Archive for the ‘the sea’ Category
sunday scribblings: simple
Prompt #61: Simple*
I pull out my notebook to jot down some thoughts because I want to remember these moments forever–simple pleasures of being tickled by cool water trickling through my toes, digging my hands in the sand until they are covered in damp black and gold specks, brushing wisps of hair out of my face put there by the constant, lovely breeze.I write the date in Italian without thinking, and I smile.
I didn’t bring my journal or camera because a trip to the sea wasn’t in the original plan. I have to give final exams in an hour or so, but I decide to head to the beach instead of straight to school–no matter that I have no swimsuit or towel (although always sunscreen).
At least I’m wearing flip-flops and a little sand on my jean skirt isn’t going to hurt anyone.
Despite summer-like temperatures, I am nearly alone on the beach. Two bikini-clad blondes, already sufficiently abbronzate if you ask me, lounge nearby, laughing and joking, switching easily from French to French-accented Italian and back again. We exchange buon giornos, but nothing more. I wonder what brought them to southern Italy, but they seem content in their world, so I don’t ask.
I look up from my notebook and see the back of a shiny black head pop up from the water. Just as quickly, the head dips back under and flippers peek out where it had been. The Ionian Sea is so clear, he can surely see to the bottom without all that gear, but he seems happy, and that’s what’s important. I am reminded that an amateur diver discovered the famous Riace Bronze statues just south of here in the early 1970s, and I wonder whether similar treasures lie just below this guy’s mask.
There’s a teenage girl a little ways down, standing in the water, her short navy blue skirt grazing the surface. She’s whipping her head from side to side, struggling to keep her long, black, curly hair out of her way as she furiously types a text message on her phone. She’ll spend the entire hour I’m here on the phone in one way or another, but no one joins her. I wonder if anyone came after I left, and I hope that someday she’ll appreciate her own company if she doesn’t already.
A sailboat eases by, two men on board casually steering the craft between the scuba diver’s periodically surfacing head and a rather large fishing boat anchored in the sea. I can’t tell what they’re saying from here, but they’re smiling and laughing. The wind is perfect for sailing as far as I know, but admittedly, that isn’t very much. They go back and forth, back and forth, and I think that it’ll soon be time to call home and tell their wives/mothers to put on the pasta, as the time for pranzo is approaching. I wonder if they’ll take a contented nap after they eat.
I put down my notebook and return to the water I had waded in up to my knees when I first arrived–earlier today, yes, but as my feet sink into the wet sand, I realize, also five years ago. I am back in virtually the same spot in which I had first experienced the Ionian Sea, when I had vacationed here what seems like a lifetime ago, when I had no idea that I’d end up making a life here, when P and Luna didn’t even exist, at least to me.
I am taken back to the thoughts that were occupying my mind at that time–my twenty-five-year old mind that started to play with a silly thought of making a major life change, of stepping off the fast-track and pursuing the passions that had always been in my heart but that had been pushed aside for more practical considerations.
The water is calm, refreshing, and oh so clean–cleansing, one could say. I regret that I can’t go in deeper as I have to play professional in half an hour. I laugh to myself as I glance back at the sweater I brought along in case it got chilly. The sweater will stay tucked in my bag for another time, though, because today, the weather is perfect, the breeze is perfect, and this moment is perfect.
And I don’t want to ever forget it.
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*I’m posting this early because I won’t be around tomorrow; First Holy Communion time round here, which means some family fun.
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
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[tags]sunday scribblings, sea, beach, ionian sea, calabria, soverato[/tags]
i’ve "bean" interviewed
Today I am the subject of an interview by Ally Bean of Crazy Dust In My Coffee. Ally had been questioned by J of Thinking About… and then as part of “The Interview Meme,” she offered to send questions others if they chose to accept the challenge.
I did, and here are Ally’s questions and my responses:
Question: What part of your day do you enjoy the most?
The early morning. If you would’ve told me five years ago that I’d respond as such, I would’ve thought you’d been hitting the sauce, but I’ve come to love the fresh morning air, the silence, the hope and potential that each day holds. And of course my morning routine and, these days, my iced coffee.
Question: What is your opinion of the color yellow?
I love it in all shades, but not for all purposes. I’m not fond of any shade of yellow for a car, but my house is pale yellow, which I find charming on a home. I don’t wear much yellow, and if I do, it’s also of the pale persuasion (like me), and I *love* yellow legal pads. If I had my druthers, I’d have the walls of my (as yet to be developed) home office painted yellow. It’s in discussion.
Question: What is the dumbest pair of shoes that you’ve ever worn out in public?
Anything with the slightest heel in my hilly village full of cobblestone streets.
Question: Just how creative are you?
