I did not start writing to become a writer.

My story does not begin with a vocation, or with a talent. It begins with an early, persistent feeling: of not being safe.

At three I lived through things my body remembers before my memory does: a girl holding me under the water until I was drowning, a leg caught in a hole full of ants, a stone hitting my head, being left in a garden crying alone. I also remember a bag of sweets I had worked for on Halloween, which my mother threw away with no explanation. I did not understand why. Something stayed: my effort was worth nothing.

For years the world was hostile and unpredictable. And yet it was also the place where the first crack of meaning appeared.

When I was seven, my mother took me on weekends to my grandparents' house. At the back of the garden there was a small room and a makeshift workshop. My grandfather worked there for hours. I was beside him, putting things together, testing, taking them apart, starting again. I was not making “toys”. I was exploring. I built for the sheer impulse to build.

The garden had fruit trees. I remember the plums especially: red, fragrant, so large they filled my whole hand when we picked them together. In the morning we had breakfast early. In the afternoon my grandfather napped. Everything was simple, quiet, real.

One afternoon, waiting for him to wake so we could go back to the workshop, I sat in front of the television. In an old series an old man appeared, head shaved, in a robe, talking to a child who held a candle. They spoke of the mystery of life, of consciousness, of compassion. I felt, with a clarity I cannot explain, that the old man was my grandfather and the child was me. I stayed still for a whole hour, without blinking. Something opened. Without knowing it, I was entering an inner world that would never leave me.

The next day I went to school and everything looked different. I wanted to live from there. When the other children tried to bother me at recess, I did not answer with violence. I answered with presence. From then on I never fought with anyone again. I felt I had touched something true. I believed I could change the world by living from that place.

I was a brilliant student. I trained in swimming, studied piano, wrote poetry, wanted to be a philosophy teacher. I read without stopping. I learned on my own what the school did not know how to give. But the real difficulty was not in the books or the achievements. It was at home.

My mother was deeply depressed. She had always been my support, and I felt it was now my turn to save her. Every afternoon after school we talked for hours. I spoke to her of her beauty, her talent, her goodness. I tried to give her meaning back. She smiled, said “thank you, I love you”, and went out to face the day with a little more light. I was her lifeline. She was my best friend.

Until one night I came home and found her dying.

At three in the morning I was covered in blood, on the floor, trying to revive her. My mother died naked, as at birth, in my arms. I felt her last breath leave her body like a balloon going flat. I gave her mouth-to-mouth. Her heart was no longer beating. She died of cancer. And in that instant something in me died too.

My whole system of beliefs collapsed. If years of reflection, spirituality, and love had not been able to save her, then what was any of it worth? I felt cheated. Empty. Guilty. I believed I did not deserve to enjoy anything again.

For a long time I lived with a false premise: if I could not save my mother, my message is worth nothing.

I tried then a “normal” life. I committed to a relationship, bought an apartment, finished my degree, worked as a teacher. Then I separated. I got a good job. I studied for a master's. But the freedom was external. Inside I was still empty.