The Cottage

The dining room of my cottage, that is the inspiration for Margherita's story

She entered.

A long oak table with Morris-style chairs dominated the square room with its low ceiling made of thick, dark wooden beams. The exposed stone walls had sparse, small openings to the outside, but these were softened by golden yellow curtains with animal and plant motifs: rather than weighing down the atmosphere of the room, they lightened it up and seemed to increase its warmth and brightness. Bouquets of fabric sunflowers, beautifully made and well cleaned, adorned vases with cheerful and refined floral motifs; other flowers were placed, with imagination and taste, inside wicker hearts hanging on the walls and kangaroo pouch-like baskets on the floor. Two twin lamps with pleated shades and braided stems were the only sources of light in the small room, which housed a medium-sized fireplace, unlit but recently used, with a row of objects on the marble mantelpiece: among them, four pastel-coloured candles, solid and perhaps scented, attractively placed in decorated lanterns, complete with handles for walking. The music box - a curious 17th-century object - was paired with an antique grandmother clock with a dial strangely illuminated by an internal fire, resembling a beautiful sunny face. The sideboard, probably made of cherry wood, with its typical reddish colour, was full of beautifully displayed dishes and teacups.

An old cottage, frozen in time, with access to the adjoining room only possible through a small, low door. You had to bend your head to get through it.

The place was spotlessly clean and made an excellent impression on the elderly lady.

“I’ve decided,” she thought suddenly, without even having visited the other rooms of the cottage, "I'll take it."

The dining room of my cottage seen from a different angle

The rest of the house did not disappoint her. The bedroom was small, blue, including the low but oval ceiling, that was decorated with stars, with an oversized but cosy four poster bed covered in fragrant linen, enclosed by blue and gold curtains; an oil lamp with a double emerald green lampshade did not clash at all with all that blue. And a small set of wicker armchairs - really tiny ones - clustered around a tripod no more than forty centimetres wide, seemed to invite an unusual form of conviviality. Perhaps - she said to herself with a smile - she would entertain ghosts, invisible beings or other women, in the most intimate place of all...

And where would she write? She saw it immediately: in the kitchen! It was now bare, but inexplicably warm and full of ghosts. The only wooden table near the window was simple, small and bare, more like a monk's table than a worktop for chefs; it was also pitted with tiny woodworm holes and bore signs of repeated use over many years, but three sturdy, crooked legs (another tripod: how strange!) bore its weight and invited long reading sessions. The chair - a small armchair, in truth, that was inexplicably in harmony with the simplicity of the table - was upholstered with soft, durable dark green fabric on the seat and backrest. She tried it out immediately: so comfortable!

She looked at the bright pink tiled wall facing her, with its hand-painted strawberries and rosemary motifs of exquisite, albeit spartan, workmanship.

Who was the author of such a masterpiece of balance and style? Who had lived in this place? So many hearts, so many minds? So many dreams? So many possibilities never expressed, all gathered there?

Yes, because in the background of the room stood an inglenook fireplace: she recognised it immediately. Two large stone columns formed the entrance to the great temple of fire, where a jet-black stove - undoubtedly the cooker, oven and radiator of the house - seemed to be waiting to be lit and brought back to life.

Was the stove, she conjectured, pleasantly influenced, the crucible of all those possibilities, that were like never expressed stories or personality complexes, which the fire warmed up, animated and forged, and then recast together with others?

Didn't the inside wall of the fireplace, protected by a warm darkness, look like a secret passage? She immediately imagined a spring mechanism behind a burned brick, removable, unknown to anyone. She would surely discover and activate it. And that would open up other worlds to her. And lo and behold - that's exactly what happened!

She saw one of these passages immediately, even though she kept her eyes closed in delight and was still sitting at her future writing desk. Yes, yes, without a doubt: here was another version of herself - the authentic one, the unknown one - walking towards the massive, still warm crevice, and there she triggered the spring, hidden behind the removable brick: here was a long spiral staircase, lit by torches that lit up as she passed (how? surely it wasn't an electrical mechanism: it was her presence that commanded the light, wasn't it? Yes!).

‘Let's go down!’ she said to herself. She reached the bottom easily; she found her way in the darkness, which was lit up as if it was daytime...

‘Where are we?’ she cried joyfully after an immeasurable amount of time, with a gasp of surprise: the plural was indeed appropriate. What did she see? Many doors, and then many caves, and many paths. She chose one. ‘This is my place,’ she said to herself, ‘I can see the sea, the countryside, boundless steppes. Here is the country lane. Here, I want to walk it all... Flowers bloom under my feet and on the side of the colourful, sunny lane. Absurd: how can all this be? Aren't we underground...? And now...’.

Suddenly, she was back again upstairs in the kitchen. She opened her eyes. It was her home.

The house where she would create, live and collect all sorts of experiences.

Nothing here frightened her: everything, in fact, fascinated her. The house was waiting for her, and she for the house. It breathed and wanted to be used, inhabited, cheered up, populated.

And, immediately after conceiving this thought, she heard it: the sound of a child's voice; and with it many other voices in response. One, quite distinct, was that of a very wise dog, who suggested and pointed something out, a faithful friend (for how long? In what time? Yet she had no doubt: he was her friend) with long, drooping, jet-black ears, a deep voice and a broad smile: her brother, her great ally. And then she realised that the house, with all those living and dear ghosts, had always been hers.

And there, despite her many losses, the unspeakable sufferings she had endured in her youth and early adulthood - for love, all for excess of love - despite her own illnesses, physical manifestations , of course, of a never understood pain, there, she was sure, she would live out the rest of her days, in the company of dear and generous guide spirits, as numerous as her many lives: intact parts of herself, which were now alive and narrating, spreading joy and blessings, and expanding her very being, opening (oh, how much!) the diameter of her centre, welcoming, discovering, being many dimensions of time.

This new life was and is, and is a bridge of meaning for other women, for other men.

This was her first journey into the beyond: and the cottage is, was and always will be the cradle and spaceship of her journey. And she made many of them, there in that very house, and she told them, painted them, wrote them.

She lived there for many years, and she is still there, over a hundred years old, and still telling stories, travelling and writing.

A Woman finally happy.

Margherita Anselmi Musician