Yesterday afternoon, I found myself in Howth, a seaside village on the outskirts of Dublin, where I had the pleasure of meeting the writer Michele Marziani after many years apart. In truth, I came to know his words long before I met him in person. Marziani is an author who has the ability to capture the essence of places and people, transporting the reader into intimate and profound worlds. At least, that was my experience when I read “La trota ai tempi di Zorro” many years ago. As we strolled along the pier, immersed in a conversation that drifted between literature and life, something magical happened: a seal emerged from the water, free and majestic.
I had never seen a seal in its natural habitat before, and its intense gaze, filled with ancient calm, left me speechless and happy. We then stopped at The Bloody Stream Howth, a true pub brimming with Irish energy. In that small corner of the world, surrounded by those “crazy Irish,” time seemed to flow differently. When I finally boarded the train back to Dublin, I had the distinct feeling that I had spent a few hours in a parallel dimension, a suspended fragment of time, between the life lived and the one yet to be written and drawn.
