Paco would laugh and tell me to drop it if he knew I was writing a post like this.
He was a shy and discreet person, and these things embarrassed and annoyed him. He always didn’t give a damn about what others thought of him and stepped outside the “social” logics that influence our behaviors.
We are not ready to die for the truth, but only to grab the mutual, and unconditional, esteem of people who do not even know what your face looks like when you laugh
, he wrote.
And he has written so much (and well) here on Runlovers as well that, this time, I think it’s only right that Runlovers write about him. Although it is really impossible to give an image of it that even comes close to its true essence. Irony of life, exactly two years after his first post.
Francesco “Paco” Gentilucci cannot be defined, as is the case with all free souls, and he was one of those very rare people who, when they enter your life, fill it with new, different things and change it for you.
And I think anyone who knew him feels the same way.
Paco was an explorer of life, unmeasured, punk.
He understood the joy of doing what you love and how that means to be truly free. He did not suffer life, he did not get carried away, he fought to live it the way he wanted.
As I write this, I am holding Broken Nails Open Hands (URMA), the fanzine (as he liked to call it) he used to send to friends, photocopied and bound with a lace, and he is in there.
Then let the darkness come,
Let fear come.
I have to start somewhere,
Then it might as well be from here
Thus begins the latest issue devoted to the night. And Paco explored them, that darkness and that fear. Not surprisingly, a few weeks ago, he wrote me a message in which he talked about this very thing. The doctor had forbidden him to ride his bike and told me, “It’s not a problem-I still have to explore the boundaries of fear with climbing.” That was the first thought when I heard about the accident.
He was no fool, don’t think he was an adrenaline junkie. I repeat: He was an explorer of life, he did it with his body and his head.
And he did it by running.
Just about running is his last thought that I would like to share with you who are reading. The others will remain between him and me, as in our long telephone streams of consciousness.
If you like to call yourself a runner and you don’t have the strength to find enough motivation to run, no matter what, you are not a fucking runner. This is the one thing I wanted to write and I will take with me tonight. We are all fragile and terrified of the future, we are all bent by the present.
We are all too good at telling ourselves bullshit.
Go out for a run.
Hi Paco! The end is not the end.