‘Cause we’re lovers, and that is a fact 5

So many people filled your streets, my love, these days. Many stopped to make you virtually immortal with their iPhone and with their cameras. You make the heart race for many, but I am jealous. Although many observe you, I know you are mine. I know your streets are mine. I know your sky never abandons me, even when I am alone. Up there, scurrying hordes of seagulls. I do not know how many times I asked myself how they get here, these birds. Where do they come from? Where are they going to? “Pushed toward unknown horizons”, as a graffiti says on the corner of Via Principe Amedeo and Piazza Vittorio.

On the corner of Via San Massimo and Via Principe Amedeo, while I was pedalling away, you have introduced me to a house wearing pyjamas. Yes, pyjamas! The house is striped, beige and white, its exteriors looks like a night gown. You reminded me once again that you are my cosy bed, even when your November fog hits me in the face and it makes Superga disappear by magic.

These days, then, as many flocked to the cinemas in the city centre, I ended up in Via Favria, in Barriera di Milano. There, there are two-storey houses, decorated with narrow balconies. On the road, you can see some very slender and tall doors, architectural dwarves: I could almost see some very skinny human beings coming out of them. I imagine they had to come outside because they were touching the ceilings with their heads inside.

In one of these cloud-filled afternoons, you take me by the hand and you reminded me that I am ignorant. Ignorant as a spring shoe. You have pointed out, in fact, that in Corso Massimo, at number 42, there’s a building called the National Institute of Metrological Research. The entrance has four columns, which despite the traffic, are snow white. I wonder who looks after the cleaning. However, apart from the columns, dear Torino – what do they do at the National Institute of Metrological Research? You do not know that either, do you? It is so relieving to know nothing about some topics. I know that I do not know.

In addition to the seagulls on the river Po, then, I noticed how many dragons flap in your streets: there are those hanging outside “Ghigo”, the patisserie in via Po, those in Corso Matteotti 40 and those guarding the entrance of “Palazzo Vittoria” in Corso Francia 23. Some say they symbolise power. I say that they are only one of your endless ways you use to make us dream, my love.