This is only the third time in my life I’ve eaten a pomegranate and yet it always seems to me so different from the other fruits, so uncommon, primordial.

It’s almost as if it had a life of its own, a soul, a heartbeat.

It’s like a treasure chest that contains many small precious gems, shiny, as fragile as crystal, and red like the vivid blood that gushes from an open wound. It’s an armor that must protect a great beating heart full of life.

When I think about it, there’s something tragic in its beauty and in the very act of opening it and eating its seeds.

Every time I cut it with a knife and open it to extract the ruby ​​red seeds, this banal action that’s normally done with all other fruits here becomes like a ritual, a moment so intimate, almost spiritual, in which with extreme care I commit myself to delicately extracting each seed, so that it doesn’t get ruined or broken, reducing itself to nothing but red liquid on my fingers.

A bright juice similar to blood, as if I had just made a sacrifice; an image that inevitably brings me back to Lady Macbeth, in the fifth Act of the Shakespearean tragedy, when she’s obsessed with the imaginary bloodstain on her hands that she tries in vain to wash away, symbolizing her sense of guilt.

And I too feel a strange sense of guilt, even if different from hers, because I feel I have wounded that heart of seeds, but at the same time I’m enchanted by its beauty and gratified because I was able to appreciate its flavor after a lot of hard work.

To me, this partly reflects that feeling of joy and satisfaction you have when, after time and effort, after getting to know a person and seeing beyond that armor even their flaws and deepest wounds of their heart that once bled, you love them anyway, with the awareness that it was worth it.

“I felt my heart crack slowly like a pomegranate, spilling its seeds.”

-Trebor Healey, from “A Horse Named Sorrow”

This ambivalence between the metaphorical shadow of the bleeding wound and the light that can be seen after the effort reminds me of Persephone’s duplicity in the Greek myth and the meaning of the pomegranate, which over the years has become a symbol associated with her.

She has always been one of those divine feminine figures I return to when I need it. She’s both light and shadow, life and death. Kore (from the Greek Κόρη, “the maiden”) and Goddess of Spring, but also Queen of the Underworld.

Abducted by Hades, she was forced to eat pomegranate seeds, the food of the Underworld, condemning herself to spend six months of the year in the World of the Dead with him, symbolizing death, and the remaining six on Earth with her mother Demeter, thus explaining the rebirth of nature and the alternation of the seasons -spring marks her return among mortals and winter her absence-.

Because of this, she became symbol of fertility, abundance, prosperity, rebirth, life and death and the cycle of seasons.

If we think about it, it’s not just the seasons that change: Persephone starts to change with them as long as she consumes the fruit’s seeds. She embarks on an inner journey of growth and transformation.

Therefore, I don’t see her story as a representation of a passive captivity, but as an example of courage, resilience and female empowerment.

In fact, when I eat this fruit, I can’t help but notice its sweet and sour taste. The seeds have a slight bitter note, they are crunchy under my teeth.

They don’t have a single flavor, just like the Goddess’ temper and her double nature: she was never just a fragile and helpless woman, she became Queen of the Underworld and Maiden of Spring, embodying the burning fire of the afterlife and the regenerative and beautiful force of Nature after the cold winter.

She has both the bittersweetness of the seeds and the resistant armor that protects them.

Persephone and her fruit teach us that we don’t have to have just one flavor, just one shade. We don’t have to be just sweet and innocent or just strong and inflexible, light or shadow.

They teach us that we can be both.

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-
No -yet still stedfast, sill unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, 
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever -or else swoon to death.

This is one of Keats’s poems that I love most, and it never ceases to enchant me every time I read it.

The power of this declaration of eternal love transcends the limits of space and time, to the point of almost seeming otherworldly, as if it came from the stars themselves. However, the stars have a cold and distant nature from which he detaches himself, returning to the intimate, earthly and mortal connection with his lover, in a moment that seems eternal, even if it can’t last forever.

And if this isn’t love, then what is it?

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting.
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

This poem was recommended to me by my teacher of Latin and Greek a few years ago, when I was in high school.

I don’t remember why anymore. But surely I still remember to this day how this poem made me feel when I read it for the first time, while I was waiting for the train at the station after a long day of school. It’s like a breath of fresh air that inspires to welcome life with calmness, patience and resilience -and also with a stoic approach, which doesn’t surprise me at all, since my teacher almost certainly had a stoic view of life-.

So, I’ll put it here, hoping it will make anyone who finds it feel these emotions too -as poetry always does, after all-.

I hope you enjoy it.

XX

Voltaire once said “The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude” and I couldn’t agree more with him.

We all know that in life it’s important to cultivate friendships and personal relationships and this requires time and commitment, but we also must learn the art of being alone, because we ourselves are the people we will spend the most time with during our journey through life.

Solitude is not loneliness

Over the years and thanks to life’s experiences I have come to the serene awareness that there’s nothing wrong with searching for some solitude and that being alone has nothing to do with being lonely.

It’s not loneliness and neither some sort of dramatic self-isolation. It doesn’t mean becoming a hermit, walling yourself up in a monastery forever and throwing away the key, ironically speaking.

It’s an interior peace that sometimes can speak more than a thousand voices. It’s learning to enjoy the time we spend with ourselves only and falling in love with it, no longer feeling the constant need to always have someone else around. If we think about it, solitude is a real inner beauty ritual for the mind and soul. It’s a quiet gift that over time makes us understand that life’s not only enjoyable when we are with friends or those we love. And this gift can be an opportunity of growth, to cultivate emotional independence and inner well-being.

