Is There Such A Thing As A Safe Place?

My mother has sent me a video showing my fathers house. Huge cracks on the walls, pieces of plaster cover tables, beds, floors, walls are cut open. I can't imagine how scary that has been for them who were sleeping peacefully, woken up by the noise of their home falling on their heads. My brother with his newborn son, I can't imagine the fear.

She's telling me of all the places I used to go when I was a child, that are no longer. Buildings without roofs and walls, towns without buildings and people. I hurt inside, thinking of all my memories, I have been there, and I will never be able to see the same landscape. I hurt, thinking about the fear all those people have, the earth still shaking under their feet, aftershocks still striking. My father can't sleep at night, with my mum and other 40 odd people, lying at night in the hall of a restaurant that has offered the space for the people without a home.

My mum's house is completely intact, but it's still not safe to use it. We are grateful for that. The home of many a summer holiday for the younger me.

My family has been lucky, they were far enough from the epicentre, their home was solid enough not to collapse over their heads. Many people haven't been as lucky, I grieve for them and I pray that when they'll have another chance they won't be angry for the way they had to quit this game. I hope they will come back, or go somewhere else, with the understanding that life is nothing but a warm flame that a simple gust of wind can extinguish and that we have, as humans, we have to cherish the warmth until we have it.

In the big city I live in, sometime fear takes over. Money, politics, violence, dreams and goals. There is many a thing about which we can worry.

Sometimes I fancy of a time in which I will go back to my grandfather's house in the mountains, the one my mum lives now, away from all the problems I see in the world around me. I would live a peaceful life among the trees and the foxes.

But then one day an earthquake comes and the trees fall.

Is there such a thing as a safe place?

No matter where you are the choice is yours.

You can worry about the end.
You can long to the safe immutable past.
Or you can live the present fully, finding the happiness that latently lies inside you in every single moment.

Is there such a thing as a safe place?

Yes, look inside.