Twelve thousand nine hundred and eighty-five steps. We were crossing the border for the first time. I hadn't actually noticed. I kept walking, one step after another, along that mountain path that wound through the woods. One of my travelling companions pointed it out to me. “Achtung. Staatsgrenze,” she read aloud, pointing to the sign.

We had started walking the day before in Camporospo, now Camporosso due to a funny transcription error. I had left Trieste that morning with my rucksack containing only the bare essentials and a few expectations. I was lucky to find myself in a group with many nuances of European languages and cultures, with whom I continued the journey on foot, chatting in English, joking in Italian and a few phrases in German, which I did not understand. As the days went by, I realised that I had found easy terrain to walk on and many words to share, but emotions that were difficult to find. We crossed the border for the seventh time and, even though I noticed it this time, I felt exactly the same as before.

On the fourth day, the rain arrived. With our raincoats on and our rucksack covers attached, we continued our journey under a thousand drops of water, dancing between invisible boundary lines. The landscape had begun to change. Not so much because the mist covered its contours and the storm painted it grey, but because new ski resorts, artificial lakes and five-star hotels were appearing. I couldn't see anything else: a mountain of people who had chosen to build at high altitude to satisfy their human desires - to whizz down the ski slopes or drink bombardino with cream. I saw a place that had lost its history, selling it off to tourism. Where was the border I expected to experience? Seventy-eight thousand six hundred steps. I had no answer.

The return journey was a succession of trains and connections. “We are arriving at Trieste Centrale,” the classic voice announcing tracks and delays welcomes me. I am back in the city. Traffic, cars, horns, traffic lights. No longer a silence made up of cowbells and birdsong. People leaving, arriving, walking fast, walking slow, languages mixing. I leave the station. People, more people, I recognise these many other people well. And they have certainly crossed borders. Complex, difficult borders. They certainly haven't danced in the rain on a gentle mountain path, alternating between Austrian beer and Italian coffee. They certainly haven't had the privilege of comfortable shoes and cosy shelters with clean sheets and buffet breakfasts. They receive support from volunteers in the square, medicine, water and a meal to share. They make a few video calls home to try to break down those damn borders.

I don't stop, I walk towards home, taking the last steps of my Walk the Line. I don't stop with my body, but I stop with my mind and heart. Emotions come without me noticing. Here it is, I can see and feel it, the border air. It comes from afar, with force. The dissonance with the places I have passed through in recent days amazes me. I didn't expect it. And so I imagine it again, that border between Italy and Austria, which was once different and did not allow people, cultures and loves to pass, while it did so for pain and war. And I wonder if one day other borders will take on a form reminiscent of a mountain path, crossed by carefree people who cannot experience the wounds, now distant in time, but only imagine them.