tending towards the eternal..

i am back... two months traveling around my country...
i have passed through snowstorms... sandstorms.. rain...dust and wind covering roads, breaking the glasses of the car.. making stones hit and spoil the engine...weather changing from - 20 to + 34 degrees..

But i have found also souls that warmed mine... some became close, other were just silent meetings, in contemplation...
i have felt, suffered, smiled and grew among them...
and i remembered something i read long ago.. words that changed me forever...
“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” Cesare Pavese..

Rain and chains..

-Saint Peter sent us the rain!!

He watched at my eyes when telling me those words, with a toothless smile... he was walking happily carrying his bag, as old and wrinkled as his dark skin. However, it was as if the rain was moistening and hydrating both, giving them new life.
Hot weather was nearly unbearable…the air difficult to breath… and the downpour falling, had offered all of us a relief for some minutes.

The sea had veered from the deep blue to the emerald and the clouds at sky had given new greenery to the palms of the Oceanic Avenue, at that magic city of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. The fortress was outlined against the summer storm, now brightened by the coming sun and while observing it, I thought about many years ago. I imagined the eyes of other black men, as black as the one that had spoken to me.

They were arriving at the coast… and when seeing that fortress, they would surely had asked themselves what was waiting them at that land, so distant from theirs. They had been constrained to go on board of those ships… some of them came from far villages, where foreigners had arrived speaking with guns and terror…
They knew that they had lost their freedom but what they didn't know at that moment was that they would never recover it... neither them, nor their children nor their grandsons.
Because even the slavery would be abolished many years after, the chains would be others…. maybe concealed… maybe with different denominations…. but chains at last…

Cloudburst had finished, as fast as it had begun… and my heart was still wondering how would have been life for that old man there, at his faraway Africa.
I imagined him smiling to rain, and feeling gratitude… not to Saint Peter, but to who knows which protectress goddess… thanking the blessing for the arid soil…

An universe and four elements..

Here at Agrigento, Sicilia, 2500 years ago, it was born the famous pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles.. and among all his theories and ideas, he talked for the first time about the existence of four elements : water, air, earth and fire, present in all things. He believed that the origin of the universe was there .. love would be the force joining them all... and discord, hate, would be the one dividing, separating...
When looking at these landscapes, I understood why he had thought about that theory... Water was there, at thin rain and near sea..
Air was there, at fresh, gentle stormy breeze..
Earth was there, at green smell, trees, and stones …
and Fire.. my soul was on fire, trying not to miss any of those wonders and feeling how much all was joined..
A whole universe, yes..

The Certainties

The fights among Gods and men have always delighted and interested me, firing my imagination. I imagine Mount Olympus as the scene of discussions and quarrels, and I often wondered how someone of that divine blood had sided at those skirmishes, as Homer tells us in the Iliad…

Now I was going to the very place where real blood had pored forth on the earth. Where thousands of men were killed where the only purpose was to save the honour of a king who had been robbed, who had lost his wife kidnapped by a poor shepherd.

When I was a girl, I was fascinated. As I got older, in addition to being fascinated by the epic, I started to wonder why history always looks for incredible reasons to chronicle real facts. And if a brilliant narrator recites those reasons and facts, then I need nothing more to fill my soul with emotion.

The way to Troy seemed to be a long way from Istanbul, after someone had told me it was quite close. Two hours and a half by ferry to Bandirma, two hours more by bus finally arriving at Channakale, and there, after trying to make myself understood by hand signs, I finally found the way to reach the place. The place I never thought that I would see, but indeed I had dreamt about visiting one day.

The communication by hand signs had not been detailed enough to let me know how long that trip would take and I managed to get a lift in a small bus. However, I didn’t mind… I was waiting for that moment, when all my excitement and eagerness would overcome me.

The van was full of local people, and it stopped at many different houses to gather a variety of objects which they had to carry between the seats. Huge pipes, casseroles, hens. It was like travelling in a mobile supermarket.
All of them were watching me… and I knew why! I was sure that no tourists had used this way to reach Troy, since the excursion coaches were more comfortable and they took them there more directly and much more quickly.
It was amongst the throng that I saw her. She was about 20 years old, maybe as young as 18… But her peculiar eyes were those of a baby, half surprised and half shy, and she was analysing detail by detail all that I did with furtive glances. My clothes.. my worn out little travelling bag…

I gave a sideway glance, because I did not want to make her feel uncomfortable, but I was really trying to discover what she was thinking about me.
As usual, my fertile imagination made me wonder how I would have felt, living in such a small town and then seeing an absolute stranger from a foreign land ……coming from who knows where … and I understood why she was watching me.

Suddenly I realized that the vehicle was continuing its way without stopping, I began to worry… I had previously planned to make the return journey on the other bus to arrive in time at the ferry port for my return to Istanbul…
Uffff… It seemed that to see Iliad I needed to live a small Odyssey, but Ulysses was Me, and I wasn’t able to return for many years….
I decided to ask how far away the city was, and of course, the one who was willing to communicate was the girl who was in front of me…
In English and with signs I tried to ask her about Troy, she repeated that shy gesture and lowered her eyes… then I remembered that it was something similar to Truva in Turkish, so I repeated that name.
At that moment, all changed. Her glance was not pensive, her face was enlightened by an amusing thought, almost triumphant… and with a condescending gesture, she lowered her hand a little as if to say to me: You need not worry, stay quiet…
I smiled. I was no longer that stranger bursting into her world. She knew something that I needed, and then she no longer had any type of fear. From there on, she went on observing me openly, and whenever she saw me looking at my watch (I was wondering how much time I would have to see the ruins and come back) she smiled.
Finally, I saw her standing. She looked at me for the last time and pointed down the road, as if saying: there is the city. The small vehicle stopped in order that she and others could alight. And when thanking her in Turkish, again that shy gesture returned, as if nothing had passed between us.
A few minutes later, the conductor also told me, and I got off the bus.

