ive always had a talent for buying the right books. of finding the right words just when i need to hear them, so pressing and so articulative for this present moment in time.
i shared this not-so-humbly with my roommate the other day – she told me i was just a victim of good in-store markering.
but i still believe in this superpower of mine, because of how right its led me in the past.
just like that time i walked into the first bookstore i saw in rome and found my next read right there on the new in fiction table – rebecca solnits the faraway nearby. to begin with it was the orange apricots on the cover that caught my attention (i was obsessed with apricots at the time, that sweet, lustrous summer fruit that could be purchased on every street corner; displayed like golden jewels on the sidewalk outside every tabaccheria). i walked out with the cover under my arm and would in my subsequent travels watch her get more waterstained by the day. from long hours at the beach, in the bus, in the train – progressively growing ever more faded, nicked, and destroyed.
in the novel, solnit is grappling with the fairy tale-esque issue of handling enormous boxes of previously mentioned stone fruit thats currently resting on the floor of her bedroom, ripening and wilting as we speak. she undertakes this quest while simultaneously diving deeper into the heart of story-telling itself: why do we tell stories? and why do we need them?
as i am exploring similar questions myself, in the think-thank that is this newsletter – (is it possible to tell a story about the present? a story without a grand narrative as a guide on the horizon?) – this book came to me like a field guide to my internal journey as this new external one was unfolding.
allow me to tell you about it.
im meeting my friend in rome. lets call him dio, after the wine god dionysus he dressed up as on last years halloween party – toga, grapes, and chalice and all – his long blonde curls under a wreath of ivy.
dio had been to italy many times before, a mediterranean soul jaggedly misplaced in the lean farmers body from the cold hard north.
dio and i are running with our ridicoulusly sized backpacks to the bus that will take us to napoli. solnit bumping against my back the whole way.
we arrive just in time – sweaty, out of breath, and disastrously hungry.
the bus takes off down the flat green landscape of lazio, the sun dipping down the horizon. we quickly immerse ourselves in our respective books with a plump peach in each hand.
i turn back to solnit:
An emergency is an accelerated phase of life, a point at which change is begotten, a little like a crisis. Quite a lot of suffering often comes along with it, of mourning for what will be left behind – an old self, and old love, an old order – and of fear for what is to come, of the wrenching difficulty of change itself. The poets John Keats once referred to art as ”this vale of soul-making,” and its in emergencies and difficulties that souls are made.
i had decided to leave this emergency of mine behind in rome, to try and mourn what id left and stop fearing what was to come. i still felt the heavy presence of change lingering over my shoulders – but the weight was slowly receding, like how the impression on a mattress will gradually disperse and rearrange itself back to equilibrium after the vacancy of the warm and weighty body. i imagined i could feel the outlines of this crisis fading, as the decision to fully immerse myself in this journey grew stronger.
with the rolling farmland of middle-west italy unfolding outside the window, i wanted nothing more to enter this veil of soul-making.
so when we stepped off the bus, joining the night of napoli, i felt even lighter than before.
locating the bnb, a quick shower to wash the travel-grease off, and then out to find the best pizza in napoli (hence the world?) that the city could offer two very hungry and weary travelers.
arriving at the place i had wanted to visit for more than three years (ever since id read about it in a book), the long queue hit us hard in the face. it was a quarter to closing time and a rumour was spreading along the hungry line that the pizzeria was out of dough. resting my weary head on dios shoulder i prayed to his namesake that luck would be with us tonight.
five minutes. then ten. slowly making our way forward. when meeting the hard-eyed woman running the place she cast an eye back into the kitchen and then met met our hopeful eyes with a shake of the head:
sorry, ragazzzi.
i pleaded with her, putting emphasis on how far we’ve travelled and how desperate we were. she considered us, eyes still as solid as rocks. she considered the notepad in her hands and after several excruciatingly long seconds she relented:
i can give you two pizzas.
but those are the last.
as the queue behind us erupted into groans my luck erupted in the air; feeling light as we sipped on two ice-cold peronis for the wait.
receiving our two boxes like trophies we devoured them right then and there in the alley, talking about our luck and our day and other joyous things that felt as light and airy as the neapolitan crust dissolving on our tongues.
without hyperbole they were truly the best two pizzas in the world.
arriving back at the bnb, dio fell straight into the bed, i returned to solnit:
In movies and novels, people change suddenly and permanently, which is convenient and dramatic but not much like life, where you gain distance on something, relapse, resolve, try again, and move along in stops, starts, and stutters. (…) Many lives have a moment of rupture that is an awakening and a change of direction.
perhaps this would be my awakening, this definitive moment succeeding the crisis. the journey would be my way of gaining distance – part of the very human narrative of relapsing, resolving, and trying again. the gradual change is convenient for narratarizing, but in life emergencies and their resolution arrive in stops, starts and stutters.
the moment my life ruptured somewhere between the border of italy and france was simultaneously an awakening to this looming change in direction.
solnit writes: we answer them, when we answer, with how we lead our lives.
and i had decided to lead my life into more beautiful expanses.
headstrong that somewhere along the italian horizon i would stutter my way into an answer.
the next morning i wake early.
dio is still sleeping and im out on the balcony, leaning out over the fence absorbing the morning sun and the sounds of centro storico coming alive.
a knock at the door and the nonna of our bnb rolls in a cart full of breakfast goods, giving me a smile as she tries to be quiet and not wake the sleeping boy.
we breakfasted in bed, on grapes, bread, butter and homebaked sfogliatelle – the neapolitan pastry like a tiny cushion of warm deliciousness. flakes falling on the white sheets. a cup of espresso balanced on my knee.
id ordered a glass of apricot juice in honor of solnit. albiccocca. the precious small stone fruit.
tonight i would pack my resolve with me further down south, to coastal towns and beaches and more delicacies a long the way.
im ending this letter sitting against the warm cliffs of napoli, the departure only a few minutes away. someone is playing italian folk-songs from their phone. the familiar sound of beers being opened.
heres to pizzas, peronis and pastries in bed.
to finding the right books just in time.
see you soon with the continued journey,
love,
e.
This is wonderful! I loved reading this, it makes me want to explore <3
loved this so much!