Notes from my garden
I never managed to keep a diary: words always felt inadequate, or too revealing, for the small things that crossed my path. This space gathers what does not ask to become a story. Images and words collected along the way, unfinished thoughts, small encounters. A visual diary in progress, where each note stands on its own, anchored to a moment in time. You can find more of them on my instagram page
Last summer I loaded a 36-frame roll of film. I promised myself I’d develop one roll per season, trying to recover some of the creativity I lost to intensive mothering and the relentless demands of social media. I thought it was a reasonable goal, but I ended up taking the last frame a year later.
While completely disappointed by the landscapes, the photos of my daughter caught me by surprise. I can hardly ever photograph her, she always slips through the frame. How did I manage to catch her with a rudimentary, slow, apparently unreliable tool? Maybe it’s when we are given fewer chances that we start paying attention.
See the full note here
While completely disappointed by the landscapes, the photos of my daughter caught me by surprise. I can hardly ever photograph her, she always slips through the frame. How did I manage to catch her with a rudimentary, slow, apparently unreliable tool? Maybe it’s when we are given fewer chances that we start paying attention.
See the full note here
Clouds gather and scatter, wrapping rocks and flowers you almost want to drink. Blankets are cool and the wardrobe carries the scent of past lives — families who once tuned their days to the rhythm of these mountains. The peaks breathe slowly, a deep breath at last. Silence drips between the spruces, infused with the scent of resins and rain-soaked wood. Home // see the full note here
Moon eyes.
It rained so much that day that all became one and clouds were salty. Walls at home were damp and soft, and we decided to take a walk on the sea.
Few years after she left, she suddenly remembered her hugs. They were blue, like the cotton dress she used to wear to work in the garden. Never too warm, but immense for sure.
An old man feeds pigeons at 7 in the morning, in Bunhill fields Burial Ground, London. A 80 minutes walk separated my house in East London from the office. Colleagues couldn't understand why I didn't take the tube and save a few minutes of sleep. This image could be an answer. I crossed at least five different neighbourhoods every morning and every evening, meeting humans from all walks of life dedicated to doing what mattered most to them. The street is a book with no editors and full of writers.
Details of a shadow, Orvieto.
Last winter, before we even knew the meaning of the word lockdown, I had started to document home - anticipating what would become a visual trend in the following months. I wanted to build a small archive of the objects I bring with me through all my moves, making me feel at home anywhere, despite (or thanks to?) the compulsive need to change my place every couple of years. They’re mostly seeds, nuts, baskets and bowls I pick up on the street or buy in second-hand shops, or fabrics from my travels. Then we learned that new word, everyone was looking inside, and I gave up. As I always do when I let ideas float like untied balloons.
Any time I spot the mountains from Venice, I draw an emotional line connecting the two sides of my roots. Venice herself, in the end, could not exist without those forests.
Over the last years I’ve been discovering the Balkans with my partner, a compromise between my appetite for living anywhere far from myself, and the call to have less impactful travels. I’ve discovered landscapes that resonate with me. The scent of embers, rainy woods, thick flavors and turbulent rivers. That’s why I love travelling so much: you think you’re leaving, but what you really do is coming back to yourself.
My family has a house in the mountains. I used to go there every year, until I was 16 and a travel bug bit me and the world became my home. Those mountains were not exotic enough, what could they teach me after all? Only recently I realized that in all my wanderings in the tropics I was looking for tangible traces of those memories. The scent of barks breathing in the sun after heavy showers. The sound of the river I could hear from the wooden balcony as a constant teeming rain. The majestic image of the peaks emerging from the forest mist early in the morning as we prepared cheese sandwiches for our walk. The ritual of cleaning my face with dewdrops in the woods. The feeling of inhaling clouds. How much of those mountains is in me? How much can we feel at home wherever nature is?
I have a thing for trees. My folders overflow with pictures of trees and windows. I always wonder what it is like to live beside a certain tree: how light shifts through its leaves with the wind, the sounds it carries in the morning and at dusk, the simple comfort of reading or drinking tea in its presence.
As we walked around lake Skadar trying to reach the next village, we noticed many little deserted kiosks along the disused road. The season was still low, like lake waters: only a handful of tourists, and few stray cats. This kiosk in particular brought me back to one of the two bars in my grandma’s village. I was definitely the only customer at 2pm in August, when I had to get - no matter what - that fake strawberry ice cream with a pinkish chewing-gum inside. I would expect the same from this rusty fridge. Next time.
The big change was announced by unexpected movements in the forest. Rumours that diversity became the source of life, transformation its essence. 1+1 was 3, and cooperation the heartbeat. Or maybe it had always been like that, and we were just distracted by our phones.
