For the first time in book form, Romina Power chooses an intimate and unconventional way to tell her own story: a personal lexicon, a dictionary of the soul in which each entry becomes a key to exploring memories, emotions and reflections.
New York. Daria moves into a loft in SoHo. She is on the verge of turning fifty, alone, yet accompanied by her dreams, a deep desire to live, and the energy that comes from the possibility of a new beginning.
Then the scene shifts: Tubac, a house overlooking the Arizona desert. Daria goes to visit her elderly mother and is confronted with unexpected news. Her mother has cancer, but she does not want surgery and refuses treatment.
It is the harsh reality against which Daria’s dreams shatter: no more New York, no galleries in which to show her work as a sculptor, and the hope of rebuilding an emotional life set aside.
In this intense novel written in diary form and inspired by her own personal experience, Romina Power confronts illness and grief. She does so with great delicacy, even lightness, moving between different narrative registers. Daria relives the piercing memory of a mother who had once been beautiful and unreachable, and who is now devastated by disease. She accepts, without false modesty or sentimentality, the body’s unstoppable decline. In the end, she finds the strength to step back from the drama of the present through spiritual practice and a healthy dose of irony.
The ending is inevitable, and Daria knows it. Yet the slow passing of the days helps her reconcile with the past and gives new meaning to their relationship. And when death finally arrives, she is ready to welcome it, almost as though she were receiving a bouquet of roses.