Let's generalize for a moment here (actually what follows is not a generalization but my personal experience which I pretend to be general)
...when you talk to the woman or the girl you're with, the so called partner, and express whatever feeling of discouragement or desperation or weakness, she will immediately give you words of continuous and pressing solidarity that will revolve around the concept that whatever feeling you are experiencing it is simply not true. It is unmotivated. It is silly. It is probably the opposite, instead. There probably is some detail you didn't considered thanks to which things aren't so bad. You are probably doing perfectly fine. It goes so much so that you both get to a stage where she asks: "what's going on?" and you quickly: "nothing!" although you really need to talk. Because her prompt caring denial would be worse than silence.
On the other hand if you talk to your ex or to a girl you're friend with, you have a chance that she might express her solidarity in a less censoring way, which --if talking serves a purpose-- is the only way for you to move forward. She might even find the words to look in dismay at your condition without denying it. That's because she doesn't feel threatened by it. You're not her man, so your defects can be observed more objectively. This might explain why men seek love and then get bored by it. And why they keep falling in love with friends and exes. And why probably your girlfriend is a splendid talker and listener and helper --but not with you.

music: Maurice Ravel, Trio for Piano in A-minor-- as far as I can hear it while keeping my ability to concentrate on what I'm writing. noise: drills and bangs coming from yet another apartment renovation in the complex; muffled rumble of the city; rattling of trams in the avenue: (the usual)

Yesterday I tried to get in touch with Jawa again-- apparently they're away for the entire week. I steered to Gisa's and managed to talk with her about the situation, and it was useful, I guess. She was so surprised to hear the story. After all it all happened in her apartment, when she lend it to me for few months and I had that affair.
See? I said to myself. You lead a interesting life.
Then we agreed that every possible outcome was going to be either unsatisfactory or unjust, or painful. Whether Jawa happens to "know" that their son is actually "our" son, and she deliberately is hiding it from me; or she doesn't want to know and gets evasive; or Ernesto knows too and it's the way they decided to live this thing (the fact that they're both quite rational and science-minded individuals can be a factor); or it is all a fantasy of mine; or she realizes the possibility as soon as I tell her: in all cases what happens next is the same thing, which is, nothing.
I list to Gisa all my fears and obsessions. I say that maybe they both know, and are hiding it from me because they're scared that I might want to barge in, if only on a given hypothetical day far in the future. This can be disappointing --people not trusting me and all-- but understandable: and the consequence could only be not to see them anymore, for ever, for life: To reassure them that I am willing to spare the child a shock tomorrow that only a misunderstood idea of science or nature (what being a "biological" parent means) may consider necessary.
"Talk to her" says Gisa.
"I want to, believe me. But she seems to be sneaking away from it all the time. Why is she avoiding me anyway?"
"Oh, she probably thinks that you want to fuck her again-- and with the baby and all she doesn't want to have to tell you that it is not going to happen" Gisa answers.
"What?" See, I haven't thought of that.
"Why do you want to know it so much? What can you really do with it?" she asks.
Nothing, I know she's right. "Maybe Jawa knows for sure that this is not the case. Blood types, DNA, whatever. She can reassure me. Or maybe I just want to know what happens next with the story, you know. Describe it to myself as it happens. I can't keep that part frozen."
Skeptical look from Gisa.
"I know I have lied many times in my life" I say. Hell I have been lying to Gisa too, she knows me."Still, I hate to hide things when it's not my choice: I hate to know that there's this sort of terrain I cannot walk on. At least I would like to know that Jawa knows that I am willing to do whatever it takes to make her or them more happy with the situation."
"I bet they're happy with the situation."

