Dear friends of Ombre e Luci, you may wonder why I'm here. I'm here to tell you where the idea for this blog came from—born during a period of forced isolation brought on by the pandemic. It was born because I wanted to find a way to help my weaker brothers and sisters. Since I can't go around to hospitals doing volunteer work like everyone else, I looked for another way—let's say an "alternative" way—to put love and care into action. And what better way to show love than to open this blog and tackle all the problems we face every single day? Truth is, I went through a time of isolation, even from able-bodied people, because I saw that the people who once stood by me had changed: colder toward us, as if we didn't need that moment of love or that touch we so often crave. It hurt me deeply.
And then consider the neighborhood where I live—it hit me even harder there. I live in an area that already didn't offer much to begin with, and now after two years of pandemic? So the blog was born because I believe that if we talk about these things together, we can face anything. I'm someone who likes to help however I can, in my small way. I'm already my sister's eyes because I have to be her eyes (and I'd do it a hundred times, a thousand times over). But I'm also your voice, because I've decided to lend my voice to people who cannot speak. Just as I give my sister eyes to see, I give my voice to those who need it.
So I carry with me, from my own experience over these two years, the voice of a person with a disability who cannot do what everyone else wants to do. I don't know if you know that Renato Zero song that says Nei giardini che nessuno sa—in my opinion, people don't have the right tools to know how to handle "us." I don't know, you decide, but I am convinced of this, absolutely certain: people need to learn not to look at us from the outside first and the inside second. Or worse, to stop and look only at the outside and nothing more. I'm convinced that before people judge, they need to look inside first and maybe then they see the problem. Yes, our problem exists, that's true. But there are people with problems that don't show. I'm convinced that if a person stops to look past our visible disability, they'll also see the love we can give. That's what this blog is for: to tell people what we can do, what we want to do, but what even now in 2023 they won't see because they're still looking at the outside first and the inside second.