why "capricci"? - silvia's too many whims

As usual it is a pecorella’s fault.
I had it by chance after a series of incredible genetic combinations more or less 31 years ago, and since then it is affecting my everyday life in an unpredictable way.
Uh, you’re right, I have to introduce it: “la pecorella” – literally, in italian, the little sheep – are my curly hair. Now that I have to introduce it – definetively for the first time in such an official way – I find natural to investigate on the origin of this name . I know for sure that at the elementary school my hair were just my hair, while I can state that at the high-school my hair were no more my hair but they were “la pecorella”. If I should bet some money on it, I would say that the “ego te baptizo pecorella” dates to the rehearses of “Così è se vi pare” of our high-school drama company, during the first year, in the spring of anno domini 1994. I wonder if some of my old friends can remember some further detail…However, it is quite easy to imagine how a poor girl with a lot of overwhelming curlies as I was, grew up on the soundtracks of the well-know singsong “Ogni riccio un capriccio” (in english: one whim for every curly). Let’s add to it a nature not so…accomodating (euphemisms at the limit of the lie are admitted in the blogs, aren’t they?) and here I am, trying to find a title for this blog (actually, what is it? A diary? An enviroment to share feelings, ideas etc?), and concluding that the best synthesis that appears in my mind – place that has always been under the little sheep jurisdiction, that warm it and protect it since it was born – it is definitively “capricci”, whims.

Capricious??!?! Am I capricious?? Me????

Ok, ok, before a crowd of ex-boyfriends will rise up to defend the concrete, I stop pretending to be upset with this insinuation and I admit it at once: I am capricious. Nomina sunt consequentia rerum, even if, following this sentence, it would rather seem that the curlies are consequences of things, but then we should be sure that, in the genetic mechanisms that gave life to this wonderful piece of woman (???), the whim-dedicated gene was defined before the curly-devoted one, as if the microscopic dynamics assigned to the structuration of the tricological character, having noted that the chemistry of the behaviour-controlling genes gave birth to a quite complex personality, always argumenting, touchy and unpleasant, rearrange them peremptorily inserting the tac-tgc-gca sequence – or whatever it is – corresponding to curly hair. And putting a sheep on my head.

But what is a whim?
I have no idea about its psycological/psychiatric definition, but during last years, analysing myself, I learnt to understand what a whim is for me. I found the mechanism at its basis.

At the very beginning there is a desire. Not a simple desire, but a desire regarding even other people. I find myself desiring to live something with someone, where “to live” and “something” can assume a lot of various forms: to live can be to do, to give, to get, to share, and something can be an offert, an evening, a promise, a journey. I feel that this desire should be not only mine, but even of the other person involved in the business, and I start to think that, reasonably, my partner will cooperate with me to realize this impulse. The crucial point is that this cooperation must be spontaneous. If, by chance, the situation si different, what can I do is trying to give some indication, suggest to the other person what I would hope that he/she finds inside him/her. In the unlikely case, however, that my “suggesting” goes beyond a certain threshold, situation collapses and the whim arrives. And the reason is because I cannot find any spontaneity in the choice, and even if the partner, in the end, starts its way towards our shared desire, I feel some desease. In few words: I do not want it anymore. I don’t like it anymore.

This is the reason why the balancing between seconding a desire and the evaluation of the efforts that is reasonable to do to accomplish it is a very delicate mechanism, that has to be operated cautiously and being perfectly aware of the consequences that every step of the process will generate.

The best schematization of it is the sentence that, very often, people addressed to me: how did it happen? You wanted it so strongly and now… you do not want it anymore?

Yes, exactly. But it’s my fault.

Growing old, with the adulthood, I understood that insistence is not for me. Some friends tell that I am too proud. It is partially true, but in the very last months I understood that pride is nothing but a kind of defence from disappointments. If someone begs me, indeed, to have something, it clearly means that he really cares for it, and that probably my desire, my effort – in the case I will consent to give it – will be well invested. Pride hides no superiority: it is just instinct of self-preservation. Funny enough, as soon as I identified this mechanism, I stopped being so proud. Yes, I know: a psychologist would say that it is not strange at all…

Not so proud anymore, but I am still doing whims. I will always do whims. Probably when I will have children I will stop, because then – if between the other aspects they will inherit the little sheep, my curly hair – they will have the duty of doing whims, and I will interpret the role of the gentle mother that second those very same whims, that understand and recognize them, and it will touch myself. It will be wonderful.

post scriptum The queen of my balcony, during this december in paris, is without any doubt ornella, the snapdragon. I took it at the old flower market close to notre-dame when it was just a tuft in a bad shape, but month by month it grew up impressively, increasing its dimension and producing dozens of wonderful flowers red and white. In spite of my heart full of joy for its happiness and health, I cannot help me in wondering how the hell it is possible to continue flowering even in december, when we are in the real winter and temperatures are really low. This occurrence made me think, so I started studying the botany of this plant in order to better understand it and shed a light on this strange circumstance. Among the various investigations, I found out that snapdragons, in the flower language, represent the flower of the…whimp! I was astonished. In the middle-age young ladies wore them in their hair in order to repel undesired admirers. To give this flower as a gift, then, means indifference.

And if my flowers understood my nature more than I understood theirs?!