My first memory of La Goccia is a blur — I was very young then. A long time has passed, but I will never forget it. One day, people arrived with machines and cut down many trees to build structures and lay down rails and pipes. I remember those huge metal towers holding giant spheres. That sight left a lasting impression on me.

After that, everything changed. The air had a sharp, pungent smell, like when a forest burns and even the stones catch fire. Everything around me vibrated with motion: trains screeched in and out, workers shouted above the hiss of the pipes, and the sky glowed orange at night, lit up by the flames escaping the metal chimneys.

Back then, my neighbourhood was unlike any other in Milan. Those steel giants — gasometers, they called them — towered over the few trees that had survived, casting long shadows over the cracked concrete and rooftops blackened by dust. The green that once prevailed gave way to grey and the brown of rust. Some said there was something in the soil that killed life. Even so, I grew — a little lonely, since there were no others my age nearby. And in my solitude, I watched everything change.

In those days, La Goccia was an industrial zone. People in soot-covered overalls and hard hats moved with determination, working tirelessly until a whistle blew. I didn’t understand much of what they did, but I could feel the frantic activity. Something important was happening there, important enough for so many people and machines to come and go.

Until one day, the rhythm stopped.

No more trains arrived. No more footsteps echoed. Just silence.

The gas plant had closed. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t really care. The silence lingered for a long time — heavy and unsettling, like a breath held too long. The machines stood still, slowly rusting under the weight of time. Some collapsed. Others stood, like rocks weathered by ocean waves.

Then something unexpected happened.

It started with tiny cracks in the concrete. A blade of grass here, a stubborn shrub there. A few birds returned. So did the wind, slipping through the empty structures, carrying with it fresher air. I was no longer alone. Others like me arrived — tall and slender, or knotty and full. My neighbourhood, once a factory, was becoming a forest. A spontaneous forest.

For some reason, that poison in the soil didn’t stop plants, trees or lichens from growing. I was thrilled to meet my new neighbours. They didn’t speak, but I knew them by their scent, the rustle of their leaves, the shapes of their crowns. It had been a long time since youth filled this neighbourhood. But life returned to every corner, sprouting over concrete, through the windows of old buildings, and between the rails.

For years, we lived in peace, and I was a happy tree — although all of us lived with a quiet fear that people and machines would one day return. And sometimes they did, but they never stayed long.

I remember the day we heard footsteps again. But this time, they were different.

At first, we were afraid. Were they coming to destroy everything again? The wind carried old rumours of people wanting to build, erase, begin anew. But these steps were slower. Curious. Gentle.

They didn’t bring machines. They brought notebooks. Cameras. Questions. And wonder at what they saw and felt

They walked slowly, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone. They paused often. I saw them pointing at fungi on tree trunks, photographing bark, crouching to watch butterflies. They called this place La Goccia. They spoke of it not as an abandoned industrial site, but as a “spontaneous forest,” a space of resistance, of possibility. Some said it was “a world that begins where the pavement ends.”

They began gathering in one of the old Polytechnic buildings. I could hear them talk — researchers, artists, architects, city representatives. They spoke of things I still don’t fully understand, even after all my years: phytoremediation, interspecies governance, new urban models, climate adaptation... Strange words, but their intentions were clear. They hadn’t come to take — they had come to learn.

Humans are strange. It’s not enough for them to hear, see and touch. They want to get to the bottom of things. They dig into the soil to take samples. Sometimes they scratch my old bark and it tickles. I’ve heard them say they are like doctors, and I’ve heard them mention that the poison in the soil is disappearing thanks to us.

Not long ago, they came in a group, accompanied by an expert from far away. They spoke for hours, their voices drifting through the forest’s silence.

“You need to open a different kind of gaze when you enter this place,” one of them said. “Until you do, you cannot truly grasp the symbolic power of what’s here.”

They spoke of inviting more people in, and dreamt of turning my home into a living laboratory for learning, healing and coexisting. They wanted people to understand the forest not only with their eyes, but with their imagination.

They mentioned something called the European Urban Initiative — a programme that supports bold ideas for transforming cities. La Goccia, they said, had been selected for an Innovative Action project. It would become a testing ground for new models — where urban regeneration meets environmental justice, and where policies are shaped not only for nature, but with it.

I listened, still and silent. How could we ever take part in human matters? Trees don’t speak. But we do remember.

From deep within my roots, I remembered the fire and the silence. The soot and the sprouts. And now, I welcomed something new: care.

La Goccia is no longer a forgotten industrial corner of Milan. It is a space of imagination, where the boundaries between past and future blur — and where the forest is no longer hidden: it is centre stage.

And I, the old tree at the heart of it all, still stand — holding the memory of the city in my rings.