“If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.”
― Anatole France, La Vie Littéraire, Tome I

Joy Street does not necessarily look happier than any other. Frankly, it does not look like much at all: quiet, narrow, uneven, down a steep hill—or up it—lined with tottering three-story, three-century-old townhouses; each divided into cramped, dim and dank apartments with hopeless plumbing, rented by “artists, you know the sort,”

said with a hopeless shake of the head.

On some roofs, some gardens. Potted tomatoes, courgettes. An improvised hammock sags on a dubious ledge. On a wrought iron balcony, blue rugs on three overturned crates serve as seats. Cheap bicycles tied to lampposts; transportation. Half-drunk bottles of cheap wine left on some windowsills. Nothing particularly joyful, except,

for the cherry tree; a small shrub, really, that must have grown from a discarded pit, in that slim strip of muck between sidewalk and brick building,

in which, at six in the morning, on a Wednesday, jazz was playing.

Jazz. Really, jazz. A saxophone. Bill-Evans-on-a-leather-couch jazz. Billie-Holiday-on-a-Sunday-evening. Except it was Wednesday morning. Perhaps it was a record. Perhaps it only happened once. Perhaps it plays every day, barely audible, unless one happens to walk by the window at six.

“The truth is that, the world unknown, it is not of magicians and spiritualists, but of novelists and poets that we must ask the way.”

Most children go to sleep and dream of becoming astronauts, explorers, ballerinas, singers, racecar drivers, flutists, snowboarders, aquarelle painters… all wake up older, disoriented, on very different streets. Most sober up, un-snooze alarms, chases buses and trains to desks, cubicles, on other streets, where joy is on Fridays, at one minute to five in the evening, or at a bigger desk, on some higher floor, in a glass corner office, perhaps.

Perhaps there is Joy there. Perhaps there is good plumbing, too, and even, on the roof, a full-service cafeteria with a panoramic view. There is, surely, a reasonable amount of joy in yearly paid leaves—three weeks and a time share; in solid checks and benefits—dental, vision; in employer-matched retirement funds; reliable coffee breaks; a reasonable commute,

But there is nothing reasonable about the poets, artists, musicians, hopeless dreamers who wake up on Joy Street and go right on dreaming. Who live on (cherries?) instant noodles and coffee, pencils they chew as they stare out of grimy windows at the world and see something different. Something that makes them write, dance, paint, play jazz,

jazz, jazz! “You know the sort.” The glorious, wake-up-and-play-your-heart-out-on-a-Wednesday-morning.

Every city must have one; a street for fools, quiet rebels who want more than desks and cubicles. I have known some, in Paris, Beirut… on hills, steep, uneven, narrow (Milan is flat, but no matter, the street exists), down which trickle light, colour, drunken announcements of great love that sometimes become words, sometimes notes that can make a stranger feel less lonesome. Streets that wake up singing, smelling of joyous, hungry youth, someone’s perfume, cigarettes, and hopeless, hopelessly foolish promise.

A wrong turn on a sluggish morning. On the wrong street, I found music and a cherry tree decked with jewels; the leaves were heavy with dew, like someone, a thief, had spilled a bag of diamonds on them, last night, in a terrible hurry. The cherries themselves were gems, in shades of… cherry red, yes, but also ruby, merlot, burgundy, carmine, rose, lipstick rouge, currant, and every possible kind of berry red. I tasted one. Plump, juicy, ripe. But tart. Of course. Rebels, wild little ones,

on a street and morning whose very existence was proudly, unreasonably, happy.