Postcards From Italy
My feet dug into the ground as I stared up at the sky.
It was blue, azure blue. The sort of blue that you only ever see in Britain on postcards sent from those abroad with men and women in the distance eating ice cream on a beach.
I had a red hat on, with polka dots, my toddler curls peeking out from beneath it. Behind me my mother, in a two piece black bathing suit, smiles appreciatively towards the camera with a huge grin. My sister, Francesca, to her right. Francesca is a few years older than me; here she's playing with dolls, plunging her barbie-dolls head first into the sand, giggling as she does so.
I don't remember that, but then again, I don't remember much. We used to go on family holidays all the time to Italy. Ma and Pa were from the old country, from Sicily. Both spoke broken and fragmented English, mixed and mashed together like a badly put together puzzle. They spoke Italian in our presence numerous times, but since we've forgotten most of it.
The camera turns itself around to see my father, chest hair exposed, a cross around his neck and grinning manically. I don't know how old he was there, maybe in his late twenties? His face is free from worry lines and crows feet that burden him today. Vanity is one of the seven sins, as a strict Roman Catholic, he now shuns all of the creams my mother buys for him.
My Dad talks to the camera in Italian, I can only pick bits up. 'Here we are in Sicily. . . Maria is playing in the sand. . .' my father's Italian weaves in and out of my recognition as often as his shaky handwork often plunges the camera towards the heavens, revealing that sweet blue that I only ever did see in Italy.
The camera abruptly stops after a rather ominous sounding threat from my mother to turn it off. We're all tanned, our brown eyes with hints of green as we tan and our brown hair is going blonde in the sun. Slowly bleaching, the colour of soft wood, the colour of rich, mahogany wood.
Memories increase as I grow older. I have bits of memories, walking across the side of pool, only to fall in (there is photographic evidence somewhere), food outside with my mother's mother in Italy outside as I lay on the ground after my food, uncomfortably full following the meal.
When we got to high school, we didn't want to go so much. I always did, but Francesca always imposed over me and spoke for me when she could. Where she was boisterous, I was reserved, where she enjoyed playing sport, I was the one on the sidelines of the field keeping score of the match. Where she had a revolving door of boyfriends, I had one or two relationships, but nothing special.
I am very much my mother's daughter. Francesca didn't ever want to go; after all, what use was it saying to your friend that you're going to go on a family holiday? Everyone else was going to Greece, the south of France. I could see where she was coming from, and often agreed with her. Out of habit, more than anything else.
As we grew older, we enjoyed and understood it more. Why we had to go there, why it was important, things like that. Our father took us on a tour. Not a proper excursion or anything, he was the self-declared highest authority on everything Italian. We went everywhere, polaroids and handwritten journal entries as reminders of our journey.
It's mad, isn't it? No matter what you do, you will never be able to recapture that moment. You can't physically go back and change anything, can you? You can't touch it. That person in that state of mind at that age doesn't exist. The picture of me eating chocolate ice cream on the pier, that person doesn't exist anymore. That fifteen year old girl doesn't exist anymore; you will never be able to talk to her again. Given, here I am, all those years on, but that teenager isn't around now; I've grown up. It's odd to think that without memories, without those pictures, my dad's bad camerawork and those journal entries, the time that I spent in Italy. . . it wouldn't have existed any more. Not fully.
If you don't remember it, if nobody else does, if there's no documentation; who's to say it really happened? They ought to put plaques down, in an ideal world. 'So and so fell in love here', 'so and so was proposed to here' or 'so and so once played an accordion here to raise the bus fare to go home, but instead received three bottles of wine and some cheese from drunk passer-bys'. Yes! That last one was me! As a teenager I'd gotten drunk on cheap wine with friends and ended up playing under a bridge near a cluster of restaurants.
That's another thing I loved about it. The history. Not history as in 'Oh, let's go and see this museum it looks good', history as in. . . as in, how many people had fallen in love, died, given birth, grew up here? Everything soaked with culture, with ideas, with enthusiasm. It's everywhere. It's everywhere we go all over the Earth.
