AND THEN A BEAR APPEARED AMONG THE PAGES

EVERY MOVE IS A BEGINNING

‘It’s going to be an adventure, you’ll see! A big city to explore…a school to meet new friends…maybe it won’t be easy at the beginning, but things are going to change naturally!’
Dad is speaking to me as if he was on a TED Talk stage, but the truth is that he should care of how he walks: boxes are heavy and there’s always the risk to fall down.
‘Ouch!’
Indeed.
‘Virginia, please, help me get up. I really haven’t seen the stairs…’
‘You haven’t seen a lot of things in recent times, dad. Like, for example, my hate for this move…’

Holding my arm, dad gets up and looks in my eyes, without hiding his disappointment.
‘You’re unfair. It’s not easy for me either. Changing everything, once again. But this new job is an opportunity I decided to take also for you. Especially for you. So, excuse me if I try to make things better, sometimes’.
‘I’m so-‘
‘Help me move the boxes, please’.

Our new house is cozy, I have to admit. A part of the wide living room will host dad’s study – in fact, dad is already trying to figure out where to put all the texts he works with. Yeah, right those volumes he reads for entire days, often forgetting about being a teenager’s father.
‘Dad, where are we going to display the encyclopedia? Fifty volumes, at least!’
He didn’t hear me. He’s there with his smartphone, answering emails for sure: his university course is starting tomorrow, there are so many things to prepare. Well, I will be starting a new chapter of my life in a school I know nothing about too, but it seems that no one really cares about this.

No big deal, but my bedroom is wide and bright as well. I start opening my boxes, they cannot stay in the way for too long. They’re packed with a lot of stuff: clothes, accessories, perfumes, school texts, polar bears…what? What have I just said?
That’s right: the shape of a cartoon-like polar bear carved in the wood appears among my books’ pages. To be precise, inside of a new, never-seen-before volume. It is covered with a white fabric and looks like a journal. As I open it right in the point where the bookmark is placed, I find a handwritten page.

‘Virginia,
when we received this bookmark as a gift, you were too young to have a memory of it. We were in a museum, it was the very first time we visited one together. It told many different stories, sending – among others – a precious message: those who don’t change are lost. That’s the way it is.
You are so young, my baby, but I wish you could change your path whenever you want: it will give a new value to the person you’re going to become. This time I’m the one who welcomes change, and in a way you’re paying for it. But this move is just the beginning of a new narration.
If you want, you can write about it on this journal. If you want to read some pages to me, I will listen.’
Dad

I close down the journal, paying attention to not ruin the wooden bear. I move towards the wide living room, towards dad: among many boxes we will find place for an embrace.