Deep within us, we all have secret chambers where we store happiness. These treasures are stashed so cleverly, it’s as if we’ve hidden them even from ourselves.
Think of that golden day on a picnic, when the grass glowed greener than any emerald we’d see today. Or that one glorious weekend, untouched by parental quarrels, when we stood in awe as Mom and Dad laughed together, their voices entwined, maybe for the first and final time. Years later, the fleeting moment when we clasped hands with the one who made our heart race, pumping blood and urging us to flee while there was still time. The song we heard that still, even now, stirs the same fierce emotions as it did back then, the birthday cake that ended up on our nose two days before the war; the laughter of a brother, a sister; the smells of kitchens, streets, and cities we’ve completely forgotten we ever visited…
In that inner vault, everything waits, poised like a stage set for its grand openning. Like in old Italian songs, whose words I still don’t understand but know exactly what they want from me. From us. Always. They beg us never to forget love, delight, happiness, the warmth that only comes when we’re not alone. When we live, share, connect. When someone loves us fiercely, genuinely delighted to see us, pulls us into a tender embrace. That’s how it felt most when we were kids.
Back then, we made silent vows to ourselves—to cherish Kindness, Love, Tenderness, Togetherness. And we were certain there was nothing more beautiful in this world than when someone was so overjoyed to see us that their smile, in its intensity, brought a tear of pure love to their eyes.
We silently promised ourselves that we would spend our lives searching only for those who would protect us and be there to hug us tightly when we needed it most. To love us so simply and naturally, without a shred of doubt about whether that love was mutual and sincere. No worries, just the certainty that everything was right. Grateful for the greatest gifts—family, home, the quiet joy of small moments, the harmony of bonds, and one day, as the crown of it all our own children. Grateful and at peace with what we’ve been given, we would simple – Be.
Even when we lie awake at night, seemingly busy with something, we are actually guarding like night watchmen, those chosen by fate—more than by their own will—to know us best. Happy and sad. Beautiful and ugly. Kind and spiteful. Angry and touchingly tender and weak… They are the Keepers of our Emotions. Their memories of us are more vivid than our own. They remember better than we do everything that has colored us, marked us. And how we’ve changed over the years, is preserved in their mental scrapbooks more faithfully than we ever could.
As I write this, my loved ones are sleeping. The days are fleeting snapshots, summer melting into dreams, and from a hundred moments, I have to pick just few to frame a postcard.
In one, there they are jumping off the pier; in another, a mother of one child, as if all children were hers, calls them for pancakes; in the third, tired from the sea and exhausted by their own imaginations, they fall silent… ’cause the children dive into their contemplations or silences, too. And Jupiter, while in Cancer, draws their gaze into the distance…
All memories live in the sign of Cancer, where Jupiter lingers now, determined to deliver some memories to our doorsteps, to bring faces back into our dreams if it can’t do so otherwise. With Venus by its side this week, it nudges us, “Hey, remember this?” To Jupiter, it’s a grand show. But to us… We resist. We flinch because nothing hurts like happiness that has passed. Like youth that’s slipped away, love we lost in the shuffle, or faces of those no longer here. Like scenes so unforgettable we nearly let them slip. What time dimmed, Jupiter now revives. If, in the coming months, your chest aches from intense emotions, let it spill into the eyes – mirror and a dwell of the soul. Cry. Let yourself weep. It happened. Life, Love, Happiness… Let it be emotional experience. This is rebirth, a softening, a childlike longing: give me, give me, I want more of this!
How beautiful it is to belong, to know where to anchor your heart, to have that harbor. Where we’ve tied ourselves to others—or tangled in knots, no matter—it’s all better than drifting alone while Jupiter sails through Cancer. Those ties are deepening now, and we realize we don’t have many of them. We thought we had more…
So, I picture Jupiter in Cancer as a whimsical Fellini, cruising by in a fancy car, passing by and looking at us, sticking his whole head out the window, while we read from his lips, “Amarcord! Amarcord!” (Remember!) That grumpy old Nobel writer might grumble, “If it doesn’t hurt, it’s not life; if it doesn’t fade, it’s not happiness,” and go on munching his Travnik’s cheese. But for us, may we just be healthy and well, all of us. And let it be.
“If you see with innocent eyes, everything is divine.” – Fellini