It is said that opposites attract.
This was immediately clear to me the first time I saw Africa as a young boy.
The contrast between the grey asphalt and concrete of the metropolis and the predominant blue-green of the sky-sea-nature triad won me over instantly.
What could be more seductive for a young boy than the blue dream of summer all year round, of Africa in the garden among the oleanders and baobabs? That dream exists, I told myself, it is not just a song.
In Kenya, at the equator, later in life, I found the "B side" of my last known Italy, Lake Como, where I worked as a journalist.
The infinite spaces of the Indian ocean against the limits of that closed sea, the horizon of the savannah against the mountains that deny it to you.
Adventure (and risk) contrasting with the natural sense of protection offered by the Lake Como landscape, ancestral calls versus western civilisation, living for the day versus long-range security.
Our life too is often a passage from one opposite to the other, waiting to reach the balance of a spontaneous maturity, which in my opinion should never be forced or imposed by external elements. That's why I lived seven years in Africa, returned to Italy in 1998 and satisfied my artistic hunger by writing books, articles, recording records and appearing on hundreds of stages, only to decide, another seven years later, to calmly dive back into the magic of my Kenya.
Now I think I have found the balance: I live in a country where I love the climate, the food, the nature, where when I close the office during my lunch break I go and jump in the water, where there is no stress, no traffic and no other deviations of society.
At the same time, however, I have not been able to completely give up the pleasure of writing and speaking my language, composing songs and performing in Italian and for my fellow countrymen.
I believe that in this sense living in Malindi is the right compromise to keep attracting these opposites that happily govern my existence.