Fiona Zanetti

‘Do you remember the moment when you felt and realized that this is happiness?’ I asked Fiona Zanetti, a 26-year-old star known for her DJ skills and long vivid nails, a fashion icon living by her philosophy of aesthetics and drawing inspiration from dance music.
‘Oh my God I feel it all the time,’ she said smiling.

‘When was the last time you had this feeling?’
‘It was two days ago when Tom and I came back from our beautiful trip to Mexico. Oh my God I was almost crying that I’m so lucky to live in this apartment in Paris and that I can afford it by myself. I felt like this is my place, this is a person I love, my independence, my comfort, my furniture. I was so happy, so full that I’m creating the life I wanted,’ she stroked her head. ‘And the more I say thank you, the more I get in return. You know sometimes you must not forget to say thank you for the things you prayed about and have today, because we are always looking for the next thing to happen. We want to have more and more and we forget to stop and say ‘Wow, thank you, my congratulations, you fought for this, you wanted this, you worked hard and now you have it! So take a moment to be grateful for what you have achieved!’

She was tan and beautiful and seemed very happy. Her smokey eyes were wide open. She had long black hair and I thought she looked like a mermaid from Disney World, or maybe like one of the Sea Goddesses of ancient legend.

The first time I saw Fiona in the autumn of 2020, she wanted me to make some tattoos on her arms.

‘Do you mind if I ask you what does it mean?’ I wasn’t able to read it properly out loud: QUAE NATURA OCCULTAVIT.
‘It means what nature has been hiding. This is a common saying in Latin language to define occult arts, like alchemy or astrology,’ she explained to me. ‘Those disciplines of occult arts are very important in my life and I want to remember that most of the truths in life are not the ones you can see right away. You have to dig, to feel, to learn, to listen, because nature decided to hide it.’

I wasn’t familiar with the occult arts so it took me some time to digest her words. In my life I had only one interesting conversation about astrology and I had no knowledge about the alchemy or the occult arts at all.

She also wanted me to tattoo ‘6796’ and ‘Ф’.

‘May I know what those numbers mean to you?’
‘Just important numbers to my family.’

‘I see, of course. What about the Russian letter ‘F’?’
‘It is the golden ratio sign, a mathematical concept that people have known since the time of the ancient Greeks. It is an irrational number like Pi and E, meaning that its terms go on forever after the decimal point without repeating. I love the fact that with something as precise as mathematics there can be some irrational things. I see the beauty of life in this contradiction. This is a formula that you can find in all the beauties of the world, from nature to Leonardo da Vinci paintings. Irrationality is the formula of the beauty.’

She made me eager to probe more deeply. Unfortunately, she came with her boyfriend and we had only one hour.

The second time we met in April this year. I caught her for four hours, this time without her boyfriend.

‘How do you imagine an ideal world?’ I asked.
‘I would love to live in a more equal world and let people love who they want to love.’ She replied, shaking her head ‘no’.

‘What does love mean to you?’
‘It’s everything,’ she smiled. ‘It is in every little thing, it’s in our relationships, in food, it’s life itself. Everything I do has a little part of love because love is energy which connects everything together. To have this conversation with you and to share the energy with one another, therein part of appreciation, part of love, it comes from a good place. That’s why I think that if you do things with a kind heart, with love, of course bad things may happen to you, but you will never fail, it will always be right.’

She scooped her long hair behind her back and combed her head using her fingers.

‘Who or what do you appreciate most in your life?’
‘My boyfriend Tom, my friends, my family. Nothing makes sense without them.’

‘What would you do if they died?’
‘I hate even to think about this. Death for me is one of the scariest things. It’s maybe super selfish but I hope I will die before them because I don’t want to handle the loss. I have never been faced by the death of any loved ones. I cannot accept it and it’s really hard for me to imagine this. I think I will have a very hard, how do you say, day?’ she laughed, ’how do you say when you mourn someone? Morning, mourning?’
‘I understand what you mean.’ I was laughing too.

‘Where do you see yourself in ten years, still in the entertainment business?’
‘I will be 36, I hope I will be able to build a place that represent my values, it will be filled with my friends, my family, I hope I will have kids. Community is something very strong in my culture, because I’m Italian you know, and this lockdown was very hard for me,’ she expressed her anger with her face and hands. ‘I realized how much I need noise and people and conversation and big tables with a lot of you know like,’ she put her hands out and imitated juggling. ‘I hope my life will be full of big tables and conversations and I hope to see the things we have built together with my soulmate Tom.’