The next time you’re out, think of all the thousands of people that have stood where you are, have done what you've done, have said what you've said; everything that you have ever done has been done before and will continue to do so for eternity.
On one hand, it's paralysing, it's an idea called the 'eternal recurrence' or the 'heaviest weight' from Nietzsche's native German of 'das schwerste Gewicht'. But on the other no matter how badly you mess things up, someone will do it again, and someone else will do it worse. It's a great way to make yourself instantly feel better.
Water fights on the street of Sicily from high rise buildings, the sort of old fashioned Mediterranean buildings you only find in southern Europe. Running through the streets trying to get each other with our water balloons or pistols, running in between old widowed ladies with black head coverings and mothers with babies, young lovers on the street smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee sat outside cafe bistros.
The times we had, the times we'll have again. I hope to take my own children there one day, not that I have any, not just yet.
I remember one summer, I met a boy. I had that feeling; you'll know the feeling when you see it. It was at a wedding, my father introduced me to him. I'd love to go back to that day. I wore a yellow dress; for most it washes them out, for others it doesn't. I'd spent so much time in the sun my eyes were positively emerald.
My family always accidentally called me by Christina, my mother's name. I was the spitting image of her: when we visited her village (she wasn't from the city) everywhere I went, people recognised me. It makes me wonder: did they recognise me, or did they recognise my mother? Or did they recognise my mother in me? People would exclaim her name to me and ask how she was.
With curled hair and red lipstick, I sat outside after the wedding celebrations. As far as religion goes, I don't go to church all that often. Christianity's the religion of guilt, right? I feel guilty every time I walk into a church. The less I go, the more guilty I feel as I walk through the hallowed doors, the less likely I am to go. It's a vicious cycle.
Soft lighting outside of the wedding, we fell in love. We danced, we briefly lived together. We were inseparable, our families loved each other.
How I'd love to go back to that day, the day when the wind blew lightly, where I was proposed to outside of the willow trees. His name. . . his name was Luca. His exact facial features have melted into the years and flown away like butterflies. Time has stripped him of his features as the rain does the bike that's been left out for too long. I had spent so much time in Italy that I was fluent. I'd love to see that day, if we'd had married. I admitted that day of defeat too readily; one mistake is one mistake.
All I have now are handwritten postcards from Italy from cousins and family, eagerly asking when I will be back, awaiting my response. I don't know what to say. What do you say to people that saw you get your heart utterly broken? In front of whom you were humiliated beyond belief?
Gifts were given, all of the family came over, every attempt was made to cheer me up. It didn't work. Without those pictures, those handwritten letters, the documents of rent bills nothing would exist of Luca except memories which fade over the course of time. I wonder where he's gone, what he's doing. I want to know badly, but if I did know, would I really care?
From time to time I still write in Italian, just to see if I've lost all of it. I'm not sure if it's lost, I'm just lazy or whether it's just rusty, but there's only one way to find out.
IMAGES: EssjayNZ and geradagudo
2 Comments – Post a comment
tommy b
Commented 24 months ago - 1st June 2010 - 17:49pm
Wow. I really enjoyed this yasmin.
"It's mad, isn't it? No matter what you do, you will never be able to recapture that moment. You can't physically go back and change anything, can you? You can't touch it."
I often think this, that every moment is lost with the next.
The memories you keep with you are often from the perspective of a camera, looking down at yourself at the beach, or at a wedding or whatever. I don't remember what I did at my uncles wedding when I was 3 or 4 but i have an image in my head of myself walking in the churchyard with a tophat on. Really wierd what the brain picks up on.
Again, loved it yasmin. Have read and re-read it and the family scene at the beggining is just wonderful. I would buy it if it were published!
Ooh, and I love Beirut. Good choice whoever put that in there.
lemonnhead
Commented 24 months ago - 1st June 2010 - 22:34pm
Beautiful, just beautiful