Some Of My Life, and the Street Food Fest Too, Genova, 2016

It's been busy, and beautiful, and challenging ... and sometimes almost more than I think I can stand. 

Sometimes I've panicked a little about my future, thinking ... 'now what!!?  How will I get through this moment?'  And, just occasionally, there have been tears. 

But mostly it's all good here in Genova, Italy.  I'm finding my way, meeting truly superb people, making good friends, and having excellent adventures.  There are still things I have to sort out and organise but one thing at a time.

This weekend has been the weekend of the Street Food Fest and I wandered along with my camera, quietly slipping through the event until being outed by Roberto Panizza, as a pesto world championship competitor from New Zealand.  At which point, I was called up to the pesto demonstration, interviewed by Hira, and yes ... invited back up at the end to have that first taste of the pesto just made.

And so this photographer was there on the wrong side of the camera, torn between amusement and mortification...

Hira, the journalist who interviewed me, invited me back to work with her last night.  So I wandered along and took even more photographs of the food people pedaling their delicious foods.  It was fun.  You can see it ...  I adore the Genovese, and I guess that they know it.  I was photo-bombed, while thinking myself kind of invisible photographing the food he was making ...

I have new sandals.  It's been 30 celsius most days since moving here, and it's fine but I was walking a lot and had a massive blister, or two, on the soles of my feet.  I finally accepted that I needed good walking sandals and last night I found them.  I can go back to my hill-walking now.

I move into the city on Tuesday.  I've been out in the 'burbs, in Quarto, cat-sitting but it's been a really nice way to arrive.  And I've come to love Bus 17, my bus into the city, as I keep meeting marvelous people on the journey in.

There was the lovely woman who moved here, back when she was 9 years old ... she came from NYC in 1947, and never left.  And the woman, with her dog.  She has invited me to her Italian/English classes during the week.

Learning Italian, finally, has become my next big thing.  Until then, I have the sweetest friends who speak English, or who are English-speaking.  Paula and Paolo, and sweet baby Marc have become people I adore spending time with.

Silvia, my Genovese translator friend, makes me laugh like no other.  Her humour is dry, and quite dangerous sometimes:-)   Beautiful Alessandra, her partner Davide, Isabella, and Paola, picked me up and took me to the free Jack Savoretti concert in Portofino last week.  That was surreal ... I've loved his music since first hearing his song, 'Home'.  The concert was superb, he gifted us so many songs.  And then walking back to the car, along the Ligurian coast after midnight, was quite the magical thing.  It reminded me so much of when I lived at Broad Bay in Dunedin.

Outi, my Finnish friend living at Nervi, has become a writing partner and we spend a day together, as often as is possible, writing.   And Millica, the lovely Californian, I'm just getting to know.  She loaded me up with books before heading away on her summer holiday.  Invited me out for a delicious lunch, patiently guided me when I got lost on the way there, and simply delights me with her take on the world.

Douce, that cafe in Piazza Matteotti, saves me some days ... it's that place where I go sit in the sun and watch the world pass by, drinking just one glass of cold white Ligurian wine.  I'm quite happy alone but sometimes I miss having the swirl of a family around me, or that special bloke to share my days with.  Then again, I've always wandered alone so nothing is really new there - as it's simpler to go to that place where I lose my self and find photographs if I'm alone.

And so I've had some magical days out in the city, finding light like this ...

Coco the cat has been good company although, she gets cross if I work here too long.  The first warning I get is her raspy little cat tongue licking my bare leg.  If I'm concentrating too hard and miss that, the next thing I know is her little cat teeth are nipping me.

Words most often heard, via my open balcony doors ... 'Coco!  Don't bite me!'  And then laughter because what can you do with a cuddly stroppy little bundle of cat that has decided she has the right to punish you for lack of attention ...

And so it goes ... I'm happy, more often than I'm sad.  I know good people and, slowly but surely, life is coming together here in Liguria. 

Ciao for now.

A Little Bit of La Dolce Vita, in Genova, Italy

I am learning that there's not much sweeter than spending time with good people in the quiet of the late evening ... talking while drinking a lovely red wine and sharing delicious food.

I'm learning the delights of Genova, that city small enough to bump into old friends, and new, most days I go out.

I already knew that I loved when someone chats to me on a bus.  There we were, two strangers ... her with her electronic Italian to English dictionary.  Me with my book.  We chatted, in English but with her introducing me to some new words.  We parted in the city but I think we will meet up again.  She extended a very kind invitation.

And so, of course, I attempted to describe my yesterday over on Facebook:  'I love Genova :-) I was heading for my favourite cafe when a woman called out to me. I couldn't remember who she was but she knew me ... It turned out that we'd never met, we have mutual friends on Facebook and she recognised me. But there was more than that, she was with another woman I had quietly wanted to meet for years ... and they invited me to join them, there at the cafe, with their lovely friend from the States. It was really really lovely and ... it turns out we're all friends with Silvia :-)

Temple replied in my comments section, with her take on our meeting: I was the woman who called out: saw a lanky blue-eyed blonde whose face I recognized from here sloping across a famous piazza and just said, You're Di Mackey aren't you? She was a bit startled to say the least, but it was indeed her and the rest is as recounted. Plus we 3 Yanks gave her a lesson in US political science she isn't likely to forget for a long time. Namaste, Di, great meeting you!

