- 40 to Berlin: Grasshoppers in South Pasadena

Twenty-seven years ago I visited my father in Zinder, Niger, for a couple of weeks. Aside from the beauty of the panorama, the kindness and the dignity of the locals and the breath-taking sunsets I witnessed, I vividly remember the devastating effects of the grasshoppers on the landscape. Nothing was left after their stormy and ferocious passage. Just void, solitude and a giant sense of emptiness.

Yesterday, those images came back to my memory, when I looked around at our empty house...

Our small crew of movers had just finished raiding our house, packing and loading all our belongings. I had just completed labeling all the boxes and making sure that nothing was left behind. Their truck,  filled with our 146 boxes of books, clothes, sport equipment, frames, pots, pans, and TV had just left the driveway.

At the same time, my husband, who had been busy with emptying his office at USC and his daily conference call, had to make a brief (but very complicated) trip to the postal office in order to fill the application for our son’s US passport.

He just came back in time to observe, with much anxiety, the piano movers disassemble, pack and load his grand piano (924 lbs.) in 45 minutes!

Then, at 5 pm, it was all over. We were left with an empty space. Nothing else.

I called my husband and was startled by the echo of my own voice in the house! I though of how much our piano tuner specialist would have loved the home as it is now, so perfect for a resounding piano, with no furniture to stop the music from propagating all around!

I should have been prepared for this, after all this is the 8^th relocation in the past 14 years (not counting Paris), but I was not. I loved this home: this has been the home where we finally lived together as a family, after commuting between Biot and Turin for 7 years. This is the home where our son grew up, made friends…

This is the only home I ever lived for more than 8 years in my entire life!!!! I could finally see the faded color of the wall paint around the furniture, something I have never experienced in my whole life and I looked for as my final ambition.

I realized that the humid drops on my cheeks were not sweat, but tears. It already started a couple of days ago.
I was walking back home with my son from his Hapkido class and we decided to stop for an ice cream at his favorite place, the Soda Fountain. They make delicious ice-cream cones (sugar, not corn syrup, as my son likes to point out)! He sat on one of the high-stools and ordered his favorite cone (chocolate, coffee, fudge, chocolate chips, whipped cream and a cherry) and all of a sudden he stared at me and said: “I’m going to miss this place!”

True, we will miss it a lot. I was getting ready to immortalize this moment on my camera when, BAM! I started crying. I wasn’t able to stop the tears…. My son was so embarrassed but he understood, he approached me, he leaned over me and whispered in my ears: “Don’t worry, mom! I’m sure we’ll find excellent ice-cream in Berlin!”. So sweet…

We decided to celebrate this moment with a dinner: that’s when we realized that the movers had taken ALL our shoes. Seriously? Yes, we only have some sneakers left! I do hope that this is the only slip in our relocation.

The real big drama occurred this morning when I realized that they took my Espresso maker!!!!

AHHHHH!!! I can leave without shoes but how am I going to survive without coffee? Impossible. Fortunately my American-Italian friend Etta rescued me and handed me one of hers…Bless you, Etta!

Now I know I’m going to make it through!