed a mouse’s nest. In this outlandish way he started to write the poem To a mouse that we had read together on January 1, 2019.
I remember that when I was 26 years old, I don’t recognise in the world a nest for me, my honey. Your grandfather was died by a heart attack and it was as I was wandering on the darkness, with a wee candle in my hand that many times was off. The candle was at that time the last talks about the future that I remembered I had with my daddy: he reassured me about my projects after degree: he was sure that I will go in Romania for my European project and later on I will work in some social projects, earned a good monthly salary to start a mortgage for my own house. Life changed rapidly after his death: I had fight to depart in the European project because I didn’t have other reason to stay in Italy and I didn’t want to lose my time sending CV without receive answers and waiting for something that there was not in the country in which I was born.
The space in which I am acting is the world, I consider me a citizen of the world not just of a single country and the same thing I want transmitted to you. I will teach details of every language, every culture, every space of the world in which we are living, starting from the place in which you were born. Robbie Burns will become your closest friend. I hope you will know by heart his poems.
Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a pannic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, Wi' murd'ring pattle! I'm truly sorry man's dominion, Has broken nature's social union, An' justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, An' fellow-mortal! I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request; I'll get a blessin wi' the lave, An' never miss't! Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! It's silly wa's the win's are strewin! An' naething, now, to big a new ane, O' foggage green! An' bleak December's winds ensuin, Baith snell an' keen! Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste, An' weary winter comin fast, An' cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell- Till crash! the cruel coulter past Out thro' thy cell. Thy wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the winter's sleety dribble, An' cranreuch cauld! But, Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain; The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy! Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me The present only toucheth thee: But, Och! I backward cast my e'e. On prospects drear! An' forward, tho' I canna see, I guess an' fear![5]
Burns was the one of the first artists who compared men and mice. There is a cartoon that I hope to watch with you when you will grow up, called Ratatouille. The title is the name of the French food I used to cook quite often because it is healthy and simple to prepare. The main character of the cartoon is a mouse with an impossible dream for a mouse: be a chef in a human restaurant. Even if he learned from TV and books to prepare food very well, the public opinion refused to hire him as a chef for his nature. I wrote about it in my dissertation, explaining that also this cartoon contained a peculiarity of the major who made it: the message is that anyone needs to have a dream to fight to realize it with the help of people around him, because you cannot live in this life alone.
Some philosophers wrote about mice. Always at the university I had read a novel called Tous les hommes sont mortels in which the authors explained how to stop to fear the death striving for the immortality. In her novel, the character with immortality, as the mouse with his same destiny, was compelled to live across the centuries. It was forbidden to him to die. To take a rest.
I am speaking with you about the death, my honey, because it is at least to main fear for every human being. As the title of the novel of Simone De Beauvoir, all the human beings are mortals. There is another lesson in this novel I want to transmit you. When the book was published, the writer didn’t receive many positive feedbacks from the readers or from the critics. It was a failure for her. This failure didn’t stop her to continue to write. She became one of the most famous feminists in the world with other works. Try to keep in your mind, my love. A failure is not the end of your dream or of you.
There is an American famous movie, When Harry met Sally, in which the characters have a chat about the death.
Harry: Of course not. You're too busy being happy. Do you ever think about death?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: Sure you do. A fleeting thought that drifts in and out of the transom of your mind. I spend hours, I spend days...
Sally: - and you think this makes you a better person?
Harry: Look, when the shit comes down, I'm gonna be prepared and you're not, that's all I'm saying.
Sally: And in the meantime, you're gonna ruin your whole life waiting for it.
You don’t have necessary to think too often about it. But I want that you are aware that people die, it is a natural event. To avoid ruining your life you must to express your gratitude and your love every time you can do it. Before it is too late. For this reason, I am writing to you every day and I made pictures of you every day of your life.
Another quotation from the same American movie suggest a weird habit that you can do when you start to read a book:
When I buy a new book, I read the last page first. That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side." - Harry explaining his dark side
Through a poem we investigate very important topics of the human life. The following stanza switch on in my memory a Nigerian novel that I read just a few days ago, when I was awaiting your born:
Your small house, too, in ruin! Its feeble walls the winds are scattering! And nothing now, to build a new one, Of coarse green foliage! And bleak December's winds coming, Both bitter and piercing!