It was a truly good day because I met them, and because before meeting them, that woman traveling on the same bus into the city, had started chatting with me. 

And then I got to spend a couple of hours with Mau, cameras in hand I went city-wandering with that globe-trotting friend, last seen in 2014.  A big blister on the sole of my foot limited us some ... but the gelato, it helped in the 36 celsius heat.

Silvia invited me out to dinner last night.  She wanted to introduce me to the restaurant called Maniman.  It was divine and, as is always the case when I spend time with SIlvia, there was much laughter but balanced with more than a few serious moments.  She's a wise woman.

And then we ended up down in the city, living the paragraph that opens this post.  We started with an espresso but with a delicious red wine and good food soon followed.  Il Genovese remains my favourite restaurant here in the city.  It's a place you must eat when you come here. 

And then, as if all that wasn't enough ... I got a ride home on the back of motorbike because it was 2am by the time we had done with stories I'm still laughing over when I recall them.  I can't recount them here. but I laugh every time that I think of them. 

And I feel extremely fortunate to have had all of that in one day, and so very sad about the earthquake that happened, here in Italy yesterday.  We were far from it and I knew nothing until my sister emailed me, wondering if I was okay.

It's heartbreaking to realise how many have been lost in those small villages.  I think we just need to enjoy every single day, and as many moments as is possible because we just never know.  We never do.

Buongiorno from Genova, Italy, where I find photographs like this one, out there in the caruggi.

Miss 12 ... a belated Happy Birthday.

I've had the good fortune to share my life with Miss 12, and her mum, for so many years ... more time than most grannies get to spend with their granddaughter usually. 

So I'm grateful.

I had the fun of reading some of the same books I'd read to her mum when she was small.  We've devoured The Magic Faraway Tree but even better, we read the entire collection of Harry Potter together.  So many months of lying there, on my big old bed, reading our way through book after book over years, neither of us imagining a life where we wouldn't be hanging out together.

But life moves on and the end of my marriage really meant that I had to leave Belgium.  I reached England, and fell a little in love with it.  It was so easy, and the people were so kind.

My daughter followed, bringing her daughter, Miss 12.  And Miss 12 moved into my annexe with me, and we got to spend another 2 months together while my beautiful clever daughter worked in London, hunting for a job in the UK.

There was Miss 12 and I, having the occasional blast in the secondhand shops over in Cobham, and spending time with Cathy & Alex, and that delicious circle of Wednesday-evening-wine-drinking women.  And Marcelle and Leah, at their cafe in the little village of Oxshott.  And Kim.  And Lynne.  And Steve on the Chatterbus too.

It was a little extra time together that I hadn't expected.

Then she left again but it was good because my daughter has a really good job, up north ... and Miss 12, she's loving her new life.  The people are friendly, she loves her school uniform, and the school lunches are great.  The community has welcomed them in and they're really enjoying it.

Miss 12 has transitioned to English more easily than she had imagined possible.  She has lovely friends already, and they arrived in time for friendships to grow so she had friends for her 12th birthday party.

So it's all good.  I miss both of them but I'm really happy that they're so happy.  It was time.   It was more than time.

And here she is.  I got the photographs the other day.  Miss 12, in her school uniform, first day back in the new northern hemisphere school year.

We have this thing that we do, when we say goodbye after chatting ... it's about who loves who the most.  The last one to say it, wins.  Needless to say, our goodbyes are all about that particular competition.

But I think I can win here.  I love you the most, little Miss 12.  And I can block your reply ... cue evil laughterxx

Aperitivo and The Opera Of It All... in Genova.

I have these incredibly talented friends ... Peter Furlong, the fabulous tenor and his wife, Julie Wyma, a truly talented soprano.

Back in July 2013,  I was in Genova, enjoying aperitivo with an old friend called Simon.  He began posting, what I considered, dreadful photographs of me over on Facebook.  

His comments section came to life.  Our mutual friend, Veronica, warning him to be cautious about annoying me:-)

It turned out Julie and Peter were reading us in Berlin and voila, by the time Simon and I had moved to our second bar, the opera of it all was there on the internet.  What an opera:-)

I love them.  They make me laugh.  They did another short opera for Miss 12, an avid Dr Who fan, over here.

Tenderness ...

I was walking behind this couple a while and they seemed so tender with one another.  I couldn't resist.  I hope they don't mind.  I found them beautiful.

Ho sceso, dandoti il braccio ...

These stairs reminded me of the poem, by Ligurian poet, Eugenio Montale.  I love his poetry, like I love the work of Pablo Neruda, Hone Tuwhare, and Taha Muhammad Ali too.

I even hunted down a book of his poetry, with translations to English.  I've been told it's almost impossible to experience the full depth of meaning in translation but I love what understand of him.

Here's the poem I thought of today, when I looked back up at the stairs I had come down ... Ho sceso, dandoti il braccio… in translation :-)

I descended, with you on my arm…

I descended, with you on my arm, at least a million stairs

and now that you are not here every step is emptiness.

In any case our long journey was too brief.

Mine continues even now, no longer in need

of coincidences, reservations,

ploys, and the scorn of those who believe

that reality is what we perceive.

I descended millions of stairs with you on my arm

not only because four eyes perhaps see more.

With you I descended those stairs because I knew

the only real pupils, although terribly dimmed,

belonged to you.

(from “Satura”, 1971)

Translation by ©Matilda Colarossi