‘How do you think, are you addicted to him?’
‘I think I found,’ she thought for three seconds and said, ‘Yes, I think I’m addicted to him. Yes, absolutely!’ she laughed, ‘No but I believe I found a balance in him. I’m very comfortable being myself and I think before meeting him I was very comfortable being single, but I really found my binome you know, like I found my right hand.’

‘Can you imagine what will happen to you if he leaves you?’
‘I mean what, I will go on my life, I won’t die but,’ she was smiling ambiguously. ’For me it’s impossible. Something can happen, of course, but he and I, even if we are not conventional or something, people are saying that we are like brother and sister, even if he is black and I’m white, you know we share this magic thing,’ she was waving her right hand like a tornado, ‘it’s impossible. We were meant to be with each other and we will always have a part in each other’s lives because what happened between us is too intense to disappear. It’s impossible. Can you imagine I was calling and saying we broke up!’ She was laughing.

‘I can imagine it because I had the same feeling about my binome. I thought that breaking up is always a possibility, but I couldn’t believe her when she said that we should break up.’
‘Nooo.’
‘Like you, I was firmly bound with my partner and was deeply attached to the idea of a lifetime together. I couldn’t believe that she would leave me this year. But she did. It is still hard for me to believe in or to understand it. As you said, it is too intense to disappear.’
‘Of course, I understand, I’m very romantic but I don’t have blinkers on my eyes. I think even if you have the same energy, at some point someone may need something else. It means you are not balanced and you don’t want the same things anymore. Sometimes you can’t find it in a person even if you love her more than everything.’ She was silent for a moment and I interrupted her thinking.

‘What is the drama of your life?’
‘My what?’
‘Your drama.’ I repeated with my Russian accent.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Are you carrying any drama through out your life? Maybe something you usually hide and try to rid of, something you don’t want to experience again.’
‘I think it is my family. I had a happy childhood and my parents created an amazing life for me and my sister but on my father’s side were a lot of hidden things and lies. I think the relationships with my dad created in me a disgust toward men. He cheated my mum and destroyed our family. My image of men dramatically changed and I left my house when I was 16. Of course, meeting new men with beautiful souls helped me to find a balance but I still have a resentment.’ She was screwing her chest with her five fingers.

‘If you could change something in the past, what would it be?’
‘I would be kinder to my sister. I just recently realized that she was less confident than me as a kid and I was maybe a bit cruel or mean towards her. I think I traumatized her just by being a selfish kid, being me, and it made life a bit harder for her.’

‘Where and how did your sex experience begin?’
‘I was 15 years old. It was a very good experience. It was first time for both of us. We were in love, it was summer and super hot, he had a motorcycle and it was really a good experience. Honestly, I’m very lucky in my sexual relationships and that’s why it is weird that I have a resentment towards men because I got so lucky with all the men I had in my life. I feel power in my sexuality and I have never been disrespected by men. Everyone around me, my sister, my mum, my friends, they’ve all had bad experiences, but I haven’t, so I’m like ‘oh my God when is it gonna happen to me?’’

‘How do you think what is a bad sex?’
‘My grandmother always saying that sex is like pizza, even if it is bad – it is still good,’ she was laughing, ‘No, but more seriously, I think that bad sex is unwanted sex. Sometimes it is chemical, physical, the bodies don’t fit together, the Ph doesn’t work, the size doesn’t work, I don’t know.’

‘What are the questions that you want to find answers to?’
‘I would like to know… Oh my God, it is so hard because I don’t know if I really want to know. Sometimes it’s nice not to know the answers.’ She crossed her fingers and turned her head up and left. ‘I would love to understand some ideas that we run like humans, like fairness, injustice, peace, hunger. How it is even possible to achieve? It is not in our nature you know, but I would love to, while at the same time I don’t want to know. You know we have these beliefs, but what if it is impossible, no matter what you do? I will die one day and the world is not gonna extinct.’

‘What then, do you think is your purpose?’
‘I think my purpose is to inspire some people and make them free to chase their dreams. You know I’m a very optimistic dreamer and I think I help people to find some motivation and I help them to alleviate their fears. For a long time when I came in a room with people, before I leave the room I want to make a positive impact,’ she leaned over me, ‘So I hope before I leave the room I will make someone happier, more inspired or motivated. Sometimes you can do it with a stranger but actually its people close to you who need it.’

‘In what language do you want to have a tattoo?’
‘In Russian.’

I felt inspired by her purpose and realized that the word ‘Inspiration’ in Russian has a beautiful meaning inside of it.

‘In Russian the word inspiration translates as ‘a moment of inhalation’. I think this word suits you admirably.’