My First Castle

It was 2005, and I had never left the country. I was 20 years old, one year away from finishing film school, and felt terribly inferior to my peers.

I was fortunate to study at an elite college. I remember my high school friends distancing themselves, saying I had become 'rich,' and they didn't want to talk to me anymore. Little did they know that I had a scholarship, and my father worked hard to pay the remaining tuition.

I found myself in a limbo where I wasn't poor, nor rich. I couldn't hang out with high school classmates anymore, and I didn't have the money (or intellect) to keep up with my college peers.

It was at the age of 20 that I could, for the first time, leave the country. In June 2005, I landed in Milan, determined to have a real experience where I could exchange knowledge with my colleagues in the following semester.

I had never felt so amazed. Piazza del Duomo slapped me with its grandeur. I was breathless when I saw that incredible Gothic church, with more details than my eyes could absorb. It was simply wonderful to feel like I was stepping into a place that only existed in the pages of books.

If the Duomo was an incredible experience, stepping into the Castello Sforzesco, where I had my first encounter with Leonardo Da Vinci, felt like I had entered a parallel world.

The sensation of entering a castle was already surreal for someone born on the outskirts of São Paulo, who rarely visited traditional cultural places like MAM, Avenida Paulista, MUBE, and many others. I remember the air was fresh, a few degrees lower than the scorching temperature of the Italian summer.

The marble in the grand halls was strangely soft to step on (who ever heard of that?), and the imposing wooden and iron doors divided spaces that housed a collection of weapons and armor that I had only seen in movies.

The corridors of the walls had holes (spaces to place weapons in case of combat), and the beige, crumbling bricks seemed transported by a portal from five hundred years ago.

I, always surrounded by smooth plaster, white paint, and houses at most fifty years old and without historical weight, understood there the importance of preserving our memories.

When I wrote my first book, I set it in a medieval castle, still unaware of what it was like to actually walk inside one. I revisited the pages that I still considered editable to add the impressions of walking through the cold corridors, the well-kept gardens, and the feeling of being alone in that vastness in the middle of the night.

As an aspiring writer, focused on writing scripts, I bought a notebook and filled the pages with emotions, sensations, and cherished memories that I always recall when I need to set a story.

Perhaps my high school friends are right, and I became a bit 'spoiled' after some experiences, and I feel terrible saying that yes, it is a privilege that few can have.