Sooooo creative? I do think outside the box, and I’m decent at most artsy type things like drawing, painting, music, etc., but I’d love to be much better at all of them. My to-learn/to-improve list is a long one.
Question: What quotation(s) and/or motivational phrase(s) do you live by?
Two major ones: (1) Everything happens for a reason. My grandmother told me this when I was very young, and it’s gotten me through many a tough time; and (2) Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Doesn’t get more simple and true than that.
Now here are the rules of this interview meme:
1. Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.” (If you don’t feel comfortable putting your e-mail address in the comments, please directly send me a message to the address on my sidebar.)
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
Come on, you know you want to play!
And now some entirely unrelated photos.
P happens to be painting the school where I work, but he’s in a part of it that I had never seen before–this place is huge with dormitories and everything.
So the other day I embarrassed P to no end casually took some shots around his work area this week.
Buon weekend!
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[tags]memes, interviews, soverato, calabria, ionian sea[/tags]
sunday scribblings: ocean
Prompt #58: Ocean
Ah, the ocean. Many have fond memories of going to the beach as a child, frolicking in the sand, building sandcastles, getting tossed around in the waves.
Not me.
I remember going to Atlantic City with my grandmother once when I was small, but we didn’t actually get near the water as it was too cold. And yes, for those in the Mid-Atlantic region of the US, I’m talking about “going to the shore” here. Cheesesteaks optional but advised.
So my first time near a large body of water was in college when some friends and I went to Morehead City (accent on the first syllable; make your own jokes please), North Carolina. Is that possible? Nearly 20 years of my life without knowing the ocean?
Entirely. From the middle of Pennsylvania, where I am from, the ocean is several hours away; those from the Midwest may have even more dramatic horror stories. Add to that a family that was never, say, enamored with the water or vacations, and it’s not too hard to understand. Of course it is a bit strange if you consider that I now live minutes from the crystal clear Ionian Sea, a northern Italian and European holiday hotspot.
So when I was 19 years old, I got thrown around by the waves of the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. Scary at the start, but then simply glorious. Being flipped and turned beyond your control really puts the world into perspective for anyone, let alone a 19-year-old college kid.
I remember feeling so small, insignificant, powerless. And happy. Deliriously happy.
It was the perfect time to feel and understand that I was just a tiny piece of the larger puzzle of the world. At the time, I was attending an ultra-competitive university with students who often fit every stereotype you could imagine; it was easy to get suckered into thinking that every decision, including actually eating dinner instead of having half of a plain baked potato, would affect my Entire Future.
Should I continue with German? Should I double major? Should I break down and take a math course? Can I fit in another part-time job? This was critical stuff!
Having nothing to do but lie on the beach, read some novels, and frolic, yes frolic, in the water was the perfect wind-down to another physically and emotionally draining school year; as it turned out, my introduction to the ocean happened exactly when I needed it and, perhaps more importantly, when I was ready to accept it.
I think that when you haven’t grown up with something, your adult years can either find you strangely drawn toward it or still keeping your distance.
With the ocean, I’m somewhere in between. I’m not afraid of the water, although I’ll admit I’m not entirely comfortable on a boat where I can no longer see land. If you haven’t guessed, I’ve never been on a cruise, but I’d welcome the chance if, you know, I won one or something.
On the other hand, I’m definitely not addicted to the sea either–a minor sin here, in fact, where I’m asked nearly every day in the summer if I had gone “al mare,” to the sea. Thank goodness I found P, who isn’t appassionato either, proving one of P’s (and now my) favorite sayings: “Dio li fa e poi li accoppia.” This is the equivalent of our “birds of a feather flock together,” but literally (and much prettier, I think): “God makes them and then matches them up.”
So while not al mare every day, I do enjoy quiet times at the beach when there are few others around. Lucky for me, Italians are quite rigid on when they go to the beach, so those early March and late September days? The beach and the moist, salty air? Pretty much all mine.
I imagine this might change a bit if I have children, though, because I would want them to be comfortable with the water and have all those sweet, frolicky memories that so many others have–although building sandcastles probably isn’t going to happen on our beaches here.
And so, I am at peace with the fact that the ocean and I have a bit of a strained relationship. I wouldn’t die if I wasn’t near it, but then again, that crisp, fresh air and cool water feels oh so good when the sun is warming my cheeks and shoulders (properly covered in sunscreen, of course).
But for now I’ll continue to take it in small doses until the Ionian, which surely knows more than I, pulls me to know it a little better.
And then I will open myself up to whatever it has to offer.
P.S. You can find more images of the sea here.
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[tags]ocean, sea, ionian sea, badolato[/tags]
a different kind of malocchio
I’ve written about the curse of malocchio, but yesterday at 4 a.m., I experienced a much different kind of “bad eye.” I woke up with a literal one that was tearing, burning, itching, and just being a big ole pain.