Every late afternoon my neighbour in Rome used to wear her best dress, pearl necklace and earrings that made her deep blue eyes shine brighter. She sat on her rusty but elegant chair, waiting for the lady living across the street to come for a chat in the courtyard. She reminded me of my grandma waiting for her friends in the village to appear at the red gate enclosing her long, narrow yard: Elda would arrive with tomatoes from her farm, Pina always asked for a Crodino. We welcomed them in the veranda and chatted until mosquitos grew insistent: the time to go back inside and start preparing dinner.
Of summer flirts, starry nights and freehand photography.
When I got my first digital camera in my hands I was living in The Netherlands. I remember wander round The Hague looking obsessively for statues: my treasured, patient and composed models to understand the basics of photography. As I move my first steps into film photography, nature became my first model. Unlike human artifacts, she doesn’t long for perfection. She’s the way she is. What I’d love to learn with film photography, one day.
The entire village was built with the stones his grandfather fished in the river. He spent entire afternoons after school stone-hunting with him". The best ones are those one meter under water: they’re used to stay close to other stones and find their strength in collaboration. This is why our houses are so stout”. But the river was drying up summer after summer, and the stonehunter in the end could hunt only mammoth stones standing out alone. People started to slowly abandon the village, and live in houses that (they believed) didn’t need the river to exist. They forgot nature and pretended they could live without her, they forgot solidarity and pretended they lived better in locked antiseptic rooms. Those who are not afraid to remember say that during a stormy night the river was feeling alone after months of silence and decided to reach the village to see why nobody was visiting him any more. Houses were deserted and with sadness he decided to take back with him the stones that he lent to villagers. Countless years after it’s said that what is left of the riverbed is nothing but the ruins of the ancient village. Some even swear that that during the summer solstice at sunset you could see water slowly rising from the riverbed, and a young boy with a small net fishing stones.
Home became a refuge for beings that were, then were not any more, then were given a chance to become. Among them, there is me. Unclear at which stage though.
For three days she lived in between two islands, and realized her lifelong dream. On the way back to the mainland, despite the freezing wind whipping her red hair across the face slightly warmed by the winter sun, she sat outside at the back of the ferry. She felt happy, and fragile.
Yesterday I left home for the first time in a week, to buy food. A signed permit in my pockets. In my building’s yard life is changing fast, so fast that I cannot remember where I left it last time. Streets smell of flowers and disinfectants. I could hear the bells of a nearby church I had never heard.
I can say I know every single stone of Rome, having stepped on each of them for hundreds of miles. During my first years there, I was fascinated by weddings taking place every day and every hour in the 900 plus churches of the city. Each wedding comes with its invitees, and in Rome diversity can be impressive - with people travelling even from abroad to get married in the most theatrical city of the world.
I was showing my friend around, when we came across the wedding of a well off family. No matter how rich you are, some invitees get more bored than others during the ceremony. It’s just that in Rome you can find unique charming corners where to hide.
I was showing my friend around, when we came across the wedding of a well off family. No matter how rich you are, some invitees get more bored than others during the ceremony. It’s just that in Rome you can find unique charming corners where to hide.
Missing Rome, her golden light and weird things happening on rooftops.
On some winter days, the sea became liquid gold. Gianni and Ettore, his little hectic dog, used to go out and look for jewels.
A mother’s love • two acts • Montenegro.
When I wake up at 6.30 every day, birds are already partying hard. As I try to understand where I am and clumsily switch off the alarm on the night table, I wonder where that effervescence comes from. Do animals waste energies as we humans do? Ruminating, being obsessed, questioning, competing for the inessential. When did we lose touch with natural rhythms? And what for?
Berlin, May 2012. A heavy shower surprised me on that spring afternoon, and I found shelter at the entrance of a building. I was waiting for the rain to vanish when a woman ran under the same roof, swiftly followed by a man. I thought they were together, her scarf matching his suit so well. But it was their first encounter. At least, this is what his shy moves told me as he invited her for a cigarette.
I have a thing for trees. My folders abound in pictures of trees and windows. I always wonder what it is like to live in front of a certain tree, what light games with wind, what sounds in the mornings and at dusk, the pleasure of reading a book or sipping a cup of tea next to the tree. Oh how much I love trees!
A lazy Sunday morning, lingering in bed with my daughter. Apparently a gloomy day, until the sun fills the windows of the house across the street, bouncing its light back at us. Suddenly excited by the unexpected liveliness, I jump out of bed to grab the camera. My daughter, equally galvanized, jumps out of bed announcing she’s going to take her own camera. And here she is, looking at the world through a kaleidoscope.
