A REVERSE COMMUTER – Rachele Grassi

She was born in Carrara but her great-grandmother was from Montemiscoso and she was always up in the mountains in her family’s second home.

I didn’t decide to live here. A series of interconnected events occurred naturally and led to me being absorbed by the local area, keeping me here. It didn’t happen suddenly, but day after day various projects, meetings and opportunities made me realize that my days of commuting between the mountains and Carrara had come to an end.

I have always seen the mountains as my home. I had to go down to Carrara to go to school, but I saw it as a sort of migration. Montemiscoso was my home. I truly love this part of the world and it came naturally to me to decide to stay and promote it through my work and a range of projects. It’s allowed me to put down roots. One day I had an epiphany: I realized how things stood and all I could say was something along the lines of “Well, fancy that! I’m still here and I haven’t left!”

For a long time, everything in my life revolved around coincidences and being in the right place at the right time. I’d like to underline that I feel lucky. I had a rather unusual education and the year when I was working on the thesis for my degree was the 800^th anniversary of the signing of a local document called the Charter of Vallisnera, which is even older than Magna Carta. That’s what led to my first joint projects with organizations from the area on initiatives such as events, which were followed by various job opportunities based on my studies. I worked very hard to keep this positive flow going, constantly striving to strike a balance between studying and working, as I did both at the same time. Nobody knew me at the start but after 18 years of reverse commuting – enough to reach adulthood – I feel like I have solid roots.

Although I get some tempting offers, especially from down on the plain, I continue to make the rare but wonderful choice of staying up in the mountains.

I work on all sorts of hugely different projects, from growing saffron to initiatives with the tourism department of the Union of Municipalities, the Town Council and various associations. My multitasking approach paved the way to my involvement in the Reinventa project. I’ve known Cecciola and its people very well for many years, partly thanks to my studies. Being involved and helping to oversee the contents of the Valle dei Cavalieri open museum network is a real pleasure and it’s even more delightful to see that what we’re creating is actually working. I’m sure that it will appeal even to people who are not familiar with the area. It’s a totally unprecedented project and it’ll be a calling card for an organization spanning two provinces with more than 1200 years of history behind them. Details of all of this can be found in the Charter, the original document of which I was lucky enough to see a few years ago. It has now been published and made accessible to everyone and it covers highly topical matters, such as violence against women, gambling and wolves.

We’ve joined together points on a map to create a circular route. It’s a sort of experience-based loop that helps tourists to find their way and appreciate all of the marvellous things that our local area has to offer.

Italiano