Here’s the Party!
It was the evening of the 20th of January, 1982 in Catania, Sicily, sometime around 10 PM, when a perfect stranger slapped my butt for the first time. Luckily, I don’t remember that happening, but I know it did.
Another human being had arrived into this world, joining the big and messy party of Life.
To make my beginning a bit more exciting than average, I was born with yellow skin, a temporary condition whose name I can’t recall, which often affects – or used to – newborns. My mother told me I had to stay a few weeks in hospital before I could move to my first home ever.
Legend has it that my father, seeing me with squashed dark eyes and that greenish tone, exclaimed: “Wow, he really looks like a lizard killed by a mop!”. That was just a taste of his innate ability to come up with great, encouraging compliments, a skill I’ve learned to master over time. And when I say “master”, I mean the gift of coming up with similar sentences in the least appropriate moments.
The second family legend about me says that the choice of my name fell on “Diego” because of my father’s appreciation for the legendary football player Diego Armando Maradona. Or because of my mother’s liking for the masked hero Zorro, secret identity of the fictional character Don Diego de la Vega.
As much as I liked the player and the game, I’ve always preferred the second version.
A Regular Italian Childhood
I don’t hold many memories of my very first years of life, and I challenge anybody else to do so.
Until the age of five, I lived with my parents and my slightly older sister Samantha (yeah, I know: all typical Italian names) in an old flat, on top of my father’s father’s house. That house made more of rocks than bricks, such that in the eyes of a little child probably looked like some kind of furnished, cosy cave.
But it had a courtyard, a vital space for growing little kids. And an older neighbour you and your sibling could play with, sometimes.
The only things I remember about him are his unusual name, “Rolando”, and that time when I dropped the sugar jar in his kitchen. Only many years later I realised that when he pretended to get angry about it and said “Now you should lick it off the floor!”, he was just making fun of me.
Him and my sister had a big laughter, my mother – later that day – not really.
The other few remarkable episodes, left in my head, relate to my approach to sports.
The first one is Samantha’s little shoe flying straight into my face, when she tried to kick a football.
There it appeared clear that wasn’t her game.
The second is when I suddenly decided to ride my tricycle all the way down the lower flight of stairs, from our flat to the courtyard, using my tongue as a handbrake and consequently winning a second ride to the hospital emergency room.
Hurrikam's Diary 