Motherhood is a swing, but a colourful one.
Motherhood is a swing, but a colourful one.
Southbound 2025 | Of our yearly pilgrimage to the far south and other assorted misfortunes. This year’s highlights include wildfires, antibiotics, a nasty gash on the forehead, and a broken toilet at home. The universe is determined to remind me that I’m not a summer-by-the-sea person at all.
Yet it’s comforting to see the local elders, rooted like old olive trees, shuffling cards in the street or gazing at the sea, as much a part of the place as the wind itself. And watch my daughter turn every mishap into just another adventure | see the full note here and here
A monochrome wardrobe is one of my dreams, but it requires a great deal of clarity and direction. My wardrobe is a rainbow.
Dad-Climbing, do you remember? What about rummaging through mom’s vast bag looking for candies, releasing that distinctive smell of leather mixed with mint? Both came with the feeling of having privileged access to something comfortably immense, an ocean to sail safely.
Sea hunter-gatherers [short video on Instagram] | They may not have the crossfit bodies you expect from someone living the wild life, but they’ve seen hundreds of moons on these shores. They used to run after orange-green-yellow fishes few meters from the beach, and chase octopus at night near the reef. Now you can only see gangs of greedy greyish fishes eating cuticles of neglected feet. But the wind, oh the wind. He’s still the spirited child he used to be, careless of human sins // watch the video here
I have a thing for elders, sweaters, wooden panels, and carrot cakes.
Nest-feathering /nɛst-feh-thuh-ruhng/ A beautiful sounding word I’ve just learned reading 2021 Sag horoscope. One of the meanings make it lose all its poetic feeling, so I’ll just opt for the cozy one.
Every time I go back home, mom and I have the habit to take a long walk in Venice through the less touristic paths. Light was already fading away on that afternoon, and I had put my camera back in the bag - relieving mom from the pain of waiting for me taking pictures at every single step.
Until my attention was caught by a distinguished old man slightly limping in his right leg, but still determined as he crossed bridges. I followed him for a while until he took a rest in a small square, where quite a cinematic image suddenly took shape in front of me as a girl chose the same place to roll her late afternoon cigarette.
Until my attention was caught by a distinguished old man slightly limping in his right leg, but still determined as he crossed bridges. I followed him for a while until he took a rest in a small square, where quite a cinematic image suddenly took shape in front of me as a girl chose the same place to roll her late afternoon cigarette.
Morning light at Dunia's, too long ago. I do miss our non-breakfasts together, listening to the press review from three different radios, you asking permission to enter “my” room, me stressed when the sun played his light games exactly when we had to run to the office, and the toilet monster complaining of being left home alone.
A gloomy winter day, longing for spring.
Whenever I travel, I bring back local fairytales and medicinal plants. My cupboard is filled with jars, half full, or with just few brownish dry leaves left asking me for mercy. I’m so attached to them and the memories they bring, that I don’t care if I look like an old witch hoarding yellowed jars of embalmed frogs’ legs. Medicinal plants, the small markets where they’re sold and conversations with the people who offer them, tell much more about a place than any other item.
After a dry winter, it’s been raining endlessly. We’ve pretended to be living in a tropical forest, set-up a bamboo washing line and helped our plants bear the weight of heavy drops.
One year ago, when making random friends sitting on the bench was still an option. This image took me back to another “random friends on the bench” moment from the time I lived in Barcelona. I used to sit on a bench in El Raval almost every day, reading a book. One afternoon an old man sat close to me, as if he had been waiting for someone to listen. His accent was strong and firm, at times harsh to follow. He was from Andalucía, temporarily in Barcelona for medical treatment. He spoke about boats, women, wars. He was eager to show me the inscription inside the ring he was wearing, but his fingers were swollen with eczema and the ring wouldn't come off. He refused to give up, candidly sucking his finger in an attempt to make it slide free. I never learned what was written inside. He promised he would show me another day, when his fingers were better.
Grazing in grandma’s garden, 1984. When grandma left 12 years ago, that majestic fig tree turned into a loquat.
“How do you tell a Butterfly from a Flower?” she asked. “Flowers don’t fly”, said the Butterflower.
The Convento de San Pedro Claver is named after the Jesuit priest known as “the Slave of the Slaves” when Cartagena was a slave-trading hub. I spent one day there during a workshop on land rights, breathing mixed feelings of important historical legacies and personal memories of school with nuns. More than by its history, I was however fascinated by the beautiful forested yard. Tall tropical trees were constantly caressed by a warm breeze coming from the nearby sea, and lights and shadows tirelessly chased each other along the severe arcades.
