More rain in Genoa ...November, 2011

Just after 3am, I woke to a noise that sounded remarkably like a big building collapsing.  The boom of it echoed through the caruggi, the narrow alleyways here.

I lay there, not really wanting to think about what it might have been.  Soon after, it happened again.  Thunder?  I got up to look and discovered yes, thunder, lightning and heavy rain.  I went back to bed hoping that the flash floods of last week had cleared streams and pathways so that this torrential rain might cause less problems ... then realised it may still be a case of a lot of water cascading down from the hills above the city, overflowing streams and streets ... and I hoped not. 

I lay there, listening, hoping that this was more about the sound and the fury of a storm and less about many mm’s of rain in a short period of time.

5am, I woke up to the crashing of thunder and wondered if it was the same storm or a new one. 
6.50am, I gave in and got up.  The storm continues and is incredibly noisy.  Perhaps it is trapped between the high hills of Genova and the sea.  It’s not going away.

I remembered Cinque Terre were concerned about this next lot of heavy rain, I don’t know if Genova needs to be too but it doesn’t seem like the best kind of weather for a city so recently hit by serious flooding.

Genova’s Righicam gives you a peek in at the weather and the weather forecast it links to tells me that there is a 100% chance of rain until 11am, easing to a 90% chance of light rain from about 5pm.

So, today one might be sure in the knowledge that it’s going to rain.  Reassuringly ... surprisingly, I can hear people in the alley below.  Hardy souls out with umbrellas on their way to work I guess. It’s still dark, except for those moments when lightning fills the sky.

Kate, an American who has been living in Cinque Terre for years, posted an email she initially began writing for friends and family ... after realising they seemed to have no idea of how bad things are here in Italy.  So many Americans have wandered through, and fallen in love, with Cinque Terre that she and other American bloggers living in the area were disappointed by the lack of coverage the devastation in their area is getting.  They’re encouraging donations to Red Cross

I have to admit to being worried if Cinque Terre is receiving the rain we’ve been having here in Genova these last few hours, and yet I don’t want to be alarmist.  This isn’t my country and it’s not my landscape.  Unlike the corners of New Zealand I lived in, I don’t know the area well enough to understand whether it can cope with the rainfall we’re having right now.  I guess it’s just a matter of waiting and seeing, hoping that those in authority here in the city get the warnings out this time and no more lives are lost because the 10-20% of Genova that is down low or situated in the flat places may be taking a hammering now.

I took this photograph down at the ruin of the ancient temple yesterday.

The Passion of Artemisia, by Susan Vreeland

We’ve been lucky, I said.  We’ve been able to live by what we love.  And to live painting, as we have, wherever we have, is to live passion and imagination and connection and adoration, all the best of life - to be more alive than the rest.
Extracted from The Passion of Artemisia, by Susan Vreeland.

Genoa, in Reflection

I have loved the world in reflections since those days when I was a small child traveling to my Nana and Grandad’s house in Invercargill.

The swampy creek that ran alongside State Highway 1 over near Berwick was almost always a place of perfect reflections.  No one realised probably but I was contemplating that world so perfectly reflected, wondering if it might be another world, a parallel world perhaps, a magical world.

These days, I have discovered I can go some way to photographing those worlds reflected in puddles.  And I love it.  The rain stopped for a while today, the sun came out and voila, there we all were, out on the beautiful streets of this city.

So ... here’s a little of the beauty I find in Genova, in reflection.

An update on the rain, November 2011, Genoa

The flooding is rather serious here ... 3 rivers have broken their banks and already 5 people are confirmed dead, with 3 missing.

We’re up on the hill here in the city and, as far as I know, there are no rivers close by ...  We have bought supplies and hope that the rain stops soon but already noted that via XX Settembre is closed down by the covered market.  Rain is predicted for a couple more days.  There have been some impressive ‘Fiordland rainforest’ downpours througout the day, the difference being that Fiordland New Zealand sits on glacial moraine and drainage is rather efficent.  Here the rain all runs down off the hills that surround Genova ... down into the homes and streets that lead to the sea.