Gisa is tidying up the apartment. I follow her around as she piles up stuff and takes toys out of the way, throws away stuff. Little Biba is taking a nap in the other room, Loris (the rockstar) is about to come back from a sound check. There's white light pouring in from the high windows, smell of budino and hanging clothes.
"Funny" Gisa says then.
"What?"
"You telling me about this, and I reading Dostoevsky's the eternal husband these days. It just is a very similar story. Have you read it?"
"No".
"Well is about this guy who receives a visit from a friend who recently became a widower. The guy and this friend's wife were lovers until 9 years before, when she abruptly put an end to their relationship without an explanation. Later he meets the daughter of the widower and from the moment he lays his eyes on her he is convinced that she is his own daughter. The little girl is 9 years old, and the age makes it possible if not probable for her to be his daughter. More importantly, there is something with her that makes it even more obvious, some affinity and special bond that they have."
"So how it ends?"
"I don't know, I haven't finished it yet. But you said you felt some connection with Jawa's son."
"Well, I thought. But probably the boy is too little to say." I know you can't cling to something so irrational, you're not supposed to.
"Man, I really would like to know how the story ends." I mumble. "Please let me know." Like anything depended on that.

"I never understood why you don't seem to want a little more for yourself. You seem quite fit to live to me."
"Yeah, I know, I have a nice body and interesting face and everything. But my mind is wrecked."

years ago, when I lived as a student in a microscopic studio apartment in Venice, I had for a while a very strong Milan Kundera phase. It had started a little before I camped in Venice for the first time, but it just grew exponentially when I left the last shared apartment and began living by myself.
It went on for few years, during which I read and re-read everything from him, always finding his books amazingly perfect for me and for how I wanted my life to be (what a sucker).

There was this half-hidden sottoportego near my house: a short underpass cutting through that multi-centenarian complex of buildings and coming out to the Tana canal behind Arsenale.
I used to pass from that underpass every so often, so one day I took out one of my keys and carved a wall of the sottoportego with the writing you see above here ("W Kundera" means "long live Kundera", "go Kundera" or something).
It was a polemic gesture probably, or I just wanted to enjoy the effect of seeing such a writing with all the pro-soccer-teams writings and against-lame-people writings and stupid-political writings and other tags that passing by I had to decipher.
Afterwards, for the rest of the time I lived in that apartment, to see that small writing down in the sottoportego among the others always gave me a little pleasure.

I was in Venice a couple of weeks ago, and I passed through that same sottoportego again and I don't know about the other writings, which ones were the new and which still the old ones, but my pro-kundera writing was still there as the picture shows, even though my trip for him had long ended.
Honestly to see it there didn't really gave me any pleasure, only a feeling of tenderness and slight dizziness for the person I was, someone who is now so unknown and lost to me almost as that other guy or girl who on another given day under the shades of the same sottoportego wrote I love you Franco.