Whatever the weather, you are light.
During moody days I used to walk along Regent’s canal to clear my mind, until it reached its sea: the Thames. I grew up in a city drawn in between rivers and canals. Everywhere else I lived I’ve always looked for flowing waters to find answers or to learn to ignore questions. I would spend hours and days walking along rivers, feeling the way they adapt and let go. Rivers cannot go back, they can only transform constantly and never be the same. This is human nature too, but we rather build dams to feel secure.
Recently I watched the delicate and intense documentary *In questo mondo* by Anna Kauber on Italian shepherd women and the deep connection with the cycles of life and death they help nurture. Anna spent two years travelling across the Alps and the Apennines, learning from the way these women look at the world, their territories and the wellbeing of animals. In Anna’s words “These women found their freedom not in disengagement, but in taking care”. Please look for this documentary, and take care.
My first mother's day.
Italy | lockdown day number : a lot | learning to read new signs | Probably what strikes me most are the lights that I see from my balcony, I’ve never seen so many: orange is the living room, blue is the bulimic consumption of news, red the streetlight for no cars, white the lamp for people walking their dogs, pink is hugs.
home | həʊm | verb | 1: (of an animal) return by instinct to its territory after leaving it | 2: move or be aimed towards a target destination with great accuracy | example: after the lockdown, I will home my soul in nature.
Sensorial travel archives, crunchy sand soaked with rotting fish.
Her hands were strong, her eyes had spoken many words. She could comfortably look at the howling sea and feel at peace.
They had never met, but what they heard about each other during those years was so vivid that it was like they had always been together. The wedding was over, bride groom and guests gone, flowers withering on the floor under the flaming summer sun of Sicily. And they were still there, telling the stories they had waited to tell each other for so long.
Man with red balloon, Berlin.
Grandma smelled like parsley. She carried parsley everywhere, on her hands, on her apron, on the arms of her eyeglasses, on her thin fluffy hair.
I took this picture during my first travel to Senegal in 2012. There were riots on the streets during election time, and they warned me not to take my camera. Still, amazed by my first time in sub-saharan Africa, I felt so much the urge to photograph anything surrounding me. My boss kindly borrowed me his camera, that he was keeping in his bag all the time. It was too much for my basic skills, I had no clue about how to use it. These kids thought they were spending time with a clumsy and naive girl, and we had quite some fun.
Afternoon along the Miljacka River, Sarajevo. I approached this couple with hesitation, the first time I ever explicitly asked strangers for a portrait. They welcomed me with easy kindness.
Between the Sea and the Lagoon, where tides speak two languages. Water, and land. Salty, and sweet. Always shifting, always becoming | see full note here
Margarita, our host, one late afternoon invited me to harvest sandía for dinner from her finca. We walked a long way through the fog, until what looked like a chaotic patchwork of overlapping fields slowly resolved under her steps. She stopped without hesitation and, with a single cut of her machete, took what we needed. The day that I fell ill, she filled a teaspoon with aguardiente, a homemade alcoholic drink distilled from sugarcane, warmed it over the flame, and massaged my stomach with the lukewarm liquid. Shortly after she gave me a ring, which I still wear every day.
All of a sudden everything seemed to conspire against this trip we had been waiting for long. We decided to give it a try, drawing lessons of trust, surrender and patience | see full note here
A dream of mine is to live on the ground floor and have the world at my doorstep. Like this man, wearing his slippers for the evening stroll close to his tiny house facing the lagoon.
I’ll show you the scent of flowers under water, she said.
Of us, my mushroom hair, giant babies, marine monsters and other traces of summer | see full note here
That time when, armed with arrogance and determination, we took a shortcut - what we thought was a shortcut - and got lost. Raindrops, big and heavy, weighed down the flight of birds. Even cows could no longer find their way, and wandered lazily and resigned in the clearing // Switzerland, Summer 2014
A bird rests on a tree branch while I sip mango juice at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Phnom Penh. When I travel for work, I always take the time to wander alone wherever I am. Back then I didn’t have a smartphone, I cannot remember how I reached the FCC (hard to believe we could do so many things, when people were smarter than phones), but I wasn’t there by chance. Tiziano Terzani, an Italian journalist who had such a great impact on my life, mentioned the FCC several times in his book “Fantasmi”. I didn’t find the smell of cigarettes, nor of beer foam trapped in the moustache of foreign correspondents; not the sound of typewriters, nor the heavy steps of men climbing the creaking wooden staircase to share war news. I felt uncomfortably relaxed, sitting in a fancy bar overlooking a colourful and melancholic city that had experienced a great tragedy.
