Saluzzo,(CN) Italia,

29.12.15, 16.30h

Laura Ollivero is my mother.
She is 69 years old and she comes from the mountains.
Her mother was from a small village located in Val Varaita, the same valley her grandmother come from, while her grandfather was originally from Langhe a region nowadays famous for its wine production.

Her roots and human culture she says, come form the mountains.

About her first two Houses, she has few memories:
a window that her mother used as a fridge, and a cardboard structure hanging from a balcony where she was keeping her child pots;
of the second house she remembers many people living together, mainly women:
they had no running water, so that they needed to take it from a fountain in the yard…also the toilet was outside and it was usually disinfected with very strong products coming from the Pharmacy, so that right after that it was not possible to use it.
My mother remembers listening from this house to two different kind of bells, one with a stronger sound, and the others, with a more “yellow” sound, a less brilliant timbre: these bells were played for funerals, a real event in the village.
On these occasions her Grandmother wore a special dress, that all the married women were using, very similar to the dress worn by the Daughters of Mary (a religious group of the village).

In the house they had a “croutin”, a space to keep bottles and pots, where only adults could have access.

The children's playground was composed of two storage spaces: one full of objects coming from the grandfather's pharmacy where a mysterious old trunk, left by a soldier during the war, that children had no permission to open, was kept; the second big space was full of books and they could enter it only when older.
A third loft was the magical space used for shows: theater and acrobatics small performances were presented to a small audience of children who paid their ticket with candies or a chocolate.

When my mother was just three, her father died from a perforated ulcer and the family had to move to Saluzzo, a small medieval city in the lowland, where, as a child, she managed to adapt well, starting a life divided between the city and the mountain.
A red motorbike and a scary tour that my mother remembers because of the vibrations of the engine in her stomach are the only memories she keeps of her father.
Laura always kept a very strong connection with her mountain village: going there during the school summer holidays she could meet part of her family, have picnics in the fields and experience freedom! the beautiful freedom of running around the village the entire day without any problem.
The freedom of Saluzzo (the city) was different: a big patio hosting many children playing together and some streets on the hill were they could run and explore.

What creates the feeling of home? the relation created among people, people that through the use of objects, create with them a relationship, sentirsi in Casa/feeling at Home is to see the same view every day; Home is the place where you have feelings, where you live strong emotions, it is a space to work…

In Saluzzo, after the death of her father, my mum and her family were hosted in a flat borrowed from some other family members: Laura had the last room of the house, a very big one, where she could even bike around the table;
furniture from the 40’s and pink carpets decorated her mother's bedroom, and the cold room of her uncle Fredo was used to keep the oranges fresh.
The toilet, even if with all the comforts, was very cold and was curiously facing the building's stairs, so that it was possible a lot of privacy.
Of this house Laura remembers voices singing: her mother singing a war song while washing the clothes, and the asthmatic neighbor breathing loudly and singing "Zucchero e Pepe" at the same time, while working in the yard. Another neighbor who was producing mattresses in his atelir and loaning them the newspaper was also part of the community and my mum was always trying to catch his attention screaming with a very sharp and strident voice.

Laura worked as teacher for primary school: I ask her if she thinks about the School as a possible extension of the house/home..?
She answers that she thinks it could be even more than this, if people working there would develop their work not just on a didactic-cultural point of view, but first of all with a human approach: supporting instruction and culture with humanity they would make of a School a Home instead of just a place to learn things, a School, a real one can be, in her opinion, more than Home...

I ask Laura what she thinks about the feeling of “Security”. She answers that she would feel secure if we could live in a condition of world equilibrium, while, on a smaller scale she mentions security as integrity and inner strength…

Can a House give a feeling of Security?

Of course, when we have a house we take advantage of it, but any earthquake, war or natural cataclysm could make a house disappear in a minute…

...my mum knows that everything in life is elusive…so that she doesn't identify her security strictly with her house.
She feels something real in the contact with nature.
Nature is life, surprise, it is the funny game of planting and waiting life to appear;
Laura would prefer a small house with a garden to a big one without a green space. She feels the garden as an extension of herself and it is there that she feels free…more than at home…
She doesn’t spend so much time in the street, but she likes it when she meets some friend and she can stop to speak with them a little bit.

She says that she has loved every house she has had! Maybe she feels a special affection for the one she has now, as she tried to create it according to her taste in a compromise with the wishes of my father.

Free…

...free, she feels free when she has no one telling her what she has or she has not to do…this is freedom on a small scale; in big scale: it would be the possibility for individuals in the society of thinking, acting and speaking with no repression…

...to listen is to imagine...

Thank you Laura for walking with me on this cold afternoon sharing memories and impressions of your life!!!!

Good listening!