Arrival in Tortola, Caribdean sea

'I want my arrival to be a celebration of the past 25 years not, as someone asked recently, "will it give you closure"? What? Closure? That infers I somehow regret or lament the past 25 years. Absolutely not. Were it not for the accident, I would not have met Elaine, had Timothy or had such a wonderful life so, closure? No. Celebration? Yes. And any tears will be tears of joy not tears of regret or sadness. Life is too short to worry about what "might have been" or waiting for some "miracle cure" for Spinal Cord injury, there's a magnificent world out there and I'm both honoured and humbled to have had the opportunity to put together this great project; the Atlantic was everything I had hoped it would be and just as I remembered it from all those years ago.'

Words from the blog of Geoff Holt  who arrived today to the Caribdean after sailing across the  Atlantic Ocean from the UK.

Well done Geoff. Drams do become true.

a story

D - Dream

My name is Abioseh. I was born in Gboko, Nigeria, in 2001.  My father was a pastor in a local church. My mother was working in a laundry shop part time as she had also to take care of me and my four brothers and sisters. If I look back at my childhood I remember that we lived always in the same house next to the church where my father worked.  My memories are mainly linked to my mother taking care of us by an assigning after school various chores to me and my sister who were the eldest. Fetch water from the well. Sweep the front  go the house up to the road. Fetch the meat and vegetable at the market.

I had a dream back then and remember the day I decided to become a pilot.  I was playing football with my friends in the dusty field behind the church. The usual late afternoon match just before the sunset.  I remember seeing often planes flying high above our town and leaving behind a long white tail that would  then disappear into the blue of the sky.  But that one day something changed. I heard the faint noise of the plane then saw the small silver dot flying high above us and stop playing. For a moment I found myself in an own world where the soccer field, the friends and their shouts and screams were blurred. I looked up and knew that I was to become a pilot. I just knew it.

Some years later my father received an invitation from a church in England to attend a one month retreat on the art and meaning of the communication with God. As the seminar was quite long the organizers allowed him to bring also his family. That would be my first flight somewhere though by then I had memorized  airplanes models. I knew the differences of the Airbus A340 series. I knew by heart how many passengers could fit in a A380.

We flew to London via Frankfurt and I was so happy that my first flight has a stop over and would actually be made of two flights. I remember landing at Heathrow and the plane slowly taxiing to the assigned gate. I was looking outside the windows and would shout to my father, who was sitting on on the other side of the aisle: ‘Look Baba, a Qantas A380!’. ‘Baba a British Airways 747 is being pulled to an hangar, it is huge!’ . Look Baba, the A340 of South African Airlines is being pulled back and a man is walking next to it with headphones and and a long cable attached to the fuselage to communicate with the cockpit!’.

When our plane reached the gate passengers stood up to get their bags and things from the overhead lockers. I stood up as well holding the cartoon box wit the helicopters model which my father bought me at Frankfurt. It felt the most precious things in the world to me.

We were the last to leave the plane with all our hand luggage and my father giving instructions to all of us including my mother. I went first. I remember that when we reached the entrance of the plane  I saw that the cockpit door was open and the captain was standing in front of it. For few seconds I could glimpse behind him the mosaic of lights, indicators and instruments.  All of a sudden, I heard his voice asking me: ‘Do you want to have a closer look?’. I could not believe what I heard. Turned to my father who smiled to me and made a sign with his head to go ahead. I entered the cockpit as I would enter a sacred place. The captain started to explain the function of some instruments but I could hardly hear his voice. This all lasted just few minutes. I then asked if I could take a picture and the captain said ’Sure, go ahead’.

And here I ma sitting in this room looking at the wall the picture that my father took of me and the captain in the cockpit of my second flight. It is hanging in a simple wooden frame which has lost its brown color with the years. I look very proud. I am older now but can recognize the same expression in my eyes and the same smile. Those have not changed. 

‘Baba, I am a pilot now. It is a pity you did not live long enough to see it but you knew I had a dream and always helped me with that. That why I am thankful to you’. I whisper these words to the picture as well as to to myself. Hearing my voice makes me I stand up. I look at myself in the picture for few seconds and then walk towards the door to join the family and relatives who have come for the ceremony. I entered this room not knowing what I would say in my good bye speech. Now I know. So I open the door and join the others.

Rain & Wind

T - Taxi

It is dark outside the windows of the yellow cab from Ninoy Aquino airport to the Makati district in Manila. I usually have to stay one night here before catching the flight to Dumaguete early in the morning. This time I did not find a room in the hotel where I usually to stay. So I browsed the web to look for a different one and found this London Inn.