It’s 18 celsius, with a warm wind blowing, as I write this at 17.11.  It’s disturbingly dark ... daylight saving ended at the weekend, and there is this odd sense of not being sure of what is happening in the city, beyond what I’m reading in the English newspaper found online.  It was like this in Istanbul when the city was closed by two huge snowfalls but somehow, this is different. I am realising, once again, that I didn’t prepare for stuff like this.

You will get a sense of it perhaps when viewing one of the early slideshows of the flooding.

Rain, Genoa, November 2011

I was sitting here, minding my own business at 6.50am, when the sound of the rain registered.

It’s heavy rain out there.  I wandered on over to Stefano’s RighiCam and clicked on the 10 day weather forecast.  Seems we’re in for some rain here ... and some more rain too, actually.

People are hoping that those living in Cinque Terre will be okay during this series of deluges.  You can keep up with news in English from Cinque Terre via Kate Little at Little Paradiso who, in this particular post, lists others who are also writing of the flooding there last week.

Meanwhile, it’s good weather for writing a book, I’m thinking ...

The Ligurian Sea, Genoa

The Ligurian Sea is a part of the Mediterranean Sea positioned between the northwestern coast of Italy, the southeastern coast of France, and to the north of the islands of Corsica and Elba.

The western boundaries of the sea are an estimate at best, as mapping accuracy depends on where the sea actually ends, and there are many opinions for same.

The distance from Pisa to Nice is 251 km (156 mi), and from Genoa to Elba is 207 km (129 mi). The max depth is estimated at more than 2,850 m (9,300 ft.).

Called “Mar Ligure” in Italian and “Mer Ligurienne” in French, Genoa and Livorno are its chief ports and the sea is well served by regional ferries.
Sourced, The World Atlas website.

Art & Life, Genoa

I imagine that the person parking their bike might not have been as excited as I was about this quiet space here in the city of Genova.

I love the colour and textures of that pale golden building.  I love that I always find this particular space by chance, while wandering on my way someplace else.

Light is everything here.  There is the way the city looks in that deep rich late afternoon autumn light. I photographed a few city buildings last week, simply because the light had changed how I remembered the cityscape along via XX Settembre.  I get excited over a blue-sky day and the promise of light in those difficult to reach parts of this tightly-built city.  Then a stormy sky promises quite another effect, as the beautiful roofs quietly reveal their full beauty against a backdrop of clouds.

Loving Genova ...

A Celebration ...

The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human; the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown …
Theroux

Sourced from Steve McCurry’s photography blog.

Sometimes the photographs, I take here in Genova, are a simple celebration of being back in this place that I love.  It’s not always easy living here, without language, without anything resembling huge amounts of money, without family ... but I keep coming back.  My camera loves me for it.  My photographer’s eyes appreciate it too. 

I find something of New Zealand in the sea and the hills.  I enjoy the quiet kindness of the Genovese met along the way.  These days, I am reading my way into their history.  Steven Epstein’s book covers the period between 958-1528.  Titled ... Genoa and the Genoese, it captures something of the complicated and rich history of this Italian city that so few people I know seem to know.

Hanna came with me this time and she surely fell for the city, hoping her plane might be cancelled ... just for a few days.  There was so much more she wanted to see, and do, and photograph.  I watch it happen… everyone who comes here with me has fallen under the spell of this city so far. 

It’s good to be back.

Holy Light, Genoa

We are lonesome animals.
We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome.
One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say and to feel
‘Yes, that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it.’
You’re not as alone as you thought.
— John Steinbeck

Quote sourced from the blog of the truly gifted photographer, Steve McCurry.

Yesterday, as we worked through our day, Hanna, Francesca and I found time to pop into my favourite church here in Genova ... located in Piazza Maddalena.

I was giving Hanna a little information about photography and explained ... there are all the rules but then you can break them and, sometimes, that’s where the magic happens.

This is one of those shots, for me anyway.  I was handholding my camera in an incredibly dark church, kind of falling in love with the light and voila, the light let me have a little of its beautiful self.

One of the many things I love about Genoa ...

But perhaps I should begin with the people I meet here in this city I love so well.

