20/07/2025 – Summer's frenzy and diary sessions
Vida Rucli
At the moment, I (Vida, hello!) feel that slowing down, sitting at the computer to reflect about the past month and sharing some meaningful notes is extremely difficult. This is a period of preparations, small and big planning, decisions and action. But also of improvised visits and little events. Just this morning, while I was trying to write this letter, we: watered the garden, received the visit of Flo + friends, moved the bee hives to our garden, visited Ornella, drank a coffee at Caffè Dora with Dora and Matia, checked the cleaning works of Italo, checked the house works of Blaso and Mirko, greeted Antò who came back to Topolò after a long time, discussed grocery shopping with Rosario, had conversations with Elena and Aljaž about our coming summer school.
Since the last letter you received, written by Dora, so many things happened that this month feels like a whole year. I am trying to recall them here, attempting at communicating the frenzy of these days!
June 16th – Izba’s birthday was, as every year is, special and heartwarming: the second hand market we organised (thank you Ele for arranging everything!) worked beautifully as well as the Wild Fermentation workshop with Alessia Beltrame which happened during the afternoon (thank you Dora for arranging everything and Antonio for the beautiful video!). The evening was accompanied by Matteo playing the accordion and ended with a super tasty vegetarian lasagna and salad made and served by Dora, Alessia, Vida and Elena (at the cassa, of course!). Did we also dance at the end? It’s probable, supported by gin tonics and pompritz (what was the name again for the spritz made with grapefruit? We can also simply call it accadimento – more about the concept in the Who is Cooking? book, page 84) made by Matia and Dora. Thanks again to all the participants of the little market, to the passers by, those who joined us from far away and close!
Week June 18th-20th – Just the time to clean Izba and put back in the closet all the un-sold clothes of the market and Dora, Elena and Sofia embarked in the Potoki adventure, the weekly exploration of Topolò and other villages done with 20 kids and the inhabitants of the villages. This year Potoki was dedicated, as well as many other things we do, to fruits and fruit trees. The kids got to know the peaches from Rodda, the chestnuts from Duge, the apples from Seuza and Gregor’s orchard in Kojsko (the orchard has now an IG page, taken care of by me. I invite you to follow it since it will contain beautiful photos by Gregor and special archive material). In Topolò they explored the Log wooden structure with a little intro by Antonio, they cooked bleki with nonna Maria, drew with Elena and played in front of Izba.
June 22nd – Pot čez namišljeno črto, the yearly Walk across the imaginary line, organised by the Rečan Association and many other associations during which people from Topolò and people from Livek, the Slovene village on the other side of the border and of the mountain, meet on the Brieza and later on the Svet Martin peak and spend the day together, sharing memories of a time when the border was heavily controlled, strongly dividing the two communities!
June 23rd – One event after the other: Svet Ivan, Saint John day. In the afternoon we – me, Elena, Katja, Stefania, Franco, Pio, Margherita and many others – collected flowers and then, together with many people who joined us, gathered in Clodig to make the traditional flower crosses of Svet Ivan and the thread of daisies.
July 3rd – We hosted a group of five young people coming from Australia, Canada and Argentina who are the grandkids of people who emigrated from our valleys in the previous centuries and came for a holidays to Benečija to get to know the places they come from, accompanied by the association Slovenci po svetu and guided by Elena T. – thank you! Together we cooked, told our stories, walked to the river and exchange stories of migrations, belonging and language.
July 4th – Ola arrived to Topolò to spend here her usual three or four weeks in Topolò, as she does every year since her (in)famous auto-invitation for a residency. “Based in Berlin (DE). Currently based in Juljova (IT)” says her website since Juljova hiša/house is the usual house where our residents sleep! As she does every year, she sew a couple of new flags, did some cleaning at Izba and this time (very special!) also cooked! Thank you Ola for this big gesture – the gang appreciates it. Also joined by Franca, who arrived in the same days and stayed with us for a bit, and Tiziana we shared sessions of diary writing and reflection about this summer.
July 6th – Senjam, village party. This year we arrived at the yearly village party completely exhausted. And still, we cleaned the chiosco, prepared, sold and served the food and cleaned up everything again, under the direction and with the help of many of course (Sandro, Carla, Barbara Tiziana, Thomas, Ola, Blaso…).
July 7th – First village meeting to discuss and listen to ideas and proposals about the renovation of the chiosco! Good vibes!
July 12th – Informal visit of the Italian ambassador in Slovenia to Topolò!
