Ten centuries after the descent of the Normans into Sicily, today a horde of sleepy Turin people gathered at Turin Caselle airport to take the first flight to Palermo.

We’re heading to Aikido FIJLKAM National Seminar. An itinerant formula which, after a couple of editions hosted in Piedmont, moves to the Pearl of the Mediterranean.

But let’s get back to us. At 4 in the morning the most martial thing we can express is the gi in the luggage.

Looking at each other we have the typical freshness we had in high school on the last day of a camp. Too bad we’re at the beginning. Trying to be alert, we’ll be lucky if they don’t make us pay a premium for bags under our eyes.

The point is that, except for two of us who actually attend high school, all the others have doubled or tripled high school age. Actually someone else, this morning seems to have entered a retirement home.

In any case, looking our guts, we’re just kids.

Because in the end, what drives us is the search for being together to do something beautiful, useful and even fun.

A bit of a camp, a bit of a seminar, a bit of escape, a bit of dedication, a bit of self-care, a bit of that pinch of healthy madness that makes you get up in the middle of the night to go far away to practice…

What does move us?

And why does a trip with the same logistics seem burdensome to us if it’s for job reasons and yet this one is accepted willingly, with low-cost seats kicked by children, the tiredness of weeks of work?

In the answer, in the why of each of us, there is the key to living a life that tends towards fuller, aware decisions.

And if Dante went so far as to say that what moves the Sun and the stars is Love, perhaps in the sleepy eyes of all of us we can see a spark of it. That love for ourselves and for beautiful things that -with choices and sacrifices- allows us to set off on this new adventure.

Stay tuned!