Admit, that once you have got up
from your chair and opened the door,
once you have walked out into the clear air
toward that edge and taken the path up high
beyond the ordinary you have become
the privileged and the pilgrim,
the one who will tell the story
and the one, coming back from the mountain
who helped to make it.
David Whyte
From MAMEEN, River Flow: New and Selected Poem.
I would love to tell a story about this house. It's the first I've fallen in love with, in years and years.
It seems as though there is an infinite variety of ways to explore Genoa.
I couldn't resist using those words. Most easily, you can use your own two feet, alone or guided. There is a hop on/hop off bus. There are segway tours. A miniature train tour. And, of course, public transport. There are boats, bikes, outdoor elevators, and a funicular too.
And this rickshaw guided tour ...
Really.
Nervi, in Liguria, is hosting EuroFlora this year. And as the small coastal town is only 9kms from Genoa, so it is that Genoa is celebrating the international event with a variety of EuroFlora-orientated actions.
The most startling, for me, has been the overnight appearance of 100s of brightly-coloured umbrellas, hanging above particular streets here in the city.
Walking to work recently, I discovered Via Aprile's sky-view had been completely filled with open umbrellas. And over days, other streets and ceilings too, have been filled in the same way.
I wanted to capture the display in a different way, and actually ended up taking a series of images. The photograph above was my favourite.
“La solitudine può portare a forme straordinarie di libertà.”
Loneliness can lead to extraordinary forms of freedom.
I drive around this tiny island and I am overwhelmed by the place, by memories of growing up in New Zealand, so many years ago, when life was so different to this European life I've spent the last 15 years living.
I am living quite a simple life here but such a good simple. There are little houses here, painted turquoise greens and blues ... just here and there, not standard but they remind me so much of the summer houses we called 'crib's', down there at the bottom of the South Island of New Zealand.
I have returned to a natural kind of life; a life I didn't even know I was missing. I swim in the sea, in the lagoon really. We might sit out there with a beer, escaping the heat, escaping gravity too. The current in the lagoon runs round the island, so you can be in the shallows and simply swim against it. It's bliss really. The reef protects us from most things.
My skin is turning a deep golden brown. The brown of childhood. The brown I had forgotten was possible. My arms, my face ...
My legs are following, much more slowly, mosquito-scarred but moving from a pale white into something slightly toasted.
The landscape is volcanic, so there are lush green peaks in the centre, odd shapes, quite beautiful, and Nature. Nature is in the ascendant here. Lush rain-fed vegetation, ants, mozzies, coconut, mango and paw paw trees. And so much more I don't know.
Driving round the island though, that's what I want to write about here but I need to try again another day.
Oh, and there are two radio stations. One plays music I love, a lot from my past, and easy-listening contemporary music too. The other is very much about local news and music. I move between them.
Meanwhile, on my bench here ...
I enjoy the writings of the poet, David Whyte. I wanted to add words to this photograph I made ... found, here in Rarotonga.
An extract from his poem, Courage, seemed perfect.
People tell me I'm brave, that I have courage but I have this idea that it's just as brave to choose to stay, sometimes.