The Saddening Warmth

For 17 years, in the springtime, there comes one day, unexpected, where a deep sadness takes hold of me, as if I lost something or someone dear to my heart.

This feeling emerges in the first truly warm day after the long cold winter season in Northern Europe. In that day, the breeze carries the fragrance of the coming summer, the birds sing with a renewed joy, and the trees sway in a lazy dalliance and tenderness. In that day, reigns a joyful calmness, as if nature has stopped to fare winter well and to welcome with the due enthusiasm the near summer. This calmness is matched by a great unrest and a sudden anxiety in my soul, whose symptoms are a confused melancholy displayed all over my face.

For 17 years, I have been searching for the cause of this feeling. Why, on that day, do I feel this weight in my heart? Why does my soul contract itself in my chest? Why do I sense as if death has made one more step towards me? Why does a violent affection, towards the people I love, embrace my heart and demand to be visible through words in an email or a conversation over a phone? Why, on that day, do I perceive this world to be gentler and harsher at the same time? Why do I feel peace and surrender to the beloved ones and deep regret about myself, my story, my journey and my disgusted look at life? Why, during these 24 hours, does my fear of leaving and going far grow bigger and become an obsession? Why do the tears stand in ambush at the windows of my eyes and the chokes settle at the bottom of my throat, without ever a tear being shed or choke being uttered?

Why? Why? Why? I have tried to find a satisfactory answer to these questions for 17 years with no avail, up until that 2nd of April in 2002 when I exited my house, heading towards the plaza to find a taxi that will take me to the airport. After making three steps on the sidewalk, my five senses were overwhelmed with a variety of sensations, the sounds of the birds singing joyfully with the same strength and rhythm as the grasshopper summer songs, the fragrances of flowers reminding me the smell of the sweating basilica under the heat of the midday sun, the humid and velvety breeze carrying with it the memory of another place, it hurts me to recall its name, a bright light emanating from the sky, warming the faces of the passing by, and finally the taste of coffee I drank before I left mixed with the taste of my lover lips. When all these sensations engulfed me, like a prophetic vision or a poetic inspiration, I suddenly knew why! Yes, after 17 years, in this moment, on that day in 2002, the secret of the first warm day of the year revealed itself to me. Yes, I finally know why this day sends in my soul all these feelings and all this sadness.

But in reality, I wish I didn’t discover that secret. This discovery has not kept away from me the ghosts of that day. It has had quite the opposite effect. Now, and every year since, I welcome this first beautiful warm spring day with greater fear, greater anxiety and a greater sadness.