And I will come to see you once again, my little Madonna, Madonna of the sea. Tomorrow, traditional feast of Mary of Porto Salvo. I will come. Like every year of my now not short life. And it will always be beautiful and moving. Even more, touching compared to previous years. And you know the reason. I will see you again, beautiful and steady, in that statue, now ancient, of papier-mâché, in which you sternly preserve the memory of this village, the tormented beauty of our sea, the risky labors of our sailors. Our childhood dreams. And the ideals lived, felt. Lost and found and lost again in our lost battles. And in those not fought, retreating for fear of losing again. And discovering over time that we had won even when we believed or were made to believe the opposite. And then seeking them again, those ideals, in this strange age, which is neither late nor fresh. A neutral and amphibious age, but one that has a long memory of itself and quite a bit of future. There will not be the sailors of the past. Especially those who nourished the sea with their passion and their immense toil, unfortunately receiving only the poverty of their condition. Poverty not only economic. I still remember them, me as a little boy, my hand tightly held in that of my mother or my father, when, in those now distant years, the "piscaturi," dressed up, with long blue trousers and white shirt, barefoot, carried you in procession from the fishing boat, from which you descended as queen, after the long journey at sea. They carried you on their shoulders, taking turns in groups of six, through the streets of Marina, up to the parish church, located in the center of lively Piazza Anita Garibaldi. The one of good sermons and beautiful rallies, both microphones highly formative of our moral conscience and our political sensitivity. How beautiful you are, my Madonna, our Mother, matron of the cheerful neighborhood, once full of promises! Promises that our dreams would be realized. And here, in Marina. Or, with our pockets full of those ideals and those even religious principles, elsewhere. Far away, wherever we were forced to go. Emigrants hungry for bread. And students without a university in the region. Or travelers in search of the new. New lands and new cultures. Of a better future. And of spaces in which to realize our talents. I will come to see you, tomorrow. And I will follow you, like every year. In silence, which is, at the same time, intense thought and silent prayer. You already know what I will think. And what I will pray to you for. These are renewed thoughts and updated prayers. I will place myself, as I have done for so long now, immediately behind the band, slipping in absentmindedly, curious to see up close the individual band members playing. In particular, those who still fascinate me the most, the trombone player and the drummer. I am still struck by the effort that the individual "musicians" are forced to make to hold the heavy instrument. And I wonder where they find the strength to sustain it after that long toil on the boat and the slow walk toward the church. Sweaty in those heavy, dark uniforms. And with big, black shoes. The band's music fills me with joy, I could listen to it for hours and hours. And with that nostalgia that always takes me back to that distant time, when the circular stage in the square, on one of the festival evenings, hosted the band. That performed, like today's orchestras on the most important stages. How beautiful it is to find you again, "Madonna e mara"! How beautiful it is to see you. How beautiful it is to stand behind that sky-blue cloak of yours, of shining silk, with hundreds of stars pinned on it. As usual, I will take a thousand photos of you, which, like every year in this age of technology, I will publish in every way that allows many sailors far away to see you, recalling in their hearts feelings that belong to each of them. But I will not come just for you, you know that. For twenty years plus two, I have been searching in that procession for my first mother, who cared so much for you and, in pain and dignity and courage, resembled you so much. I will look for her among the crowd. I will recognize her immediately by the thick mane of curly white hair, which from her height, even physical, stands out like a white cloud just descended from the sky to give a touch of softness to that small praying human river. I will do as I did when she was there. I will approach her with moist eyes and a pounding heart, put my arm around her shoulders and say: "Hi ma', you are here!" And I will walk beside her to the end.
Franco Cimino