Rossella, a musician from Sardinia, talks about her non-motherhood and how this gave her the opportunity to think of her life from a different perspective.

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ROSSELLA: «My name is Rossella Faa, I am 52 years old and I am a musician. I didn’t have children, and of course I am not going to have them now. It was not my own choice, as when I was only 25 I had to undergo surgery and I had my uterus and one ovary removed, because of the onset of a tumor, and that’s why I didn’t have them. Before this surgery, I felt a strong maternal instinct, I strongly desired to have children, at least one. Then when I was told I could not have them, this desire kind of disappeared.
I always thought that this was a true miracle, a great blessing, because I have seen many other women who could not have children like me, who truly lost their mind, for this reason. I felt extremely lucky, for not longing for motherhood anymore. Now in that respect, I feel at peace with myself, when I see mothers with their children, I say, “How nice, good for you!”. But I do not feel jealous, nor do I feel envy. I couldn’t do the work I do if I had children, for instance, so this is a kind of compensation, somehow my work makes up for it. And then, let’s face it, children are a bit of a pain, they scream, and all the laundry!
I rediscovered my maternal instinct in other things, I feel this great sense of creation, of kinship, when I create music. I find this really gratifying. I consider it my gift to the world. My small gift to the world, just as having a child is a small gift to the world. But the pain for not having a child is gone. And this is amazing… and I am truly grateful to the universe for this. Really grateful to the universe.
Sometime I give my pupils a lot of affection, and I realize I give them more than what it’s usually expected from a teacher. In this respect, I do feel maternal with them. Not all of them. Obviously. In one of my shows there is a song titled “Nieddu”, which means “black”, which is dedicated to black children who moved to this neighbourhood in the last few years, and who are incredibly cute, and their colourful mums, walking around with their turbans, and with their wonderful, colourful children. When I introduce this song in my show, I say this: “there are many children here, and some have their mums, and others don’t”. Many of these children don’t have their parents, living with alleged aunts and uncles, I can’t even imagine how. And so I say, if women who cannot have children could have an easier life in the maze of red tape connected to adoptions, if they would make our journey a bit easier,we would be so much happier. Adopting a child in Italy is far too difficult. And after going though this process for 10 or 12 months, you end up paying a fortune, it can cost you from 25,000 up to 50,000 euros. Honestly, I would rather give money to a pregnant girl in… Burkina Faso, or wherever, than give it to any of the hundreds of associations that speculate over adoptions. It’s not fair, basically it’s like paying for a child, and this is not fair. It’s not fair.
People with children, always tend to think whether it’s true or not my children will look after me when I am old. Clearly, I cannot think something like that, therefore I have a different vision of old age. As a matter of fact, I have a project in mind, I wish to set up a retirement home here in Sardinia. A retirement home for artists, and creative people, in order to guarantee a peaceful old age to people who, when they reach a certain age, should not be treated as old junk, as they are at the peak of their artistic maturity, This should be true for any profession, or at least for many professions. But even more for creative people, when you get to 80 years old you are on top of your potential. Not on a physical level, but certainly on an intellectual one. Instead the risk is to isolate these artists in places which are, let’s say, not very stimulating. So my wish is to set up a retirement home for artists in Sardinia. I am already working toward this goal, and I am preparing a brief show, where the theme is older people. I want to address them directly, and it would be fun to organize a small tour performing in retirement homes. Not sure if this is feasible or not, both on practical and financial terms, because retirement homes are without funds, or so they say. But I really want to try and do it
I will try to organise my show as agile and inexpensive as possible, in order to make it work, to raise awareness toward this issue. Especially here in Sardinia where, also according to the latest polls, we are 1.6 million inhabitants, with only 200,000 not reaching voting age, therefore we are an ageing population, which is an asset to be safeguarded, especially for artists. Well, at least I stand up for my crowd.
This song is called “Ninna Pippìa”, which means “lullaby, little girl”. I wrote it to soothe my own inner child, which we all have, and which is always a bit fearful and shy. I need to take care of my inner child, so in this song I tell a story that my grandmother used to tell me: there is an angel with black eyes, who helps little girls when they are frightened. In order to summon the black-eyed angel, you need to be on your own, next to a fountain, and sing a song, any song, silently calling upon the angel. The angel will come and hold the girl in his wings, and in that moment she must tell of all her fears, all of them, no holding back. Her fears will fall on the ground, and the angel, looking at them, will feel so sorry for them, and will start to cry. The big tears falling from his eyes, will wet all her fears, which will start to sprout, giving life to “su vedrumento”, which means “obliviousness”: all you have lost without being aware of losing it.
The moment you will remember it, all will turn into fog, and it will fade away, your fears will disappear. It does work…most of the time.
“Ninna Pippìa”.»

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