RETURNING

A few days after I posted the previous essay, Home, we returned to Tuscany for the first time since we left nearly 3 years ago.  I’m not sure what I expected to feel upon arrival, probably a fanfare of feelings and emotions. What I wasn’t expecting was the matter-of-fact sense of deep connection and familiarity. Dormant for these 3 years, yet so easily awakened upon return. 

It felt good to be there, healing in fact.  What was healed was the brutal ending to our years there i.e., the breaking of my femur and subsequent nightmarish days in the Siena hospital; the long recovery; the absence of help from friends, the lack of community, the terrible heat that stunted the garden and an almost bitter, overwhelming sense of not belonging; of having made a terrible mistake; that all that we had once held dear had been an illusion.

There are times in life when all that is negative surges to the surface obliterating all that was good.  Maybe we summon that negative energy in order to justify moving on.

Before we returned, we had decided not to stay in the valley we’d lived in and we made it clear to friends that we couldn’t bear to see our old house and garden, so they would all have to come to us. Instead, we stayed in the next valley south, in Bagno Vignoni, a small hamlet known for its hot springs. We had visited there often over the years and the hotel was also one we were familiar with.  Our room looked out to Rocca D’Orcia where we used to stay on weekend breaks during the workshops that we taught during the 90’s.

Each evening we stayed in our room so that we could watch the golden light fade to red before night kissed it good-bye.  And every night, along with the fading light, memories from our 30 years of Tuscany came and went.

In the hotel’s dining room, where we breakfasted every morning, we looked at, and listened to, the tourists.  Where once this hotel catered mainly to Italians, now its guests were mostly American with a sprinkling of English and Europeans.  I cannot, of course, know if any of these people had a history with this land, but my sense was the most had not.  They were there, like tourists everywhere these days to ooh and ah over beauty, gorge on sumptuous food and wines and take a load of selfies most of which they’ll never look at again.

What they don’t know is that this surface beauty is but a shell of its former self.  Those medieval towns are mostly gutted of native population. The contadini are all but disappeared. The cantinas, during our early years there, were filled with grandmothers hand-rolling pici and stirring huge caldrons of sauce.  Those cantinas are empty now, the grandmothers long gone, the young, uninterested.  The small town outside of which we lived, is now over-run with Airbnb’s to the extent that locals can no longer find a place to live.

At one point, before the healing began, I felt a mix of conflicting feelings:  I felt deep love and gratitude that we had been fortunate to experience the last of the true Tuscan culture. I felt a deep sadness over its loss. I felt almost a sense of betrayal that we left when the going got tough. And I felt relief not to be living there anymore.

Life is an accrual of every place we’ve ever lived and every person we’ve ever known.  Every sunset, every wound, every adventure, every disaster, every joy.  They come and go but they all leave residue: a small amount of something that remains after the main part has gone, or been taken, or used.  As such we must accept that unlike selective memory, which continually re-invents the past, residue is mostly the dregs.

But, also what remains is essence: the intrinsic nature of a thing; its core goodness. The essence of Tuscany still exists: the light, the language, the importance of family and a lingering atmosphere of tradition.  It was this recognition of the side-by-side existence of the residue and essence of life that was healing.  It allowed me to return to England, and specifically, London, without the need to compare.

The great thing about living in a city is that you don’t expect it to stay the same.  Cities are constantly re-inventing themselves and moving on. What’s great about this city is that along with its futuristic drive there is still plentiful evidence of the best of its past.  Sure, there are times when I miss the spaciousness of the Tuscan countryside, like I miss the Cornish Cliffs.  But London gives me more than a view. It gives me the validation of who I essentially am: an artist, writer and collaborator; a friend and member of a community…and a gardener.

It ain’t perfect here, but it gives me a little bit of everything I need and that’s good enough for me.  Good.  Enough.  Two words that speak volumes.