sometimes I am appalled

Sometimes I am appalled by the amount that I don't know.  I wonder, what was I doing when that was taking place? Why hadn't I read that? Where was my head when I should have been more aware?

Yesterday, after a full day of olive picking, my helpers sat around sharing (wonderful) music and conversation. At one point they were talking about an author who won a Nobel Prize. Maybe I hadn't caught the name, maybe the title was a little familiar, but I had to admit that I didn't know the books they were talking about.

Thankyou again friend google, for filling in some gaps. I had to admit to myself that I didn't know anything about  Gabriel García Márquez and I hadn't read either of his two incredibly famous books.  The English translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude came out when I was a first-year student at university, surrounded by mountains of books and papers. But that is no excuse. A good many years have passed since then, and I didn't ever come across these books. The next time I get a chance I will look for One Hundred Years of Solitude, and see what it is that I have somehow overlooked for all these years. 

And why did he win a Nobel prize? For literature, of course. For me, the words Nobel and Peace are synonymous. But the pen really is mightier than the sword, so perhaps there is nothing wrong with that assumption,

The conversation about the man and his books, despite being of "my times",  was completely new to me. Pretty humbling, really. 

Today I am grateful for wonderful conversations. 

there's no such thing as too long...

But this post on another blog is so close to the mark that I had to share it! (Click on the title below).



Thanks to the writer of "You know you've been in Italy too long when..."  on the Eupedia Italy Guide website. 

(Please note, no infringement of copyright intended, I borrowed this from a FB posting and traced it back to the website given above). 

Today I am grateful for sunshine and autumn colours.

progress

The terraces are being cleared and cleaned up again.  Whew! I might get the olive crop in after all.  It was looking doubtful for a while.

The wonderful thing is what it has done for my spirits, seeing it all clean and clear under the trees.  It was all I could manage to keep it clear around the feijoa trees.  I found it most depressing looking out at the work that I couldn't cope with myself, and no other workers could be found... well, none arrived when they said they would, and I was resigned to the jungle getting worse before it got better.

My whistling worker might have a history best not told, he may have his faults, but his cheerful and thorough approach to the work makes a huge difference in my life.  Running on coffee, sugar, and the occasional bottle of water, he works like a trojan.  Ours is a strange kind of friendship, but a friendship it really is.

Today I am thankful for the return of my helper.

so you'll have to imagine

You'll have to imagine the starlings in Rome today, 

...because my camera isn't fancy.  Click on the images for a slightly bigger view, but really "you had to be there"...

The birds were quite wonderful, dancing, wheeling, soaring, diving, all in perfect harmony, but only a fraction of them were picked up by my camera.

did I ever mention...

Did I ever mention that I love living where I do?

Today I went to Rome.  You know how I hate cities, go stark staring mad in the space of a few hours. Three days (even in Paris) and I need to leave.  Most days three hours in a city is enough for me.

Well, today was a Rome day.  Or so I had planned, or so I thought I had planned. There were three reasons to go (probably described in reverse order of urgency).

Number one: I was arranging to meet a friend "when I was next in Rome", but didn't get any email replies once my trip up was looking definite. Ah well, maybe not today then.

Number two: I was hoping to go to the exhibition of Dutch masters from the golden era, but didn't arrange to go with another artist friend because I wanted an early morning start (because of reason three) and hadn't advised him ahead of time.

And number three, friend who forgot to leave with me a purchase she had made but wasn't taking home (because being wooden it wont be allowed into NZ without being fumigated and that's a nuisance).  She also managed to leave something of hers here, so at her suggestion to meet in Rome on Tuesday morning I set out, to deliver and to receive. But she wasn't answering email or text or phone calls either.

So, with 0 out of 3 things in place I was on the train to Rome at 8.13 this morning. Giving up on "travelling Kiwi friend" I sent a text to "lost in cyberspace Italian friend" and suggested meeting if he were free. Delighted, was the reply, can meet you at 5pm if that's not too late for you.  Mmmm.  Bit of a long day.  NO problem, I replied, (well, wouldn't you?) It's not too late, I have things to do in Rome.



