In Italy I was looking for a bit of Africa in the garden, in Nairobi I find my Milan in a hotel.
I am not a nostalgic person, I do not dream of returning to my homeland as a prodigal son, nor do I wish for the one with the lead in the sack.
But neither am I one of those who deny their origins because they have embraced a new country, a more 'international' philosophy and tell you 'I am a citizen of the world' or 'nemo propheta acceptus est in patria sua'.

My bond with the country where I was born is indissoluble, first and foremost because of my passion for the Italian language and its culture, then for wine and food, art and beautiful landscapes...did I not say the people?
No, I didn't say that.

My bond with Milan is also indissoluble.
When you grow up and leave Milan, you never feel like a true emigrant. I will always thank 'Milan close to Europe', for opening my eyes as you opened your legs, for getting me into the Parini high school and throwing me out, for the Corriere della Sera gymnasium and the mental gymnastics of the film libraries where you always followed the debate, for the theatre seen and acted, the jazz listened to and unfortunately never played.
For playing the middle-class, the anarchist, the radical chic, the rock singer and even a bit of a dork.

So let's take this picture, Milan.
In the most classic, banal of hypotheses: together with the 'Domm'.
Let's think of your lights, your shop windows, your cafés.

Even if the Milan I loved was more the 'liquid and melancholic' (as Jannacci used to say) of the Navigli, the 'bottle of barley water in which it floats', the bicycle on the cobblestones dribbling the tram tracks, the ball games in the park dribbling the syringes of the junkies, the nights searching for souls in the clochards waiting for the ink perfume of the newspaper at the newsstand and that of the hot brioches of the bakers.

They were the dusty bookshops I used to lose myself in, the lectures listened to by old intellectuals in felted pullovers and the stench of cat piss in the house, the encounters with elusive musicians and mad painters, alcoholic writers and enlightened industrialists, editors to learn from and young politicians to distance themselves from.

Milan was the penthouses of friends with a flattened life, sweethearts in suits when they were sixteen, stolen vinyls, burnt-out lives, broken glass and smouldering street lamps in the rain.

It is the empty Corso Sempione on a spring Sunday, with the fresh, crisp air and the backdrop of the still snow-capped mountains; it is the risotto in the form of grana padano at Pelè's, near the Chiaravalle Abbey; the endless days with the Elii, cooking and listening to recordings; the interviews with rock stars and starlets; the press conferences to the sound of canapés and campari that split the liver and always ended with the admonition 'write drunk, edit sober'.

Because the essence of Milan tastes austere, snobbish, sometimes even a little musty, but every now and then it is a sweet, high glycemic and if it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, it is only because of that little bit of Austria, of the Teutonic that it has always had.
Bitter Jaegermeister.

I am not nostalgic, if I were I would write about it.
But it is no longer the time for nostalgia, it is no longer the time to write about it.
Today you forget everything in an instant and take selfies to remember that moment when you were about to forget everything.
And in the emptiness of the dumb look of the selfie, there is everything you can't say about yourself and what you don't remember thinking.

What do you say, my Milan?