A NEW LEAF
NOTE: To all of you who have re-subscribed and to those of you who have newly subscribed thanks to Joel’s Instagram announcement, my gratitude and thanks. I hope it is a rewarding experience for you, and if it is, please do tell your friends.
It seems a nice stroke of serendipity that the re-launch of this site coincides with the start of a new journal. Books, like life, contain chapters; some short and to the point, others long, challenging and often accompanied by a feeling of going nowhere. The difference between a book and a life, is that the former can be re-written, whereas life is an ongoing saga. Yet, as revision is vital to writing something of worth, so re-vision of one’s life is a choice worth making.
Spring, of the proper Tuscan kind, has finally arrived, allowing us to sit outside yesterday evening, breathing in the sweet air and luxuriating in the sun’s warmth. We sat in silence, surrounded by birdsong and for the first time in weeks I felt to be in the moment and glad of it.
The day before, my gardening assistant, Fabrizio, aerated the lawn which I had sown 7 years ago on what had been 2 acres of gravel atop rock. Last year, much like us, it began showing the need for sustenance. Like so much in life it had to be partially destroyed in order to breath again. As I looked at the lengthening shadows, I had the crazy thought that I should have lain down on the grass and had Fabrizio aerate me, too.
The first four months of this year have been one of those chapters full of attempt and deletion, endeavour and failure. As many of you know, last year the launch of my novel “Felicity,” came to a screeching halt because of the pandemic. I started writing a new novel, and stopped. Started some drawings, and stopped. Did two jigsaw puzzles and stopped. What seemed of more worth was dedicating myself to writing for the blog. The need to reach out and connect to my readers became more important than ever. I wrote some 2 dozen essays between March 2020 and March 2021, only to find out at the beginning of this month that I had basically been writing into the void, except for a handful – and I do mean a handful – of readers who had mysteriously escaped the deletion suffered by 100’s of others due to a tech disaster.
Of course I took it personally. Who the hell doesn’t? What wasn’t okay was the feeling that loss and failure are my lot in life. I do now realise that that’s a load of twaddle, but hey, I’m human. And so for a couple of weeks I felt like I was suffocating; that no matter what I did it would be thwarted. Even turning toward the joy of a burgeoning garden slapped me in the face with 2 nights of deep freeze that killed off the wisteria blossoms, half the jasmine, and all the newly emerging leaves on the roses and pomegranate tree. Believe me, I nearly took that personally too.
But yesterday, sitting outside, I saw all that was surviving; surviving and striving toward new growth. The lawn itself could either be seen as partially obliterated or quietly waiting. I could almost hear it breathing, capable now of opening itself to receive the mixture of soil and seed sprinkled across its surface.
Absence of family and friends, the loss of freedom to roam, the sense of an every-diminishing existence, the inability to control the future or even plan for it, has become exhausting for all of us; for those in poverty more than we can imagine. And so, in times like this, every little hitch becomes infuriating or dispiriting.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a 2-part essay encapsulating the experience of living in Italy for 7 years and was happy to report that the love affair was intact. Last week I was ready for divorce. Plans to put in a small pool in the field behind the house were scuppered by Italian bureaucracy. I was ready to pack my suitcase. But where to go?
Sitting in the wicker chairs yesterday, the first waft of an evening breeze stirred us from our silence. I turned to Joel and said that all the disappointments of this year are attached to expectation and that the pandemic is offering us – demanding almost – the chance to continually let go; to stop moaning about what isn’t and look at what is…and be grateful. Yes, the wisteria is fried, but the lawn is breathing. No, we can’t have a pool, but we do have running water. No we can’t go anywhere but we can keep rediscovering where we are, because where we are is continually changing.
I looked at the stunted garden and heard the wood-dove coo. I clipped a branch of the leafless pomegranate tree and found it pulsing green. Green, the colour of nature’s blood. Like-wise the jasmine. They’re waiting it out. Just like us. When the time is right they’ll grow new shoots and so will we. This may not be nature’s most glorious year, anymore than it will be ours. But there is glory to be found in acceptance and perseverance. So, onward we go!
With love, Maggie