So, what does one do in Rome? People watch, of course!  First at the station in case Kiwi friend had received my train time. No sign of her.

Vermeer exhibition alone... oh heck, why not? It will be great to see it twice.  Watch the people, look at the art, watch the people...Tick. (The best behaved Italian school children I have EVER seen were there, all of about three years old.  Imagine, at that age, having class trips to the Scuderie del Quirinale to see some of the finest paintings in the world!)

Still a few hours to kill.  Walk and walk and walk. Get on bus to give feet a break. Go back to Termini after seeing several new things (but no photos of them, sorry).  Sit down to eat something and decide that you have had enough of central Rome - after all it has been at least five hours - maybe walking near the main tourist venues was not the cleverest thing I did today.  Catch the metro.  The wonderful BIRG tickets cost 14 euros now, but as well as my fare to Roma and back these give me as much bus and metro transport as I need in a day.

(Photo: How does your garden grow? With terracotta pots and solar panels, of course!) 

Arriving too early to meet friend I wander the market and buy a book.  Time for a chair when the steps became uncomfortable (the park benches don't have backs on them there) so it was up to (shhhhh) McDonalds Italy. They have a covered balcony perfect for people watching or studying Italian... or even drinking a latte macchiato with your apple cake.

More people watching.  In this suburb the young folk are smoking far too much, and too young. The flight of the illegal market people was wonderful to see from my vantage point when the inspectors came through. All done with such humour!  About 15 men ran with Santa-like sacks made of white sheets bulging with merchandise.  They looked worried until they were off the market area, and down the steps below me.  Then they split up and disappeared at a more leisurely pace, watching but not running any more.  The flurry of activity in the market quietened, but I noticed that they didn't risk going back up again.

And then... flight really was the word. And absolute wonder and awe, as I watched for ages... so long in fact that the sun went down and I was still gazing at the birds, it was just wonderful.  The only other time I have seen such an impressive display was in Altkirch in Alsace, France, way back in September 1999. Thanks Jackerd for this link ... aren't they just magic?

And then, it was home again.  I have been out of the house for just twelve hours, but they were such richly packed hours. I do love living where I am.

Today I am grateful for migration.

no go...

because a few people have complained about having to type in those terribly hard to read letters to leave a comment I disabled the gadget. (I don't like those things either).  I am now getting regular spam.  I'll give it a few more days, but will probably go back to being hard to comment on again, sorry! 

half hermit, maybe?

I've been back into my writing lately, and loving it.  It's been squeezed between guests, and finally it has got hold of me properly and wont let go. A good thing? I hope so! But so were all the guests.

My most recent guest was a charming woman a few years older than me, also on her own and choosing the next "stage" of her life. She has loved Italy for longer than I have, but she chooses to stay in NZ.  Her next move takes her back to her friends and a social life that she had put on hold for a while.  It's the kind of life I thought I might be living, back when I left my marriage.  A two bedroomed apartment in central Auckland, concerts, galleries, you know the sort of thing. Running or walking the Around the Bays, listening to music, walking, beach strolls... a far cry from the life I lead on my scruffy mountainside. Everything familiar, beautiful, and on a practical level, very easy.

When I put her on a train this morning I asked myself yet again, why do I reject the "perfect life" in beautiful New Zealand? What is this strange urge to bury myself in a country where life is not easy and I am still, more than five years on, struggling to find the right words every day?

An answer hit me a minute ago.

I think that I am half hermit. Here I can hide away, ignore the world, and indulge in my art and writing. Perhaps I really don't want to be in the middle of my own culture, where I must participate and be sociable.  Perhaps I am more anti-social than social.  I like to think of myself as a big picture person, and maybe back there I couldn't see the wood for the trees.

Back in NZ I was planting myself in, planting trees to hide my home from the world.  My dream was not your normal Kiwi dream. I wonder, am I recreating that dream in a completely different way, unconsciously?

There is a sense of relief that after five and a half years of living here I have finally identified something that links my present life to the dream that I nurtured so long ago.

Today I am grateful for flashes of inspiration.