Precisely because God penetrates us with his gaze, not only does he know us, but he also reveals us to ourselves; we can therefore know ourselves, at least partially, in the light of his truth and reread our existence as a love story. Today, children open their eyes to a complex world, partly real and largely "virtual", made up of images and words transmitted from afar. About a century ago – especially in rural environments – this was not the case. The discovery of the world occurred in one much more delimited space.
Moving from his mother's arms to toddling alone on the floor, the child finds himself in first contact with the most familiar things in the house and then with the surrounding environment. These first contacts with external reality - in addition to those with family members - have a significant impact on the psychological and spiritual development of the person, just as the quality of the soil and the atmosphere are crucial for the development of a plant. For this reason, the native place always remains dear to the memory and is the one to which - if one lives elsewhere - one always willingly returns, as to the roots of one's existence.
The first five years of my childhood were spent in a small house, at the foot of a hill; around it there was a meadow that in spring was filled with daisies: a feast for my eyes full of wonder.
Not far away is a hedge of hawthorn and scrub roses, other thorny bushes on which blackberries were ripening, and around lots of spontaneous vegetation with an abundance of nettles. Crickets, butterflies, ants, snails, wasps, flies and gnats, and trees in which birds of various species nested, filling the air with flights and joyful chirping. Beyond the meadow, beyond the hedge, a road, or rather, a lane that led to the village, a few houses leaning against each other on a hill, as if to support themselves on bad weather days; Costalta was the hamlet of a slightly larger town, seat of the municipality and the parish. A small ancient world that now exists more in memory than in reality. I did not lack company, since at that time I already had two brothers and two sisters before me and two sisters after me, to whom a third brother would later be added. We often played together... without toys: with pebbles or chasing each other on the lawn.
An indelible impression of peace, simplicity and silence has remained in my memory of that world; it was a beauty that always revealed itself like a miracle in the various seasons, awakening the heart to amazement and joy. It was always amazing to see the sun rise and set, to contemplate the starry sky and the course of the moon; dip your hands and feet in a stream, follow the flights of birds in the blue sky, see the swallows preparing their nest under the roof, chase the butterflies among the flowers and the swarming fireflies on summer evenings, observe the ants for a long time row carrying seeds into their anthill and hearing the cuckoo and the cicadas sing.
And the chickens? I knew them by name – like my mother who called them while she threw them birdseed. In spring, their "coccodè" after having laid the egg was always awaited as the announcement of a happy event. And the crowing of the rooster was the alarm clock every morning! What about the mother hen and the birth of the chicks? She went into raptures. But when all the eggs had hatched and the mother hen took the newborns for a walk in the courtyard I could only watch them from afar, because the mother hen wouldn't let them touch them! Thus I learned that animals also care for their young and that life is a precious gift to be protected with love. The wonder of the winter season was the snow.
Then you were forced to stay at home and look with your nose against the window at the white flakes that came down from the sky and spread a soft blanket over everything. When we could finally go out, we played with leaving footprints on the white carpet and although our hands froze, we didn't give up touching the snow and eating it. Obviously the older brothers also played balls and threw them at each other, without stopping to deflect some shots towards us girls.
Returning to the time of childhood, memories crowd endlessly; However, even these alone are enough to demonstrate how that world was not imaginary, but real, a more beautiful reality than dreams and fairy tales, the reality of a genuine living environment which, unconsciously internalized, remained in the virgin memory of childhood, in a such as to initiate my soul into contemplation and prayer, into adoring silence and poetry.