The traffic is not too bad today but we still proceed slowly. I take my mobile phone out of the bag and dial my wife number.  ‘Hi’, I say. ‘Yes. Arrived, The trip was not too long. How are things home?’, I ask.  I hear it is all ok. The week when I was away went fast also for her and the girls. Good. In the back of my mind I always send a thank you as every time I leave I hope they will be safe and nothing bad will happen while I am away. It is just a split second, but it is in me every time I leave and come back.

‘I am in the taxi. No, I do not go to the usual hotel because it was fully booked. I go to a new one I found in the internet. Yes, tomorrow I will be there at 8 in the morning. Bye. Ciao’.

I look through the windscreen. We are in a queue. I see that the taxi driver is looking at me through the mirror. ‘First time in Manila?’. ‘No’, I say, ‘I often stop here on my way to Dumaguete’.  ‘Many bars where you are staying, you know’, he says, ‘do you need a girl?’ he asks looking at me in the mirror with eyes checking if I am the right kind of customer.

‘I just spoke with my wife on the phone, so not interested thank you.’ I reply. ‘Your wife Filipino?'' , he asks in the same way as all the taxi drivers I met so far in this town. ‘No, she is from Europe. We are both from Europe. I come from Italy. She comes from Finland.’  ‘Ok sir, sorry for asking’, he replies. ‘No problem. No problem’. ‘Do you have kids,?’ he asks as to change subject. ‘Yes’, two daughters. Five and three years old. And you?. ‘I have also two daughters, six and four. Almost the same age as yours.’

I look outside again and think about the offer and wonder how much would a woman actually cost. I can see he glances at me now and then as the car moves still slowly. ‘How much would on night be?’ I ask. he looks in the mirror with the hopeful expression of recognizing the change of mind which many customer may have had in his taxi before. ‘One night is 4000 Pesos’, he says. I make a quick calculation, about 85 USD. He may get 50% or more of that. So not much left for the girl. ‘You never been with a Filipino woman, sir?’. ‘No, I did not’, I reply. ‘They are very good. Young. Beautiful. You will like.’  ‘And what about the hotel, can they come to my room?’, I ask. ‘No problem with hotel, sirs’ They just come up to your room’.

‘So what about two girls. How much would it be with two girls’?, I ask. He makes a quick calculation and says 6000 Pesos, kind of one and half person in the end. As he mention the price we enter the red lights district where my hotel is located. Bars have pink or red flashing neon light signs saying: Flamingo, Domino, Le Club, etc. Girls with super mini skirts sitting on high chairs, legs crossed, and impossible high hills. Young girls dressed in simple tops, long smooth black hairs falling on their small shoulders and back. I think about the girls my taxi driver may call, sitting somewhere looking at a TV programme. Answering the phone. Asking if the I, the customer, am a foreigner, young? old? Whether the price is the same as usual. The address of the hotel. Putting a condom in the bag. Getting dressed. Make up. Leaving a small room apartment to come to my hotel. Reach it by car. Meeting the taxi driver downstairs. receiving the agreed money and entering the hotel lobby. Taking the lift up to the 21st floor. Both girls not saying a word but looking at each other maybe wondering who will open them the door. Walking the long corridor to the door of my room. Stopping in front of it and hesitating few seconds looking at each other before ringing the bell.  ‘Hi’, I say when I open the door with a the embarrassed smile that always accompany this words with strangers. ‘Hi’, they say together . ‘Please come in’, and they walk in screening the room.

The taxi stops and my thoughts with it.  A man in a hotel uniform opens the door of the cab, ‘Welcome to the London Inn, sir’. I see the lobby of the hotel. Lights on. People sitting in the lobby somebody talking at the reception.  The taxi driver tells me it is 350 Pesos for the ride and I hand him 400. ‘Thank you’, I say. ‘thank you, sir,’, he smiles. I step out of the taxi, feel the humid heat of Makati, and walk into the lobby.

The next morning it is very early when I leave to the airport. A new taxi is here to pick me up. The clubs and bars are closing. Soon will be day break. As I enter the taxi, I look up at the back of one club on the other side of the street. A girls hurries down a a metal stair from a back yard door. She wears a simple t-shirt with a girlish Kitty print on it, cotton bermuda and flip flops. Her long black hairs are still wet.

As the taxi leaves in the direction of EDSA and the airport, I think how young she looks in her day time clothes. Tonight she will be back in the high hill shoes and mini skirt and I wonder whether she can split her life in the same way she does with her clothes.

