why is italy so beautiful?
it is the light, warm and golden and beautiful.
i also think it is the light that makes scotland beautiful, but the light in scotland is a different light. in scotland it is often the moisture hanging in the air through which the light diffuses and is turned hazy and mysterious, and the rugged hills are rendered dark.
or they stay light.
it is the play of light and dark which renders scotland beautiful. il chiaroscuro.
i heard said that it is the great variety of landscapes in italy, and the cultural patrimony - the great number of great buildings - churches, museums, palaces and stately homes and fountains and statues in the gardens - that account for its beauty.
i think it is also the plants. they love to grow in the sun, and they look simply radiant.
people say that rome is becoming unbearable - the rush of people and the noise and pollution of cars.
it is a city. people congregate in cities and people will drive those machines.
half an hour's walk from the Central National Library in Rome is Villa Ada - a great natural space of immense graceful pines and other trees towering above wild and lush vegetation, and i love to sleep there. a few nights ago i had climbed a tree and watched the sky getting dark and the quivering leaves getting dark and before everything became completely dark i climbed down to get the fire going and get cooking. i was cutting up the carrots when the barking of a dog in the dark became noisome, and soon after a man appeared with a torch.
"ciao" we say to each other,
he sits down. i offer him a bit of carrot,
"carrot?", he says, "do i look like a rabbit?"
when he finds out that i am from scotland he tells me he is very glad to meet someone who speaks his language. and he tells me he has great respect for what i am doing "you have dug a hole for the fire, just the way you should". then he shines his torch on my barefeet, "you don't even have any shoes - respect!" and he wants to shake my hand. only later do i find out that respect was something he was lacking in...
"what a coincidence", he says, "that i meet somebody that speaks my own language on my 39th birthday, 100 metres from my cave! i have lived 8 years here, and you are the first person that i meet that speaks my language".
life is a series of coincidences. i might have said. - crossroads of different paths followed by different people, begetting an encounter. like two ants which, busying about on their own path, suddenly meet one other and pause, momentarily, for the encounter.
i ask him if he is happy living in italy now, and after a pause he says
"i can't go back to britain. on no account can i go back to britain"
i hum thoughtfully and after a while he tells me the reason why he can on no account go back to britain.
i hum thoughtfully again.
he removes his hat and shines his torch on his face for me to behold his rugged features and says slowly,
"I am Frederic"
when i ask him what he does for money and he says: "begging".
he wants me to share in the celebration of his 39th birthday and opens a bottle of Jameson whisky. "i was brought up in ireland, and i have to drink a bottle of Jameson on my birthday". he says that he is now almost two thirds of his way through his real life - after sixty he says you may go on to live another twenty years or so, but it is not real life. he says that each day when he hears of people who are younger than him dying, it makes him feel glad to still be alive. he wants me to come back to his cave with him, but i tell him that i actually love to sleep by a fire in the woods. he is already fairly in the thrall of inebriation, slumping off the tree he is resting against and almost letting his boots burn in the fire, but he starts up his irish accent, telling me that he moved to an english boarding school when he was eight. i then get going with my doric accent, saying "aye, ye cannae help absorbin' abbit a the local tongue like, o fariver ye wer brocht up" and he laughs and says he didn't understand a word.
"ah, ti voglio bene" he says and takes my face in his hands and kisses me on the cheek. "you can only get off with this in italy" he says. perhaps an english language equilvalent would be a slap on the back, and "you're my mate" (and i will stand by you...) perhaps.
he wants me to come back with him to his cave, and curiosity gets the better of me and i follow him slowly picking he way - staggering one might say - my pot of carrot and coriander risotto in his hand, winding through the bushes and down some steps to a little patio space where he lights a lantern and gets me to sit on an armchair and tells me that for eight years he has worked to convert this cave into his house. i admire it all, a lovely dry place to shelter from rain inside and surrounded by foliage outside, but as the bottle of Jameson is being glugged all down he begins to invite me to practise sodomy with him.
i look at him sitting on a chair across from me and shake my head. No. but i comprehend something of him and know that meeting me is an unusual encounter for him after eight years - eight solitary years - begging on the streets, and yes, sexuality is important, but No no no, and when he insists that i suck his penis is when i wordlessly shoulder my rucksack and climb back into the woods from whence i came, leaving him stumbling behind and then falling into the bushes to remain there motionless, reminding me of huck finn's pap - an unpredictable character, given to drinking. i pass by the smouldering embers of my fire - all i want is to get far away from him - and end up sleeping next to the lake in the park where i wake up the next morning to see the early morning joggers jogging past.
i had been able to receive fabrizio's suggestion that "there was something of the devil" residing inside a man we met on the street, because i had just read Herman Hesse's novel Demian, which talks about the God Abraxus - the entirety of the Spirit residing within us - consisting of both Good and Bad elements. night time is the time for the most curious - and often the frankest - encounters between strangers. it was around two o'clock in the morning and this devil was trying to sell his poetry, but he was to have no luck with me and penniless fabrizio who were at the time looking for a place to sleep.
it was pure sentiment. his imprecations when i declined to give him two euros in exchange for a sheet of his poetry were imprecations anybody could have carelessly uttered. his flashing eyes and hands clutching his poetry were entirely human, but in his presence i felt the physical need to close my eyes and breath deeply in order to remain at peace.
it is the italian language which takes hold of you, which filters melodiously inside you, which replaces your ability to speak spanish when you meet the woman from ecuador on the street, and - in addition to the beauteous visual elements - which render Italy an eminently linger-worthy place to be.
it is the light, warm and golden and beautiful.
