'O guaglione

'O guaglione. Fifteen is the boy: the one who’s no longer a child and not yet a grown man, who has the strength but not yet the measure. In Naples, “guaglione” is a word used a hundred times a day, and its meaning shifts with the tone: it can be a call, a scolding, a caress. The Smorfia gave him a central number, because that age is central too. In dreams, fifteen arrives when an apprenticeship is involved. Something you’re learning and aren’t good at yet, a new role in which you feel young even at fifty, a desire bigger than the means you have right now. It’s the number of aspirations, with all the enthusiasm and all the clumsiness they bring along. The images that lead here say the same thing in three ways. The child, which is what he was until yesterday. The king, which is what he dreams of becoming. And jumping, which is strength that moves on its own, livelier and less solemn. The Smorfia sets beside the young man what he was and what he’d like to be, with energy to spare and still little patience: it’s an affectionate portrait, not a judgment. If fifteen has shown up in your dream, it’s almost always talking about something you’re still learning. It doesn’t promise you’ll make it — nothing is promised here — but it points out that in the dream you told there was a part of you that’s growing, and growing parts are easily forgiven a stumble or two.