... from Dumaguete to Kitee

G – Good bye

Bip. Bip Bip. The automatic door of the train starts to close. In my mind still the last words I told her: ‘I am a crazy man’. She had looked at me and with a slight smile and had replied: ‘Could be worse’.  Now the door is closed and whatever I want to reply will stay this side of the glass window. I look at her. Our daughter is holding her hand and looking at me with an interrogative expression as she would be asking: ‘papa’ where is this train bringing you?’

The train moves. I put a hand on my lips and then touch the glass while the two of them disappear from the frame. I walk down the aisle and sit at my place. I close my eyes and fall asleep in just few seconds.

I wake up when my station is announced. There is still time. Stretch my harms and get my bag. The train stops. Doors open and I am on the platform with just two other passengers. I feel suddenly alone and the urge to get back on the train and the safety of travelling in between destinations.

The car is parked where we left it. I start it but do not want to listen music for the time being. Just 25 km and I will be at our cottage. A smooth ride on a country side road. I drive slowly and arrive in 45 minutes. I crossed just two cars on the way and the feeling of solitude intensifies. But maybe, I think, that is what I need right now.

I park the car get my things and walk to the cottage. When I open the door and enter let the bag fall on the floor with a ‘thund’ and take a deep breath. I then turn around and walk out on the terrace and watch the familiar scenery of the lake and trees.

‘I did not sleep well’, is my first thought the next morning. I get up and carry my bad mood downstairs and put on the coffee machine. Get out on the terrace and feel the chilly air on my skin. Stretch a bit and smell the coffee from the inside which lifts somehow my mood.

I get ready to write. The laptop on the table. One more cup of coffee and the CD by Haruka Nakamura. I write for about two-two and half hours with the CD playing again and again its 13 tunes. I stand up and realize that the sun shines in between clouds and think that it may be a good idea to walk a bit in the forest. I put on my wellingtons, long sleeves shirt and start to walk following the lake side. I decide to head to the big huge stone which is right on the water and where we had pic nic several times during the summer.

I step on old and dry branches and my steps are followed by an echo of crac, crac, crac. I also step on soft moss which in some points is as think as a carpet. I protect my face with the hand and move branches aside. I am now just 40 meters from the stone and see that somebody is sitting on top of it wearing kind of dark clothes. ‘Damn, a Russian fishermen', I think as such and encounter would disturb the solitude that I have searched for some time now. I consider whether to turn back or continue but when I move my first step a branch breaks with a loud crac and can see that the person on the stone turns and look in my direction. There is no going back anymore.

The branches makes it difficult to to see if it is a man of a woman and only when I am really close I recognize him as my eyes fill with tears and the whole forest and stone picture blurs into one watery painting: ‘it is you’.

When I recover I see he is looking at me from the stone and smiles. He tells me to go up the stone and so I do as following orders not yet able to speak a word. I sit there in front of him. I look at my brother not just in the eyes but his harms legs hairs as to check if this would not be just a dream. ‘It is real’, he says. I relax a bit hearing his familiar voice and step into this non-dream. He then explains that only now and then there is a possibility to meet once more.  As I have kept talking to him in my mind for all these years, here he is. Until afternoon is all we have, he says without a trace of emotion.

I try to regroup my thoughts. ‘So, how are things? How is life?’, he asks me. While I search for words for a few seconds,  I hear the wind gently shaking the top of the trees above us. Hear some birds singing. The small waves hitting the stone below us. Hundreds of images flash in my mind in few seconds a whole story partly told and mostly untold. I see  my daughters, I see her, I see his son, I see our past, mine and his. I hear and see all this and feel part of it and understand what it means to let it go: ‘Life is good’… and so we start talking and we talk until the late afternoon when we finally say good bye.

O - Old people

‘We are both so old’, I think looking at our hands. The thin skin that wraps the bones as a glove. The wrinkles on our fingers. The blue veins. Yet the same feeling of holding her hands as long ago. We are sitting on this small beach made by millions of tiny corals pieces. Sitting at the edge of the water, sipping beer from two bottles. Soft waves reaching the shore in the quiet night. The few rooms of this hotel behind us in this hidden place on this tiny Island.

We are sitting next to each other. My right shoulder is almost, just almost touching hers. We are both bare feet and enjoying the nice feeling of the coral gravel on our feet and toes. We stare calmly at the water.

