February in Kabul is the coldest month of the year; a month made of power cuts, snowfalls and the hope that there would be enough snow to avert the fear of forthcoming droughts. The first snowfall is always celebrated with an exchange of wishes and sweets.
I wrote about snow in Kabul for the first time more than ten years ago. Now I am back in the city after a very long time and there is snow again and I have the impression of closing an old circle while opening a new cycle.
Never like in this conjuncture, a return feels more like an arrival. Everything is familiar and yet everything is also to be understood afresh, from scratch; everything is to be looked at with new eyes free of prejudice, without the bias of conclusions reached even before fully comprehending details and premises.
I have been here for more than three weeks, but I write only now because probably it is only now that I have mastered the courage to face the fear of being misunderstood and to embrace the desire to highlight the dissonances that emerge every day against opposite polarising and ideological narratives.
After last night’s snowfall, Kabul is all grey; covered by worn and trampled snow and wrapped by an uncertain sky that doesn’t seem to know if it wants to stay hazy or send more snow. It is all these shades of grey that are the most difficult to represent. As days go by, I realise that shouted truths no longer hold when faced with reality; that rules and exceptions coexist side by side; that fear may turn life into survival; that glimpses of hope and possibility open up among millions of contradictions.
In its brutal beauty, Afghanistan has a unique way to crawl under my skin, to call me back and always give me a reason to return, one more question to chase, an epochal transformation to witness, an opportunity to question myself, my ideas and my prejudices. It is a disarming country, that somehow always leaves me alone and bare in front of myself and the reasons of my choices.