Clinica Mobile


	October 22, 2009

	WELCOME BACK CASEY

	Suddenly, we lost you: first at Barcelona, then Assen. Yes, lost. Because even as these races’ prize-giving ceremonies were taking place, you’d already headed into exile. Even with the help of the Clinica Mobile, finishing the race at Laguna Seca did you little good because a frozen sea had already formed inside you, waters that, with the cold and rain of Donington, became impenetrable. And so you escaped, because exile was your last remaining hope of salvation. But salvation from what? From illnesses that you’d never had? From mysterious diseases that never took hold of your body? No, none of these. The cause of your malaise was explained a thousand different ways but no-one had humanely understood your inner upheaval, that odd discomfort that robbed you of certainties that had, until then, sustained you. It was as if some unknown factor had entered your life and shifted it towards some other reality, one no longer capable of responding to your wishes and aspirations. The doubt that the world of motorcycling was no longer yours and that your sporting career had become too cramped, stifling and inadequate made you lose your cherished authenticity. Faced with this threat you felt as if your body was abandoning you; denial was useless and despite the body’s innocence, you couldn’t help but see it as the guilty container of your anxieties, the source of the pain that comes from feeling different from how you had, until that moment, believed yourself to be. From this stemmed the unavoidability of a return to Australia, the birthplace that had nourished you with affection, forged your very essence – an essence that life’s harsh reality had then sought to devastate and weaken. To leave the trodden path and head into exile had, in itself, a tragic beauty. To face life’s hostile reality, you left. You gave yourself a chance to conquer complete awareness of this reality and in doing so made the right choice: to seek solitude, to look into yourself and, nostalgically rediscover the “marvel” that lies at the core of every human being, burdening neither fate nor the world’s wickedness with the responsibility for your condition. Yours is the destiny of he who seeks his authenticity in solitude. Your flight took you far from your flame-red Ducati, from your fans, from all those who loved you and still do. But your exile reconciled you with yourself, with your giddy, disquieting profoundness and, at the same time, you became the sunset and splendid aurora of your own horizons. A new dawn gave you the strength to transform yourself, to regain full control of your life. By staring down the drama that had suffocated you – wiping out that image of the hero that had taken so long to construct – you obtained true self-awareness, bypassing all the pills and potions offered by modern medicine to reach that inner core from whence all your troubles had sprung. You put yourself on the line, never fearing the cloying mud of doubt: yet at the same time you made your soul immaculate, demonstrating enormous courage to push back the darkness and regain the light – a courage that, before these events, you may not even have realised you possessed. Your journey was no mere geographic return to Australia, it was a trip of an altogether different kind: a voyage inside yourself to face aspects either unknown or which you would have preferred to stay hidden. A nightmarish descent that transformed you. Now, racing is no longer a quest for prizes or victory. No, it is a return to that miracle you found inside yourself by having the courage to escape, to experience exile and solitude. Welcome back Casey.
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