Look for the pearl in yourself

When we have the possibility to look within ourselves, we can find a whole world that maybe we didn’t know existed when we were with others. Not because we weren’t ourselves around them, but because this hidden world needed care, attention and quiet to reveal itself.

It’s almost like an oyster and the little shiny pearl that’s kept inside of it and which we wouldn’t know about if we didn’t look inside the oyster itself. And, to find it, we have to search carefully because the pearl is hidden beneath the mollusk. It’s not that immediate, it’s not enough to simply open the oyster: the research requires time, curiosity, and determination.

This works the same way with ourselves and the unexplored world that lies within us, waiting to be found.

Besides, deepening the connection with ourselves in solitude is also a key to be more comfortable around others and create stronger relationships with people, because we don’t need them, we don’t have a void to fill and, because of that, these bonds can be more authentic.

Find your interests and cultivate them

Voltaire’s famous quote offers a new perspective, which suggests that real happiness can also be found in a balanced relationship between inner peace and productive or intellectual activity. It’s a way of choosing your own company to cultivate serenity and creativity.

This self-exploration gradually leads us towards the discovery of our interests, our hobbies, those little things that warm our spirit.

Since I was a child, I’ve always had the tendency -or the urge, it depends on how one wants to interpret it- to look foor some time in everyday life to dedicate to myself. At the end of the day, I have to close the windows on the outside world and reach that small and intimate space to be alone with my thoughts and passions. When we really crave this, when we feel the urge to heal our soul in silence, in the quiet of our house or our safe space, it’s important that we listen to it. And, by doing that, we can be free to create, recharge and enrich ourselves internally.

After all, it’s a healthy habit to take a break from appointments and duties, from the fast river of life.

Go on dates with yourself

If there’s a thing that I learnt the hard way, it is that you don’t have to be with someone to do the things you love.

It takes time, courage, confidence, but as soon as we manage not to wait for others to join us if we really want to do something, it’s done.

And don’t worry: nobody cares. Sometimes, the only thing holding us back from being free is ourselves.

So we have to step outside and feel inspired. We have to take ourselves on dates. I absolutely love finding people doing that: someone enjoying their breakfast alone in a café, someone reading a good book sitting on a park bench, someone visiting a museum and making a sketch of their favorite painting.

It’s easier than it seems.

In essence, discovering the delicate beauty of solitude is a gift of life. An opportunity we create for ourselves, with which it can always be a pleasure to nurture our inner child.

I’ve always been taught the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover”, but for once in my life I did and I’m glad of it.

A few years ago I accidentally found on pinterest an edit of this movie -the first one of a trilogy- and I instantly fell in love with it. So, as soon as I could, I watched it and devoured every second, every word without even realizing it.

It simply starts on a train to Vienna, where Jesse, a young American journalist returning home, casually meets Céline, a French student going to Paris. The attraction between the two is undeniable, so Jesse asks Céline to get off the train and spend their last night together in Vienna and she accepts.

But “Before Sunrise” isn’t just a common romantic movie, it’s so much more. The plot revolves around two people, sincere and pure, who simply walk around the city and talk together. It is the story of an unexpected encounter which lasts a few hours but which frames a long conversation about life and its nuances.

Jesse and Céline show us their souls by exploring the meaning of existence, love, human connection, time, death, vulnerability, distance and reincarnation, with thoughts and deep reflections that made me mentally join them without even being there.

“I believe if there’s any kind of God it wouldn’t be in any of us, not you or me, but just in this little space in between. If there’s any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know it’s almost impossible to succeed but who cares, really ? The answer must be in the attempt.”

This movie is a philosophical itinerary on topics that everyone has thought about at least once in their life. The considerations made by Céline and Jesse are so incredibly shareable that during my viewing I often found myself trying to answer the same questions as the two protagonists.

Another thing that gives the film its value is that they don’t always think alike, but are open-minded and willing to hear each other’s opinions, as it should normally be in everyday life. It is a continuous exchange of points of view that creates a dialogue so spontaneous yet profound, whose words touch you when you least expect it and which remain imprinted in your memory as time passes.

“I think I’m always so much more happy with books and movies and stuff. It’s like, I get more excited about well-done representations of life than life itself.”

The movie ends with a cliffhanger, as the two protagonists say goodbye to each other and promise to meet again that same day a year later, leaving the viewer with the hope that this will happen.

But, as I said, the ellipsis remains even for the topics of conversation exchanged in the streets and bars of the Austrian capital. It’s as if this movie intentionally leaves space for reflection for those who are watching it, as if Jesse and Céline were simply the spokespeople for this philosophical exchange, so that everyone can mentally think and converse with them.

The two spent those few but intense hours in Vienna seizing every moment -in a Horatian way- and actively living, listening to music, having their palms read by a fortune teller, watching street performers, drinking wine in a park at night.

They fully savored every second and opportunity that their limited time together offers them and, for me, this is like an invite to us to do the same in a time where society has taught us to indulge in haste without stopping to observe the world around us and its little gems that shine in the simplicity of everyday life.

“I always feel this pressure of being a strong and independent icon of womanhood, and without making it look my whole life is revolving around some guy. But loving someone, and being loved means so much to me. We always make fun of it and stuff. But isn’t everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?”

I still remember the poem that they had written for them on the spot by a homeless man, while walking along the banks of the Danube. A poem that still makes me dream today.

I personally think that this poem partly encapsulates the pure, authentic and unidealized essence of the movie. A movie that doesn’t just show youthful love, but also and mostly the enigmatic questions and the bittersweet taste of life, with both its positive and negative aspects.

“Before Sunrise” is now thirty-one years old - and, as I usually say, it is well seasoned - but it still speaks to me with the same power and energy as the first time.