Siamo fatti cosi`

I am up. Unbelievable, it's 5 am. Of course I am already up because it's a Saturday so just because I can take my time and poke myself up at leisure, there I go, I'm up already when I could have easily put in another 4 hours of sleep. C'est la vie. It's strange, I usually wake up this early when I start the insomnia phase and usually there is something to worry about, even if I don't know what it is and my psyche has pushed it to the back. But right now I'm ok, and I think I'm physically getting better, so why the hell did I actually get up? Is it my body's way of celebrating, as in, hurray we're better so release the hounds. But that's so aggressive, which is not the mood I'm in. I'm just sitting upright against the bed stand with a cup of coffee and yes, having a smoke. Smoking has started early today, and I'm not too happy with that. Anyway I'm just thinking of the body-soldiers. I remember, a really long time ago, more than 30 years ago, I used to watch this cartoon animated children's programme, of course accompanied by *the* twin who thankfully also was interested in the same programme. Otherwise it would have been battlefield, and all canons alert. You see, for those of you younger than me, there was a time when TV's came in black and white, and people were lucky if they had at least one TV set which didn't run by a remote control. If you wanted to change channels, you'd have to get up and do it. All the TV we had was either the national Maltese channel called Xandir Malta at the time, or blurry TV stations if your TV aerial was lucky enough to intercept them. Ours was. But I digress. So we watched this programme, in Italian, which was brilliant in explaining the human body and how it works. All in animated cartoon style. I also remember the antibodies portrayed as soldiers and the virus or cold or illness as the enemy on the battlefield, the enemy which no doubt had to be killed. Siamo fatti Cosi`; in English terminology, This is how we are made. It was amazing, it saved a lot of trouble back then when everything was taboo, my mother never had to shamefacedly explain the old tale of the birds and the bees. Neither had she to explian why my twinny constant companion was different. Because Siamo fatti Cosi` had explained that we might have come in one parcel, less than 15 minutes apart, but we were different because my mate was a boy. I was a girl. I have asked my mother from time to time if I ever asked anything about us being different. She always replies with a proud no, because, as she says, at the time I was a model daughter, not the pastaza I am today. Oh well, I've changed along the years. If she'd had it her way she would have stunted my growth at 5 years old, 6 at the most, but sorry mum, I grew up, and I wanted to know through first hand experience about the birds and the bees. I wonder about the tale of the birds and the bees. It's not as if they're anything explanatory, nothing like us, at least I think. But Siamo Fatti Cosi` had it all explained out. there were a lot of soldiers swimming their way up to the prize and one soldier would get the prize. It even explained that in certain cases there would be two deserving soldiers so there would be two prizes. Or more, depending on the soldiers' behaviour along the year. Cool isn't it? It's still fascinating to me now, imagine seeing all this through the eyes of a 5 year old. And you could actually see the soldier put their lancers down, put on their flippers and swim up to the prize which was portrayed as a treasure chest overflowing with gold and jewellery. No wonder I like jewellery so much. My soldier must have hit the golden treasure chest.