I paid the entrance fee and then I discovered that I had only 20 minutes to see Troy before the bus returned to pick me up and take me back.
I ran the 400 metres to where the ruins began… I was touched seeing the rest of that besieged city… and from there, far away, the sea, and the green fields where they had disembarked ready for fighting. I breathed there the smell of thousands of men and the spirit of the Gods of Mount Olympus, filling with discord the poor souls of those warriors…

I remained thinking and remembering that girl on the bus… the certainty of knowing something, that gives us that confidence that makes us lose any fear, or any shame… I imagined the Aequeus, the troops attacking, consulting the oracle or the fortune tellers, to have the certainty that they would win, made those interminable years of pain more bearable…

Moreover, I imagined Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy, with his innate certainty that he would find it, and I imagined him fighting against the mocking of his contemporaries, against the distrust of the Turkish government, losing fortunes to obtain his dream. He was also sure… he had the certainty that the city was there

My time had finished… I ran again towards the entrance, where the bus had arrived…
I had travelled for 6 hours and I had another 6 hours to return. The reward had been those glorious 20 minutes… When I had decided to make that excursion, I did not know if I would arrive on time, if I would be able to see it, if the money I had taken with me would be sufficient…but, in fact, and let me be “arrogant” in this instance… I had the certainty that I would succeed.

no matter how..

A stop, at this thick stony wall, among the ruins of Agrigento, Sicilia..
I was tired for a while, but ready now to go on ...the sea, the light as a burning candle, are waiting for me.. I'll cross to other lands.. other seas.. other wonders...
No matter how much it will take... no matter when will I arrive...
I shake my wings, still wet of the storm... and fly...

about this world ..and beyond.

I was walking under the warm sun, looking for a piece of shadow to can have a rest, when suddenly I saw him..
The man was there, sitting on a thick wall, and watching far away..
I didn't know his age, I didn't know where had he come from (the place was full of tourists)
I liked the image.. the architecture, his attitude.. and I shot.
But when i came near, I saw his eyes... his face..
He looked like a statue.. unable to go anywhere.. and i tried to pervade his hard skin.. and i tried to read his stony soul...
Nothing...
I went on walking.. wondering about this crazy world.. and beyond...

leaves heard..

"..but memory is an autumn leaf that murmurs in the wind and then is heard no more...." words of K Gibran..
Here, at the old hospital at Arles, these leaves will always be heard... they keep the memory, the soul of the one who painted this same place in all beauty, with all feelings: Vincent Van Gogh..

image&text ©silvia marmori

just for a woman's love..

A tango poet, Homero Expósito, wrote once some verses about a woman that had left him, at the tango : Flor de Lino

Flax's flower, I see you in the star
that illuminates the track
of my solitude...
absence flower, your memory
always hunts me
through my eternal longing's night.

Many centuries before, and with the same pain at his heart, a man arrived at this place I shot, when these stones and walls were a palace.. he begged his brother reigning here to help him to have again his wife, kidnapped by a shepherd/ prince..
I don't know which words he used, but he was convincing... an army departed.. thousand of men fought for ten years a terrible war.. gods flying and blood spreading over far fields overseas.. finally, he recovered her..

So, this image, taken at Mycenae, Greece is for Agamemnon, the understanding brother... Menelao, the sad husband.. the two Homer, the tango poet and the epic genius.. for the one, whose name wasnt flax's flower, but Helena.. and for the souls of all soldiers and warriors from both sides dead at Troy, following a crazy adventure , just for a woman's love..

image and text © silvia marmori

a dream..

Life had been hard..
Many times he had asked himself why? How?… there had been no answers.

The worst part of the day was in the mornings, when he woke and realized that nothing had changed. Same routine.. walking along the dirty streets, looking for food in garbage cans, avoiding the police and other homeless, who would attack him heartlessly.

That night he had decided it would be the last. His hopes had been lost in some dark alley, maybe on a cold day, many winters ago.
He took his bag and the shabby cover, the only things that he owned, and went to the same place where he had been sleeping for a month.
It was a stinking backstreet, but at least empty of other souls.
He smoked until he scorched his fingers with the last butt he had and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he would go to the bridge and he would end it all.

However, in the middle of the night, he stood up as if demented. A big noise and many shouts.. but he saw nobody and the racket went on.
He took his things and ran away.. the last night had to be calm, calm as the brown waters of the river he would face in few hours…
Suddenly , his scampering stopped at a small lake he had never seen in the west of the city.. a park.. a small sanctuary…

He laid down there, but he couldn’t sleep… the fresh air, the trees moaned in the dark.. how was it possible that he had never been there before!
After the birds woke him as they began to announce that the sun was rising, when the dark faded and the green pervaded his senses and soul, he decided to delay for a few more minutes.. the river would be always there, waiting for him.

How beautiful was that place! He breathed deep, he perceived his blood warming his body. Small leaves brought by the soft breeze danced at his feet.. he took one.. how nice it felt!
Nature affected him.. made him remember his childhood, his youth. He had been happy once....what had happened to his dreams of before, to his ideals .. to his strong will!

But suddenly all became dark… he heard voices, a foul air suffocated him. When he opened his eyes he was still at the same place where he had slept all of the last few weeks.. he longed to cry and he did.
Leaving his things, he ran to the bridge.. he stood there, looking at the dark waters, ready to jump..

A fragile small leaf flew from his hand to the river…

He sighed.. wiped his tears and tried a weak smile.

text &image© silvia marmori