And then came autumn, and meanings were reversed, wild fruits became the sun, the earth illuminated the sky, and warm winds blew under the roots.
Sometimes her mind was crowded with so many thoughts that the most intrepid ones had to come out looking for fresh air.
My neighbours in Turin see their grandchildren for the first time after 80 days of lockdown, only from the balcony. If I lived in a small village, I would probably be the one who knows everything, of everyone, every time.
Anita Luna and the Moon.
As I leaf through my archive, I discover pictures originally discarded because not ‘good enough’. But when is a picture ‘good enough’, and for whom? For the algorithm (on which I miserably fail)? For consistency with a self-image we’ve crafted? I’m learning to reboot my concept of ‘good enough’, and welcome images that take me back to the moment that I found them, the smell of the place, the texture of the sky, the sound of my steps reaching them.
I was a child the last time that I took a ‘vaporetto’ in Venice. It was an adventure, more than a need. My grandparents’ house in Rialto could be easily reached by walk from the train station, and the sound of heels stepping on the damp and deserted streets of Venice at night is still one of my fondest memories. Recently I took the ‘vaporetto’ again to travel across the islands of the lagoon: my attention got caught by a young boy fascinated by the chaotic water traffic outside the window and ready to embark on his own adventure.
Cartagena de Indias, hot and muggy. Especially in the Casco Antiguo and Getsemani, surrounded by four km of bulky walls built in the XVII century when the coastal city was considered the largest port of the Americas. At sunset people rest along the walls to enjoy some breeze and meet friends. During August in particular, children and grown ups gather every day to fly kites shaped like green dragons, violet butterflies, blue birds, and yellow bats - unwitting characters of fantastic novels.
During quiet summer evenings, it was easier for her to read the spots on the moon than to focus on a book.
When I travel I prefer to rely on public transportation and spend more time in typical “one day is enough” places, according to tourist guides. This is beautifully when the real journey begins. See the short video of the Sarajevo to Mostar route by train here
Travelling across Italy just relying on unreliable public transportation made me discover genuine and simple corners, and meet lovely helpful people. Like when we were about to cross the forest at sunset but heard wolves howling, and we ran back to the tiny village to find some sympathetic soul giving us a ride home.
Can you keep a secret? We're in love with you.
Her eyes were the colour of wet bark after heavy rains.
His eyes, instead. They could be the colour of deep seas, or linden leaves, whether he was looking inward, or outward.
His eyes, instead. They could be the colour of deep seas, or linden leaves, whether he was looking inward, or outward.
Venice, the city of water, is actually built on trees. Venice wouldn’t exist without the forests behind her. Sometimes during winter some of these trees, in courtyards or small squares, break the ground in search of light. Trees, magnificent creatures | From my recent peer-reviewed publication A very scientific guide to the magic of life
Missing: the warm colours of the south, the smell of rotten fruits pressed at the bottom of wooden carts, the salty tang of the sea mixed with fried plantains at the kiosk.
My clothes as a child were mostly yellow. I cannot recall whether it was mom's choice or mine. They say that choosing yellow is a sign of feeling beautiful. As a woman my clothes are pretty colourful, but yellow is rare. Yellow suits *unapologetically* beautiful people, a kind of beauty I find harder to recognize in myself over time. Still, whenever i see something yellow, my eyes light up. And you - do you feel yellow?
Me and Grandma sat in the garden during mild summer evenings after washing dishes, doing nothing. The twisting profile of the mountains was the only shape we could discern in the darkness. The only sound, a hedgehog hunting snails in between pinkish hortensias.
Many years later, living a surreal moment in a city alien to me, I surprisingly find myself sitting in the balcony every evening. Doing what I never thought my adult, frantic and self-absorbed mind would allow me to do: superbly nothing.
Many years later, living a surreal moment in a city alien to me, I surprisingly find myself sitting in the balcony every evening. Doing what I never thought my adult, frantic and self-absorbed mind would allow me to do: superbly nothing.
Boys play along River Idro before He meets the Sea in Otranto.
From the forthcoming story "Wish I were here", a narrative vagabondage across the European cities where I’ve lived or frequently returned. A failed rational attempt to identify what I find in these cities that I cannot find in my country: the constant feeling to be at ease in the unknown, in whatever I know I cannot hold forever. The constant search to be somewhere else.
It looked like the moon was releasing herself from the grip of the vegetation. She had always been free, but she didn’t know.