this year I made propositions and didn't stick by them and I am not going to do the same mistake --this year I envied a bunch of persons but less than the last one-- I envied those who were living abroad and robbing me of their experiences-- those who were making it in the city and those lost somewhere outside of it-- I envied every writer for the beautiful phrases and for anything I didn't think of--
I grew many plants and killed many plants and longed for a garden, for a dog and a tree-- one windy day I texted someone and had a lover for months but I didn't fall in love-- I didn't answered tens of calls-- never those I really was waiting for-- I masturbated everyday anyway, in and out of my dreams-- one cold night I was attacked in a restaurant by a little man and later mobbed out of a lousy job by the same little man and so discovered God had given me enemies-- but harassed by the thought I just considered them people to shun-- even if my fingernails were livid for the excited emotion, the commotion, the woman said-- someone said it was like at the Leoncavallo, it was sad-- The little man is still out there in the city and the idea bothers me--
Friends disappointed me because i was too far out to be reached--
I worked on my English writing with desperation and never ceased one second to think that it was absurd-- to write this language without speaking it everyday alive, every page was covered of that invisible shame unfortunately--
I almost had a child and lost it --no I never lost it, she did, I never had it-- after three months of stupid fighting about abortion, about having a job or money-- or disappointing her parents by running away to start a new life away-- money, position, middle-class fear, it was all hidden there-- I wanted the fucking baby? Sure, and I cried in the surgery at the maternity hospital and didn't know I was about to-- but I didn't go on vacation because we were dismayed by the baby we finally had wanted, before the baby died all by itself and was flushed down the toilet --we went three times to the hospital and three times came back--
I was guilty--
I didn't make a buck and I went on spending the money stashed-- I visited my mother three times, handled the dogs and listened to her fading mind-- I never went to visit my cousin in London, JD in New York, DC in Paris, my sister in Rome, V. in Moscow-- I looked at Libi with suspicion because she wasn't like me, ready for the flight-- then I loved her again and betrayed her again and got back at her again-- she sewed my clothes and I played the guitar for her-- I put away the guitar and blogged so hard I got a story published on an anthology printed somewhere in America-- I received the book by mail and my story was so bad I had to put the book away-- nobody knows of it except Libi-- I went on writing hard and always aghast by my inability to live intensely like I had hoped to-- irretrievably every new year-- with every summery falling star I wished the wrong desires, not feasible--
I endorsed all the paranoias available on the net and discarded them but stuck by them, I worried for the illnesses I was going to get for being alive-- I hated my father for what I was--
I didn't fucked much-- but I played with Libi enough to be proud of us-- without booze or drugs-- us the inhibited ones--
I traveled alone into cities by resonant names and never felt really free except at night in the hotel rooms, the stranger beds, the yellow dim lights and the television sets-- without any fear to die in my sleep--

"Everyone I know says that afterwards everything is different. More intense." says she, as if thinking out loud.
"Everyone I've seen getting married got married out of the fear of being alone." I say sarcastically.
But the truth is that I am flattered that she can wish to marry me despite all my failures.
And the truth is that I don't want my life to take that route. I don't like that door and I don't feel like passing it. "The paper you sign cannot tell when and how things are changing", I say, "why signing it then?"
"I could marry for the Italian citizenship", I say, "that would be logic. But I have that already."
I don't want anything to happen because it is planned. I'm not sure if I love her (I think it is impossible to be sure), I'm not sure if I can live here with her or if it's good for me and her, I'm not even sure if I will manage to remain alive long enough to give a meaning to what I do. I don't want to stay stuck because I have to, or to transform into formality something which is graciously informal. I don't need witnesses, priests, friends to live my love for me, and the approval of society makes me sick to my stomach. I want to be able to say to my hypothetical son "I didn't married your mom because I didn't need to."
But Libi looks sideway with her beautiful black eyes and says: "it is formal, of course. But it is something you do to say that is good to be there. Like sewing a new dress." (Libi is a dressmaker. I am not convinced.)

-- In picture, above: detail of "sunday women" by John Sloan. I don't know much else of it.

One of the consequences of spending three days with my family: the need to come back and write down my will --as soon as possible.
A sort of will, I mean. Not that I have any property or valuables to bequeath.
For one thing, staying next to my father for too long makes me feel in danger. The rate of anguish and desperation raises enormously in my stomach. I start speaking by myself as soon as he's not around only to lift a cloud of protection behind which my mind must hide. The feeling that the end is near and that there is no hope becomes palpable.
Also*, the feeling of being despised or ridiculed, or not accepted, the feeling of being looked at without being really seen at all, of being negatively compared to someone else's story, or character, or hair, gives me the urge to put myself in safety, on the other side of an impassable Canyon possibly. A place from where either die, disappear or give the immense finger.

On the train coming back from L. I think that I don't know what I should write at all, in my will. The only thing I know is that it shall begin with something like: nothing of what I have used and left, particularly things I have written or drawings I have made, books I have read and kept, or pictures, must fall in the hands of any member of my family. If there isn't anyone (I mean anyone else) who can put her or his hands on my stuff, the next preferable option is total destruction.

* details later