Nomadi
Un giorno insieme

In '99, delirious for the Nomadi, 2nd year of high school, I was listening to one of the great collections of the group's hits with Augusto, from the '70s: in the 'leftovers', that is, the tracks that hadn't been used for a collection with the best of their production, in a double album, to make another one, also a double album, I found a track that hadn't captured my attention but had 'imposed' itself on my mind: 'CRESCERAI'.

'To play with a kite...

a white chalk...the old wall.

It took nothing to smile,

a lie to be grown up'.

In 2015, at the graduation of a girl younger than me, who was returning to Sicily the next day, this song came back to me from nowhere:

'You will grow up, you will learn.

You will grow up, you will arrive.

You will grow up, you will love'.

This girl, whom I was in love with, was very close to her family and very affectionate with her little siblings. It was for me (or so I thought):

'It took nothing...a green field,

a run and then...fishing by the river.

It took nothing to smile:

a lie to be grown up'.

At her house, the final moment of carefreeness before a two-year nostalgia for her departure:

'You will grow up, you will learn.

You will grow up, you will arrive.

You will grow up, you will love'.

'The regret will remain of that age...of that age' to which I added: 'Your sweetness will remain in this city, in Genoa'.

The emotion for her departure now extinguished, when in 2020 I started my adventure as a substitute teacher in middle and high schools (or, as the current formula from a reform of the ministry of public education, 'Secondary school of first and second degree') the song, in the words of the refrain, I used in farewell letters to many of the classes where I taught.

I've often thought that these words could be the motto of one of the ministries dedicated to education (or both), provided that, from the idea one gets from various news about it, it worked properly.

And it's certainly my wish for the generations of boys and girls I teach, even if I hear that they suffer from various problems and difficulties, already from before the pandemic and now (due to often dysfunctional families, etcetera etcetera...), making these words seem almost outdated.

I hope it's not so: among the various songs dedicated to childhood, I have no doubt that there are better ones, but this one won me over like a woman who loves to such an extent that I carry it as a motto, beyond the discographic field to which it belongs.

IT'S MY LIFE. Not just the B-side of the 1973 single (and the song from an advertisement in '99 or thereabouts). I bid you farewell.