July 17th – Rosario is be in Topolò for some weeks! Also, second village meeting with the mayor, this time to discuss asphalt, trash and the renovation of chiosco.
July 18th & 19th – I am writing this letter!
This morning, walking from house to house, starting at Blaso’s (via Topolò 71), passing by Elena (n. 66), going to Dora (n. 90) and coming back to ours (via Topolò 61), and including also Laura who is not in Topolò at the moment, I asked those whom I met to share a verb they would choose to describe how they are living this period, what they are thinking about, what is their mood or just a verb that represents these days. Or a desire perhaps. The answers were:
Blaso: making, cleaning, moving dust
Dora: diving (into water, maybe also metaphorically?)
Aljaž: waiting
Vida: instituting - desiring - moderating
Rosario: slowing down - adjusting
Matia: playing
Elena: listening - respecting
Antonio: germinating
Lau: disobeying
This exercise of verb writing and especially of choosing a guiding verb for a specific period comes from one of our diarietto sessions (I mentioned them above, when talking about the visit of Ola and Franca). The diarietto (literally, small diary) sessions are little moments we carve for ourselves a few times a year, usually at the beginning and end of the year, at the beginning of spring and maybe sometimes during summer. These are moments of intimacy and of friendships, when gossips and chats become a little bit deeper, thanks to the fact that we take time to write our reflections in our notebooks, before sharing them. It is a recurring practice which we started with Elena and Dora (and had some hilarious moments too, for example that period when Dora was burning her diarietto pages in the fire after the session – a gesture which contained some apotropaic meaning but also spoke of her hate for these diary moments. Now, fortunately, it is different, she keeps her reflections in a nicely bound light green notebook). So, I was saying that it’s a thing we started with Ele and Dora but sometimes we are also joined by Tanja and Franca (both very big fans!), Suzanne, Ola and Tiziana.
It works like this: we all gather, usually at Caffè Dora, with out notebooks and pens, a bag of chips and some beers. We sit around the table and each asks a question, to herself and to the others, we define together a time to answer the question (usually around 5 to 10 minutes) and after the alarm rings, we share with each other parts of what we wrote, asking each other questions or explanations when things are not clear. The type of questions are different, sometimes they relate to desires, other times to specific plans or they are general “how are you” questions. “Whom you would like to collaborate more with?” “What everyday gestures would you like to cultivate more?” “What are you seeing is fading out, both in a positive and negative sense?” “10 nice things you saw in these last months” “What is the question that moves you at the moment?” A public version of this exercise is what we do at the end of every year and share on the journal of our website (here you can read the 2024→2025 post, here the 2023→2024).
So the exercise around finding a verb – for the times that just past, for the times to come – came from this context and more specifically it was introduced during the diarietto session of February by Suzanne. And if I recall correctly, she brought it to us after she has learned it from Lenn, on of the best question-posing persons I know (<3). The question at the time was “How to enter spring?” and the task was to choose a verb. At the time I remember that I choose joining, together also with accompanying, being alongside, participating, supporting, accepting, neighbouring, welcoming. At the time, the verb choice was more precise than today. Now I feel conflicted between heavy verbs such as instituting (and this would open another big story) or desiring, to others such as moderating (such a strange verb to choose, right! It actually came out in out July 6th session…).
So the question for you is: How are you entering this full summer? What would your guiding verb be?
We would be super curious to here what’s your mode/mood at the moment!
To end this super long letter I would like to expose some of the next cool things happening!
IMPORTANT → Sunday, August 10th → Last day of our summer school! On that day we are inviting you to join us in Topolò, from the afternoon on, for a program made of concerts, conversations, workshops and – here we can be a bit more precise! – the screening of the film Fiume of morte! by our (or rather my) dear friend Igor Bezinović. The program of the day will be out soon, through our social media channels but also through a specific letter!
July 21st-August 2nd → second part of the Radio drugega/The Other Radio residency by Urška Savič!
Saturday, July 26th → Radio Robida S04E07
Come and listen to our usual Radio Robida day program!
A special show will be that one where we will present the participants of our summer school, through small voice notes, readings from texts and music! Come and listen who we will be sharing our first week of August with!
August 4th-11th → 4th Summer School of the Academy of Margins – Radio Gardening
We are super super exciting of how this summer school will enfold. Some quite cool things are coming which could be followed and enjoyed also by those far away from us! More about this soon.
After the summer school (dates tbc) → Radio drugega/The Other Radio residency by Petra Filagrana and Moritz Gansen!
With care
hugs
Robidas