Yesterday Hanna and I spent the day with Francesca.  We were putting together a project I have in mind and Francesca had kindly agreed to come along and translate.  She just fitted right in as we wandered and worked our way through the day.  Mille grazie, Francesca.  We had the most excellent time.

And in-between meeting the people we needed to meet, she introduced us to parts of the city we wouldn’t have known about and wouldn’t have dared enter.

Thanks to Francesca, we were able to wander the halls of this grand old house and voila, there was this room, puppet-show in place ... but of course.

There are always these unexpected magical moments here in the ancient city, also called La Superba ... It is also called la Superba - the Superb one - due to its glorious past.

Piano, piano ...

Slowly slowly ... that’s how I’m moving.

I seem have caught myself a cold en route.  Feeling sorry for myself is slowing me down, quite a lot.

Photos and stories will come, I just have to get through this phase of yuck.  Today, when I sneezed in the supermarket, this crazy guy gestured for me to step back from him.  I had my hand over my mouth, my germs were under control.  Truly. 

Later, when I went to visit Francesca, I warned her of my situation, she laughed and hugged me anyway.  She already has the cold, since Saturday. 

Sunshine and warmth today.
Ciao for now.

Cees Nooteboom, and a Genoa Image

Photography is a more intense way of “looking”. No photographer simply travels. He cannot allow himself the luxury of just looking around. He does not see landscapes; he sees photographs, images of reality as it might appear in a photograph.
Cees Nooteboom in 1982 in the Holland Herald, KLM’s in-flight magazine.

Reminiscing the Future ... Italy

I love the way we can bring the past alive in our present ... recalling the people we loved and lived with, the way that they made us feel.  I find everyone is still there, as solid memories, if I manage to call them up.

7am here in Italy, a cup of coffee from my small traveling espresso coffee-pot and a packet of shortbread-like biscuits nearby ...voila, memories of Nana and pre-breakfast coffees back home at her place, in Invercargill, New Zealand, chatting as she sped through her daily Southland Times, reading the news.

Imagine if her and I could have reminisced about the future ... ‘Hey Nana, in 2010, I’m going to be sitting at Paola’s kitchen table, in a small and ancient city in Italy, window open so I can hear the sounds of Genova waking up, drinking coffee, just like you and I are now.’

Nana, who never left New Zealand in all of her life but I wonder if she dreamed of it.  We never talked of those things.

Or a conversation with Mum ... ‘So I moved to Istanbul in 2003.  You would have loved it.  The people are so friendly, the summers are warmer than here in Mosgiel, the life ... you would have loved the life of that ancient city. 

Then Belgium in 2005’.  She would have flown over to make me a balcony garden in Antwerp, and spent evenings out there, ignoring the mosquitoes, drinking a white wine and watching the sun slip below the horizon. 

And Genova, I’m almost sure she would never have ever left Genova after arriving.  We would have laughed about me being my mother’s daughter perhaps, with a need for the sea and serious hills, and maybe we could have planned to open some kind of B&B here, satisfying our oddly hospitable souls and the pleasure we find in knowing people.

And my lovely little sister ... the one who has always been older and wiser than me, even if she was born after me.  We used to talk across the single-bed space back in those days when we shared a bedroom and if we had reminisced about my future life, I do believe we might have imagined we were inventing fairy stories ... where Istanbul, Antwerp and Genova were flights of fanciful imaginations ...

She should come here now.

Hhere I am, in the now, in Italy... loving the life I find in Genova.

Did you know, that swallows fly up and down Via Lorenzo in the evenings, before dark, screeching like hysterically happy young girls playing chase at an out-of-control birthday party.  They amuse me, those swallows - even as I realise that I can't begin to caputre their antics with my camera.

And did you know that if you take nuts to the park in Nervi, and you throw a few then make yourself comfortable on the grass, the squirrel will be become bolder and bolder ... until you run out of nuts.  Then you and he are over as photographer and model.

And did you know that this woman, a few thousand miles from home, from her past lives, and the people she loved first, finds the Ligurian coast an exquisitely beautiful place to remember and miss them?

Church bells ring in through the open kitchen window ... 8am.
Time to begin the new day but Sandra, come over one day soon.

Ciao from Genova, both feet in the present, as I think what to do with this day.