Needless to say, I couldn’t fall back asleep–did you notice that I posted at 5:30 a.m. yesterday? Yeah, you probably won’t be seeing that again unless the eye strikes back.
So after posting, I woke up P for work. He asked if I wanted to go down the mountain to the doctor. Nah, I said, we’ll see how it progresses.
I don’t like the doctor, but I really hate going here, where it can take hours of sitting among a bunch of sickies before I’m seen only to get news that I could’ve gotten at the pharmacy, where the pharmacist diagnoses you and sells you whatever he thinks you need. No thanks.
A few minutes after P left for work, he returned and told me that he had two different volunteers in the piazza that would take me to the doctor if I wanted. Again, no. Let’s just wait and see, I said.
So once I was sure the pharmacist had arrived in the village, I ventured out for some medical advice; he usually rolls in around 9:30, but to be safe I waited until 10. And wouldn’t you know? A line of people.
I, of course, kept my sunglasses on, so I got even more stares than I normally would, as oddly enough, young people don’t often hang out in the pharmacy in a village where the average age is somewhere around 65. After a few minutes and a gasp from the pharmacist at how bad my eye looked, I got some drops (the famous collirio for fellow expats) and was on my way.
And then more fun began.
First I ran into P’s sister-in-law who diagnosed me as having pink eye, which I had thought was a possibility as well, but she seemed particularly concerned because “My how your face is swollen! You look terrible!”
Then the clerk in the tobacco shop (needed to get tissues) seconded that emotion, and told me (in a speech that lasted no less than 15 minutes) that her two daughters had just gotten over pink eye.
Alrighty then. Moving on the grocery store, which is about a ten second walk down the street.
On the way, I was stopped by three different elderly women asking about my eye. I was wearing sunglasses, by the way, so they hadn’t actually seen a problem, but the word had clearly gotten out.
And then inside the grocery store, the clerk also diagnosed me with pink eye, although another customer thought I had just gotten something in it, like a mosquito, he said. I hadn’t thought of the mosquito angle, so I thanked him for his ingenuity.
The morning was rounded out by a phone call from P’s mom (who doesn’t live in the village, but rather down the mountain) asking me if I wanted to go to the doctor. Again, I resisted the invitation, and I didn’t even think it was strange that she knew I had an eye issue.
Instead, I squeezed some drops into my eye, causing ridiculous burning for a few seconds and finally some relief, and then called the school to tell them I wouldn’t be teaching today. They, incidentally, hadn’t heard of the Great Eye Debacle yet, so it was good I called.
More drops and many cold compresses later, the eye was mostly back to normal by yesterday evening–much to the relief of the village, which sent some representative questioners this morning when I took Luna for a walk.
As for the eye, I’m not sure if it was a quickly traveling virus or even, say, a mosquito, but it seems to have passed, and I am left with only photographic reminders of all the annoyance. Because of the horrible pain, I was up for the sunrise yesterday, and that didn’t turn out to be a bad consolation prize.*
Unfortunately the weather turned cloudy and rainy soon thereafter, but you wouldn’t know it from the way the day started.
This from the balcony:
And this from my kitchen window as the sun traveled through the sky:
*Excuse the crookedness factor please. I was only working with one good eye, you know, and even that wasn’t so good since I didn’t have my contacts in. I’m virtually blind with uncorrected vision.
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[tags]eye problems, sunrises, calabria, life in calabria[/tags]
love thursday: scribblings on a seawall
Not too long ago, a friend pointed me to an article about a lamp post in Rome that has become famous for lovers attaching padlocks and then throwing the keys into the Tiber River–hoping to lock up the permanency of their relationship so to speak.
Like nearly everything, this lamp post has become a political issue, which is what is discussed in the article, but my friend spotted the piece and thought it’d make for a lovely Love Thursday.
And indeed it would.
But then a few days ago, Shelley of At Home in Rome photographed the lamp post personally, and she has shared more of the story with the blogosphere. No need to rehash here as Shelley’s got it covered, but this past weekend, I made an interesting discovery–down here in Calabria, we have our own little lovely tradition.
It’s not as visually stunning as the padlocks, and some may call it nasty graffiti, but what I see is (I’m guessing) young love poured out onto a wall that lines the promenade in Catanzaro Lido.
Cristian,
You are my life.
Thank you for existing.
Valentine’s Day
You’re not with me…
I had wanted to spend this day with you…
Patience…
I will love you forever, Giù (Giuseppe)…
Your Cate (Caterina)!!!
Live with me without fear
(song lyric by Laura Pausini)
I love you Lilly
Happy Love Thursday everyone!
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[tags]love thursday, graffiti, catanzaro, catanzaro lido, seawalls, sea, ionian sea, love notes, southern italy, calabria[/tags]
Michelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived.
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