Did you know that trees invented sex? It was a long time ago, because they needed to grow and multiply. Thank you, really, from the bottom of my heart. Without them, we would not be here.

We were born from a tree and we still have a nest up there. You know how sometimes you feel a sudden dizziness at night? This comes from the times when we were still lemurs, when we were afraid of falling from the tree where we were sleeping, right into the mouth of a predator. Trees are our roots. Any tree is a family tree.

Shadow, fruits, wood for our house, branch for the bird, beauty in our backyard. What are we giving back?

They suffer storms, fires. Have you ever seen a forest after a storm? It speaks of war and destruction. But trees are never given an ultimatum. They don't fight. On the contrary.

Trees cannot cry for help. They cannot hide, nor find a shelter. They cannot move. They're here and they have to send signals to keep on living. You hear them or you don't.

When they travel, it excruciatingly slow. I know an oak who travelled from the Baltic sea to Catalugna, by making its acorns germinate. Such travels take a long time. Millions of years.

I'm thinking of it as I'm watching a tree. I touch its skin and listen to the air on its leaves. It's alive, it doesn't want to harm me and yet I can kill it in a blink. I'm also thinking that I don't know how to tell it that I won't.

Bye bye now, my very few darlings, I am going to sweet dream of my blue wonder.

When you are in Verona, you cannot possibly miss "Juliet's House" and its famous balcony. Every wall around is covered with lovers' names and little pieces of paper: fugacious tributes to the altar of love.

Of course, Shakespeare never set a foot in Verona, and Juliet's house is completely fake. George Cukor was directing a "Romeo and Juliet" in 1936, with Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard, and his set designer visited Verona to find some inspiration. Ha, you know Italians, don't you? They saw the movie, they built the house.

That is how theater and movie created a second reality.

Litterature often does the same. In Saint Petersburg, you can visit all the places where Dostoievski's "Crime and Punishment" takes place, and if you are lucky, you are having a guide who is rolling his eyeballs telling you how Raskolnikov killed the old woman. In Spain, two villages fight over the honour of being the very true birth place of Don Quixote.

Of these two realities, which one is the strongest?

There are moments in the life of a fairy muse that are perfection, like a sudden memory of the forests where you spent your young years, or a tiny, rounded drop of acacia honey. Sitting on the shoulder of your human, snuggled against her neck while you are both reading is one of these precious moments. You drink the words and they feed you with pictures and feelings. Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you bite your cheeks not to cry because she is crying too and she forgets to give you a tissue.

Okay. She says I have to put the rest "under a cut" not to annoy my friends. Care to explain, sweet pain? Let's try... 

In your world, my name is Fabrizio. I am Shanmara's fairy muse. Her real name is Chianmara but nobody here seems able to pronounce it correctly so, most of the time, everybody's calling her Shan. Sometimes, when I feel she's not at her best, I like to whisper "Chian..." in her ear with my deepest voice; it makes her giggle. I like the word "giggle", it sounds like chimes and happiness. 

The first time I saw her, it was in Rome. I was stuck with a very very untalented painter; it was a sort of punishment for having infused a young American actor with such naughty thoughts that he was kicked out of New Zealand (it was fun). So. I saw her, she was tiny, she carried a worn sketch book and she was licking an ice cream. Some of it got smeared on her chin. She doesn't know it, but I sent gold dust to catch her attention. She thinks she rescued me from the very very untalented painter, but I know we rescued each other. 

I followed her in London, then in Paris. We have our ups and downs. She says I am a drama queen (what? it is normal to rip up your clothes when you're upset) and I usually answer that she's a pain in my lovely rounded fairy arse. Paris is beautiful but I miss that the flowers don't speak to me. I also miss not being able to reach my full size here, but how would you people react at the sight of a 6'1 fairy muse with brown-olive skin, green wings and slightly pointing ears? Not well, I guess. 

What else? This is me on the little picture. I'm very concerned with my hair. My wings are small yet very powerful. There is this blue fairy muse; he makes me feel beautiful. 

It's smelling of lasagna, so I'm waving bye bye. Next time I'll tell you what I've read lately: stories so beautiful they made my heart flutter.  And maybe I'll tell you more about fairy muses, or hair style, I don't know.