In June 2012, the writing group spent the final days of the tour in Riomaggiore, one of the Cinque Terre of Liguria. It took a long drive, off the mountain and then north up the coast through changing countryside, stone pines, glimpses of silver blue slip of Mediterranean to our left. Questions posed to our driver, Marco, such as, “is the Mafia real, or is it drama drummed up for outsiders?” (very much real, very much everywhere, as it happens), and, “are there sharks in the Mediterranean?”, met with quizzical looks, followed by hand-shark charades and our synchronised hummed theme from Jaws.

Shark in Italiano is “squalo”.

We arrived in Riomaggiore to a rose quartz sunset, checked in to our rooms and it was there that, after the evening meal together and the second morning, the group of of us splintered into the last days of the workshop into walks, deep conversations, contemplation and rest after so much excavation. I found myself wandering alone and liminal, head full of poetry, soul flooding me with questions about what I really wanted, what was my purpose, how beige and safe I had played it all till then. How thrilled by thresholds, and how careful cellaring of fear had made abject the facing a decision.

The following posts were first published between the 17th and 19th of June, 2012, while on the next tour sitting in new and unsettling feelings about how I felt about my life at that time. On this side of it, 14 years later (almost to the date) I am looking at the imminent “death” of that version of myself. I only knew whatever was happening felt important, weighted with significance I couldn’t even begin to see around. I had to capture everything possible in photographs and as many words as I could, with the deep understanding that my time in that space was passing and with it very chartable feelings. If I hadn’t mined that introversion and uncertainty, I’m not sure I could have mapped my way through the happenings of the next weeks and months.
I’d have let an extraordinary new life go.

L’ottavo giorno – Banditaccia to Cinque Terre 10/06/2012

A day of travel. I wake feeling like a woodwife, a muse, something that has been up all night in the forest as something else.

Last night’s embroidered sisterhood is a little quiet this morning. Meek. Lycanthropy takes it out of you.

The morning workshop brings a little lot more flotsam and jetsam up from the depths to swill around and work through. An interview, an exercise in listening. Invisibility. Hmmm.

I feel as though I am waking up, just in time for this to be drawing to a close. In that sense, this reminds me of those final days of high school, the dormant teenager in me clamping on to those days that are beginning to funnel down to a few hours.

Looking forward to Cinque Terre but sad to leave Banditaccia. Looking forward to the drive where I can be made to sit and think without having to do too much.

Il Nono Giorno – Cinque Terre 11/06/2012

Alone, early and walking. The bag clamped to my side, the bruising bang and comfort of the camera against my hip – these small sweet comforts of the traveller.

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An elderly woman comes to my side as I make eyes at the Ligurian Sea. I don’t even hear her at first. She looks like my Nanna. She speaks to me in Italian, apologetically, about the day’s argument between sea and sky, and then she nimbly follows the stairs down into the town.

~

Phrase for the day by Joanne Fedler (on writing regardless of whether it is good or bad):

“There is something wrong with you if you always just pooped pearls!”

Il Decimo Giorno – Cinque Terre 12/06/2012

This country has germinated in me, sprouting an uneasy familiarity and a blooming world of questions, signified by a leanness, as though I’m drawing in, drawing breath.

Ti amo, Italia.

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All the while, inside my stomach, there turns a slow galaxy, each time the coriolis’ arm brushes my heart, the other my resolve. I have been stoked by this space, this group of women writers.

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What line did I find written inside me?

I am a writer, first and foremost, and only, and more. A telltale, a poet, a weaver, a wordbird.

At first I find more than one line written on the underside of me, below the skin, in invisible ink that shows through only when I stand too close to the fire. There they converge and condense and the single line says the same in two different languages. It speaks of a suitcase stuffed with possibilities. And absolutes and definites whose ends tail off and splinter and can never remain evergreen.

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L’Ultimo Giorno. Last Day. 13/06/2012

We leave at sparrow’s fart (what a crass Aussie term!)… A good thing. Tiredness makes l’anima fold up her wings.

Last night my feelings were draped around me like scarves, cinching my waist in. I walked with forced grace to our last dinner together, down, down, unhungry for food, my legs shakier than the stairs had need to cause.

Today, as we drive the 6 hours back to Roma, farewells at Tarquinia, the warmth from last night cuts a crosswind through me. I hold onto the language and roll it into something malleable and misspoken and fun.

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Somewhere, a scarf mounts a zephyr and absconds. A door is opening to my left and my fictions are beginning to crash their bodies spectacularly into the real world.

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One end and one beginning 14/06/2012

So…how do I describe the end of the tour?
Shattered, rent, lysed. I am so tired. Molto stanca. And so full.
The moments have been strung between who I was and who I am, like polished lapis lazuli.

I was very glad to have found myself alone in the hotel room back in Roma, that he hadn’t arrived from the airport yet. I needed some exhalation space, time enough to collect and free the dragonflies milling about the pit of my stomach; I needed to almost cry, and then to cry.

I realise I’m insanely jealous of the sock I left behind at Le Casacce.

~