‘Do you remember when we have been here last time?’, I ask. ‘Yes, I do. How long has it been?’, she wonders as speaking with herself as if running the movie of her life in her mind in a couple of seconds . ‘‘I thin it is maybe twenty six years. It was when we had just arrived here for my project.’

‘Yes’, I say, ‘we were here with the girls. They were still small. How old were they?’. ‘Maybe five and three.’, she replies.

I take a sip of beer while sinking into my memories.  ‘I remember we were sitting here. You had got two beers for us. We sat and looked at the water as we are doing now. I started then to talk something about emotions. Do you remember?’

She turns and look at me. Smiles. ‘Yes, I remember.’, she recalls, ‘You said how great was your need to express emotions and that you had not done it for so long and you were just learning how to do it.’

‘Yes’, I say with a kind-of-embarrassed smile recalling that conversation long ago. ‘Salinger would have said that I was in the middle of my Blue Period', wasn’t I?’.

‘Yes, you were and it lasted for some time, I remember.' She pauses for few seconds as to recall images and words. ‘How many evenings you kept me awake to talk about you and how you were trying to explain to yourself what you did and what you did not do.’

‘Yes.’ I say and stare up the horizon to the stars which seem to want to dive into the sea tonight. Take a sip of the beer which is now almost warm.  ‘Yes, it was my Blue Period’, I think within myself. It lasted for some months. It then disappeared as it came, all of a sudden. I remember trying to explain what I could not grasp for myself. I remember, me longing for love within me, love for myself first of all.

I am in my thoughts when I feel she is moving next to me.  ‘I am getting a bit cold’, she says. I take the pareo which is next to me and put it on our shoulders. ‘Are you better now’. ‘Yes, I am’. I take a deep breath under this starry night and feel the scent of her white hairs resting on my shoulder.

Alphabet stories

It is hot. The sound of the crickets is loud from the garden immersed in the tropical night. I tried to keep my eyes closed and find the sleep within my thoughts but it does not work. I put my hands under my head and look at the ceiling through the thin mosquito net which hags over the bed. I follow the lines drawn by the shadow of the window frame. I close my eyes once again but know that the sleep will not come. It has been like this for some time now.

Somebody walking in the silent street. I can hear the flip flops which are dragged on the asphalt with a sound that is magnified by the outside silence. A late night in on of the few bars in the barangay where we live. I wonder whether a ways to claim the sleep back the sleep would be to go to one of those bars or maybe one in town and get really drunk after so many years. Then I think about the headache the next day and the churning stomach and decide that is not a good idea after all.

I turn to my right. She is sleeping peacefully. Breathing softly. She is under the thin cotton blanket . No matter what temperature we are living in she still needs to be under a blanket.

‘Good you can sleep’, I whisper to her and turn my head and find that the shadows of the window frame are still there on the ceiling, above the blue mosquito net. The crickets still singing. All quiet. The flip flops that passed next to the house hopefully in front of  a door and the man or woman wearing them sleeping inside a house and finding some peace.

I take the wrist watch to check the time: 2:21. I decide to get up.  Lift the side of the mosquito net, put my feet on the warm wooden floor and sit for few seconds thinking what to do. I stand up and get my laptop. I glance at the bed before closing the door and switch on the light of the kitchen table. I sit, lift the screen up and start the laptop.

I have had this idea in mind for some days now. Instead of trying to find a sleep which was not there and why not to start writing short stories, maybe following the letters of the alphabet as Goffredo Parise did in a book that I loved very much: Sillabario.

Slow Economy

Frase tratta dalla recensione del nuovo libro di F. Rampini, Slow Economy:

'E questo bel saggio del nostro inviato analizza proprio il “passaggio di consegne” da Ovest a Est. Quando descrive il suo viaggio da Pechino a New York, scrive che è stato «come fare un salto nel passato». Il vecchiume dell’aeroporto e degli aerei newyorkesi, il decadimento della rete stradale-autostradale, il metrò scassato e maleodorante sono i segnali che in fatto di infrastrutture la Cina stravince la sfida con l’America. E questo confronto sorprendente, induce Rampini a indicarci la strada per ritrovare la modernità e l’efficienza smarrite.'

Proprio quello che ho pensato al mio arrivo a NY il mese scorso dopo essere passato negli utlimi mesi per Hong Kong, Singapore e Bangkok. Poi ovviamente bisogona anche pensare alla liberta' di stampa e di idee. Ma l'idea del viaggio nel passato andando verso occidente dopo tanti anni che vado verso l'oriente mi sembra interessante.