Beyond

Old fears

 Anna was a student of mine, she was at that time seventeen and therefore that year she would have attended the fourth year of studies. And what follows is just a little part of her story.

*****

The first time I met her she was fourteen, first day of the secondary school.

She was a chick, both in colours and behaviours; I saw a child but my mind immediately talked me about a destiny of shining beauty.

I was immediately captured by her eyes, an intelligent look made of not common expressivity, a faithful mirror of all the thoughts and feelings crossing her young soul. Anna's eyes were green, but to describe so banally their colour meant to say nothing; they weren't tamed and calm like two emeralds, rather wild and blazing like Mediterranean vegetation exposed to the action of the sun and the wind.

Her skin was very clear; her natural pallor suggested delicacy, maybe also fragility.

Her hair was long and blond, for sure natural; she often punished them inside a low tail, but also when she tried to trap them they protested trying to escape. They weren't straight and they weren't curly, they were rebel, exactly like her.

And her features? Angel face, a sweet and kind appearance difficult to forget, an happy personality, full of enthusiasm, which in those years unfortunately didn't succeed to emerge in all her vitality.

Also in the rest of her body she evoked harmony. She wasn't lean, rather athletic; from the dresses glimpsed the muscles result of the intense physical activity she used to persecute herself, no doubt one of her preferred refuges. She was a little higher than her schoolmates and she had a graceful but never arrogant walk.

What to tell more about her? She did nothing to appear but a lot to hide herself. She wore outfits studied to conceal her shapes, above all tracksuits; I saw her flaunting infinity types of them, a kind of vanity never known before. The clothes were often branded and the colour matchings right; for sure money wasn't her problem, she had certainly others.

She spoke little, at the beginning I thought she was just timid. But the moment of the oral examinations came soon and I understood that my initial intuitions were right. She was very intelligent; the way she articulated the messages, the mental connections and the analysis she did, all those signals carried me to the same conclusion. Negative note, she always looked downward, for sure an improvement area for the future.

Great. The talent came again to visit me. It would have taken a lot of time and exercise to make it emerge properly but it was there, and I felt myself honoured it had chosen one more time me for a walk outside the paradise.

*****

Relationships with others weren't an easy business for Anna; she was able to, but as for dressing, if she could choose she preferred not to show herself completely, to escape rather than to stay.

As far as teachers, the girl was the best they can desire: maturity of language and optimal education; with friends she was more spontaneous, she knew many interesting epithets and nicknames, she often behaved like a tomboy.

The sport was a great friend; she loved to attend cartwheels and somersaults during the gym, impossible for her to stay still. Always leader during volleyball matches and in the race boys struggled to keep her rhythm. In that shapeless tracksuit Anna felt herself truly at ease and therefore succeeded to express at maximum her vivacity. Body and eyes were her most congenial communication tools, the word would have been a farther conquest.

She preferred little groups than large companies, males or females it was the same. In the classroom her favourite place was the corner, last desk, close to the window.