My stay at the Mittag-Leffler Institute (in the suburb of Stockholm) comes to its end. I spent there almost two months. It is difficult to express how wonderful this period was without feeling sadness. It seems that I was free to think. No. I should rather say that I felt freedom.  In the core of the library, hidding in the tower, and surrounded by old books, sitting at the piano, walking on the coast, listening to the whisperings of a melting sea breaking the perfect reflection of a nordic sky.

After tomorrow, I will be back to the “real world”. But, aren’t dreams more real than reality? Probably, I will continue to live in a dream of life, and try to share the same dream with others. Until when? Will I see again this island and its surprising inhabitants? Who knows?

I feel as if I were abandoning a temporary love. But I did not only like the people I met there, I also liked the time we spent together discussing about mathematics. Mathematics is entangled in eternity, and when we think together in time, we experience our true nature.

Six years ago, I got the same impression when I was about to leave. I was not only leaving a charming house and beautiful people: I was also leaving an old me behind and about to (re)discover extraordinary people. Without dying to myself, I would have probably been unable to contemplate the touching spectacle of human relationships. This time, which beauty will I meet? Will “I” be, in six years?

My ephemeral boat is waiting on a poisoned river, under the laws of a crystalline sky.