i also think it is the light that makes scotland beautiful, but the light in scotland is a different light. in scotland it is often the moisture hanging in the air through which the light diffuses and is turned hazy and mysterious, and the rugged hills are rendered dark.
or they stay light.
it is the play of light and dark which renders scotland beautiful. il chiaroscuro.
i heard said that it is the great variety of landscapes in italy, and the cultural patrimony - the great number of great buildings - churches, museums, palaces and stately homes and fountains and statues in the gardens - that account for its beauty.
i think it is also the plants. they love to grow in the sun, and they look simply radiant.
people say that rome is becoming unbearable - the rush of people and the noise and pollution of cars.
it is a city. people congregate in cities and people will drive those machines.
half an hour's walk from the Central National Library in Rome is Villa Ada - a great natural space of immense graceful pines and other trees towering above wild and lush vegetation, and i love to sleep there. a few nights ago i had climbed a tree and watched the sky getting dark and the quivering leaves getting dark and before everything became completely dark i climbed down to get the fire going and get cooking. i was cutting up the carrots when the barking of a dog in the dark became noisome, and soon after a man appeared with a torch.
"ciao" we say to each other,
he sits down. i offer him a bit of carrot,
"carrot?", he says, "do i look like a rabbit?"
when he finds out that i am from scotland he tells me he is very glad to meet someone who speaks his language. and he tells me he has great respect for what i am doing "you have dug a hole for the fire, just the way you should". then he shines his torch on my barefeet, "you don't even have any shoes - respect!" and he wants to shake my hand. only later do i find out that respect was something he was lacking in...
"what a coincidence", he says, "that i meet somebody that speaks my own language on my 39th birthday, 100 metres from my cave! i have lived 8 years here, and you are the first person that i meet that speaks my language".
life is a series of coincidences. i might have said. - crossroads of different paths followed by different people, begetting an encounter. like two ants which, busying about on their own path, suddenly meet one other and pause, momentarily, for the encounter.
i ask him if he is happy living in italy now, and after a pause he says
"i can't go back to britain. on no account can i go back to britain"
i hum thoughtfully and after a while he tells me the reason why he can on no account go back to britain.
i hum thoughtfully again.
he removes his hat and shines his torch on his face for me to behold his rugged features and says slowly,
"I am Frederic"
when i ask him what he does for money and he says: "begging".
he wants me to share in the celebration of his 39th birthday and opens a bottle of Jameson whisky. "i was brought up in ireland, and i have to drink a bottle of Jameson on my birthday". he says that he is now almost two thirds of his way through his real life - after sixty he says you may go on to live another twenty years or so, but it is not real life. he says that each day when he hears of people who are younger than him dying, it makes him feel glad to still be alive. he wants me to come back to his cave with him, but i tell him that i actually love to sleep by a fire in the woods. he is already fairly in the thrall of inebriation, slumping off the tree he is resting against and almost letting his boots burn in the fire, but he starts up his irish accent, telling me that he moved to an english boarding school when he was eight. i then get going with my doric accent, saying "aye, ye cannae help absorbin' abbit a the local tongue like, o fariver ye wer brocht up" and he laughs and says he didn't understand a word.
"ah, ti voglio bene" he says and takes my face in his hands and kisses me on the cheek. "you can only get off with this in italy" he says. perhaps an english language equilvalent would be a slap on the back, and "you're my mate" (and i will stand by you...) perhaps.
he wants me to come back with him to his cave, and curiosity gets the better of me and i follow him slowly picking he way - staggering one might say - my pot of carrot and coriander risotto in his hand, winding through the bushes and down some steps to a little patio space where he lights a lantern and gets me to sit on an armchair and tells me that for eight years he has worked to convert this cave into his house. i admire it all, a lovely dry place to shelter from rain inside and surrounded by foliage outside, but as the bottle of Jameson is being glugged all down he begins to invite me to practise sodomy with him.
i look at him sitting on a chair across from me and shake my head. No. but i comprehend something of him and know that meeting me is an unusual encounter for him after eight years - eight solitary years - begging on the streets, and yes, sexuality is important, but No no no, and when he insists that i suck his penis is when i wordlessly shoulder my rucksack and climb back into the woods from whence i came, leaving him stumbling behind and then falling into the bushes to remain there motionless, reminding me of huck finn's pap - an unpredictable character, given to drinking. i pass by the smouldering embers of my fire - all i want is to get far away from him - and end up sleeping next to the lake in the park where i wake up the next morning to see the early morning joggers jogging past.
i had been able to receive fabrizio's suggestion that "there was something of the devil" residing inside a man we met on the street, because i had just read Herman Hesse's novel Demian, which talks about the God Abraxus - the entirety of the Spirit residing within us - consisting of both Good and Bad elements. night time is the time for the most curious - and often the frankest - encounters between strangers. it was around two o'clock in the morning and this devil was trying to sell his poetry, but he was to have no luck with me and penniless fabrizio who were at the time looking for a place to sleep.
it was pure sentiment. his imprecations when i declined to give him two euros in exchange for a sheet of his poetry were imprecations anybody could have carelessly uttered. his flashing eyes and hands clutching his poetry were entirely human, but in his presence i felt the physical need to close my eyes and breath deeply in order to remain at peace.
it is the italian language which takes hold of you, which filters melodiously inside you, which replaces your ability to speak spanish when you meet the woman from ecuador on the street, and - in addition to the beauteous visual elements - which render Italy an eminently linger-worthy place to be.
What an experience!! Reminded me of Bergman's "The virgin's spring".. very intense, anzi, molto intensa!
RispondiEliminaRespect =) for real eh!