This picking through and posting images from my May in Genova began when I decided it was time to write of that trip.
This street ... Via San Vincenzo, the walking street that I often use when I wander to or from Brignole Station. I know I've arrived or I'm sad to be leaving. It varies.
For some reason, I like this image.
It's also useful, perhaps, for understanding the image that follows.
Inside Palazzo Ducale, in Genova, there is much to photograph ...
My journey to Genova in May, despite being far too short, was as special as every other visit I've made to that exquisite Italian city located in Liguria. But the kindness of strangers was quietly overwhelming and intensely appreciated. Perhaps it was all more condensed . I don't know. It was a special visit. Crazy busy but filled with people I want to write about in the days ahead.
I've put off writing about it in detail because I didn't want to miss out any stories. Now ... so much time has passed, I fear I have forgotten some things.
It's time to sit awhile and remember.
I arrived via Rome and landed in Genova late afternoon. It was raining and grey - the only grey day I had. In the days that followed, it was summer. The journey from Brussels had been long but this time I was staying with Francesca and her lovely family out at Arenzano. Paola's apartment was under renovation back in the city.
So I followed the train signs out to the airport exit doors but then the signs peetered out. I turned a few times, sure it was me who was somehow lost, before wandering back to a counter where there was man who seemed like he might be open to questions from this lost woman.
He was lovely. He started talking of the bus, then a taxi, then walking ...discounting each idea as he went. It's not much more than a kilometre to the train station, an easy walk normally and so he drew me a map but then looked at the rain and wasn't happy. The situation was resolved when a friend or collegue of his called out a ciao. He called him over to us. This lovely young man listened to the story and before I knew it my luggage and I were in his car.
He had un po inglese and well ... my lack of ability in other languages has created laughter all over the world. But we talked a little. He weaved through the streets near the airport then parked next to a footbridge that went over the railway tracks. He unloaded my luggage and then, much to my horror, carried my heavy bag all the way to the top of the stairs. I was so grateful and a little bit mortified.
We said our goodbyes and I made my way down to the train station. I bought my ticket.
Flustered, tired ... who knows really, I had forgotten how trains worked in Italy. Platforms, directions, stuff like that. Eventually I asked at the office and another lovely Ligurian said, come with me, and so I did. I followed her under the tracks and up onto the correct platform.
Honestly, I know how trains work there. I use them often but it seemed that there was a brain-freeze going down and I was in its grip. She sat with me, we talked a little. I wished I had studied Italian. I appreciated her unobtrusive kindess.
I arrived in Arenzano and Francesca picked me up and whisked me off to her place.
Now ... Francesca has lovely friend called Anna Lisa. I'm sure of the 'lovely' because Anna Lisa had offered to cook dinner for Francesca and her family that evening.
I took a photograph or two while she whipped up a focaccia al formaggio, as per the photograph at the end of this post. There was other food too but I was so tired by then, and I did nothing but race about madly during those 5 exquisite days in Genova, I've lost the rest of the memory of dinner. I suspect that the warm focaccia di formaggio was so good that I have fixated on it.
I also suspect that the kindness of Ligurian strangers had overwhelmed me, filled me up, knocked me off-balance a little.
And Francesca's family ... Beppe, Cesare, and Emma. There's so much love between them that it is truly lovely to spend time in their midst.
And so I arrived. Genova, May 2013.
Update: if you use a reader to read my posts, sincere apologies for the series of edits. Strong antibiotics, 3 espressos, and no sunshine or warmth ... it all messed with my mind.
And Stefano, grazie mille for the editing advice. It was a rather grave error, falling to the 'No exceptions' category.
"The seed is here. It will only grow. I don't believe that anyone can stop it."
I believe in stories, in story-telling, because a story can answer a question without reducing that question to banality. ‘Who am I? is a huge question, and the answer develops, unfolds, reveals itself throughout the whole of our life. At birth, we are only the visible corner of a folded map. The geography of the self is best explored with a guide, and for me art is such a guide. I write fiction because I want to get nearer to the truth.
Jeanette Winterson, extract from an article titled Oranges.
I have been dipping in and out of Jeanette Winterson's writing, trying to be patient as infection then antibiotics run their course. The antibiotics are exhausting even though I know they're doing good work and so, I am living quietly, in-between hanging out 5 loads of laundry (unbelievable!) and working out how to cook duck ...
I have never cooked duck. Not ever. But I do rather enjoy it and find myself wondering why I wasn't raised on duck and rabbit, back in that country that had plenty of both. And I have been making small inroads into my office space here, trying to make it more beautiful somehow ... but perhaps that simply involves sunshine coming in through the window. Belgium isn't really doing sunshine this year. It's grim.
I am reading and sleeping, and trying not to sleep more, and writing and reading ... and then there's the housework. It's like that.
Interesting people and art found in recent days.
I loved this. An article about my favourite bookshop in the world, so far.
Then this seemed like an invitation to consider Bradley Manning's actions, asking what you might do if you saw what he saw and understood all it meant.
And this, begun as a search for the writer who described how his book was born. He talked of the stories here... They chose me. You know, they touched my shoulder or my back, saying, "Tell me. I am a wonderful story and deserve to be diffused by you, written by you. So, please, write me." And I said, "Well, I’m so busy. No." "No, that’s an alibi. You must write me," the story said. And so I began—I ended writing the stories, and later have a very hard process of selection, trying to say more with less. And after this process, the only surviving texts or stories are the ones I feel that are better than silence. It’s a difficult competition against silence, because silence is a perfect language, the only language which says with no words.
I hope to buy the book, Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History, as soon as is possible
And this. Wait for the last question (there are only 3) David Gregory asks Glenn Greenwald. An example of the best way to reply to an increasingly biased or 'owned' media.
Lastly, I found Sophie Blackall and simply adore her work. Another book for my books I would like to own list. It's long.
So this is a little of what I have been doing in these days.
