I think it was a sudden bout of summer nostalgia that led me to make the instinctive and unpredictable decision to return to whitework cutwork. My thoughts, somewhat agitated by the heat, had bounced from synapse to synapse, catapulting me to the Tahiti campsite in Follonica: the shadows of the moving pine trees and the chorus of cicadas, the only ones able to escape the strict dictates of the afternoon hours of silence. I sat embroidering a cutwork strip from a Mani di Fata album. I must have been about 13 years old. A lady from Siena approached to peek at my work and, with her charming and elegant way of speaking, she wove encouraging praise, asked questions, talked about her own work in progress and offered a few small suggestions. We parted with the promise that she would teach me some new stitches. How I regret these encounters brought about by a piece of fabric! Today’s indifference and hesitation no longer produce words, not even on the train! Anyway… The next day she arrived with some ribbon and green-shaded cotton, and we tried out a few ways of making leaves together.And then she gave me a gift that I would cherish over the years with great and curious care: a porcupine quill to use as an awl for English stitch. She was the wife of a hunter and had him collect the quills that porcupines normally scatter throughout the woods. I kept it in my box for years, but one day I was horrified to discover that a woodworm had eaten a large chunk of it: gnawing on memories is an unforgivable act of baseness. But one day, my legendary Miranda showed up at the fair with three little treasures, and I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that she heard the whisper of my old friend, whose name has unfortunately been lost in the rushing flow of my life and my memories.