A Stromboli: Con amore, Temwa
A series of re-memberings — visceral memories — from two weeks spent in Stromboli (a remote island off the coast of Sicily, home to an active volcano known to locals as Iddu) as a part of Recrear International’s Magnify 2022 residency. A pop-up research community of 16 people from around the world was convened to explore the mother question, “How are you reinventing yourself to attend to crumbling systems and accompany new beginnings?” This is what drew me to Magnify, and below is a small window into what it drew out of me.
The heartbeat of this island,
its pulse coursing up and through the earth,
breath as smoke,
tears as ash,
blood as lava.
A rhythm almost taken for granted until it veers off course,
goes too quiet or gets too loud,
pumps too fast or beats too slow.
An embodied and enduring reminder of our co-existing strength and vulnerability,
a site of the strange intimacy between grief and aliveness.
The sacred exchange between what is seemingly unbearable and that which is exquisitely alive*,
the inhale and the exhale,
infinity and this moment.
When blood spills,
its tears coat everything in sight.
This grief cannot be swept away, though not for lack of trying.
This mourning is meant to be visible, unapologetic, not over until it’s over.
The moon bears witness to the unravelling,
lighting up the sky above and the sea below.
An invitation to shed light on the darkness within.
As the ash settles on our skin, in our hair, into our lungs, and over our homes,
time expands,
and we come face to face with the finitude of this seemingly infinite heartbeat.
We sit, hand in hand, hand over heart, hand over pulse.
We sit in candlelight. In silence. In prayer. In the songs of our grandmothers.
Om Bhur Bhuvah Swah
Tat Savitur Varenyam
Bhargo Devasya Dheemahi
Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayaat
We dance with abandon in empty church courtyards under the full moon (something about abandoned spaces inviting abandon). Arms spanned like wings, tickled spirits galloping over cobblestone, barely noticing as La Vie En Rose morphs into into Hijo de la Luna.
Sitting vigil through the night and making it to sunrise with our heartbeats still intact, we laugh deliriously about our mortality. Meanwhile, journalismo casually strings “code orange”, “lava”, and “tsunami” into the same sentence from a world away.
As the uncertainty persists, we wonder whether our angels are on vacation.
We give voice to our last wishes, make hypothetical movies starring the soap opera that has become our lives, and wonder whether to put on or take off our masks — literally and figuratively.
We voluntarily get on a boat to get closer to the spilling blood. To bear witness in closer proximity. To become intimate with this sacred exchange.
To be loved is to be understood. And while some things can only be known with some distance, others demand intimacy as a prerequisite.
We inch closer.
To the crackling, to the crumbling.
Awe and fear holding hands.
Wow and oh shit alternating on our tongues.
We yield to our bodies, but not without a fight.
We emerge from not-long-enough breaks with groggy eyes and intentions of showing up, only to realize that showing up is actually slowing down, and then slowing down the slow down.
Surrender doesn’t come easy, but this heartbeat is a persistent teacher.
The prophecy has been the same from the beginning, anticipatory grief rearing its head since day one, baked into our incubation, and now rising slowly to pass. A new wave crashing upon our shores each day.
The youngest and oldest of us most present to its call and its course.
(Funny how those we call the most vulnerable are often also the most wise. That in protecting them, we are also protecting the wisdom that keeps us all alive.)
To become our own and each other’s doulas through these waves.
That has always been the assignment.
To run our fingers as witness through the stories held in each other’s crowns,
to press each other’s feet into the ground when the world feels too much,
and to hold each other in embrace when and where the weight is too much to bear alone,
is the work.
To hear this task for what it is,
to believe it as enough,
to feel worthy of this tenderness and capable of this tending,
is the journey.
And when the rain comes to wash away the tears,
To wash away the ashes that have settled over our inner and outer worlds,
We look up and out in wonder, arms outstretched, fingers wiggling, waking, upon contact.
Water meeting earth.
We begin to breath again, to begin again.
Rising from the ashes.
Air meeting fire.
Phoenix-ing, one might say.
A nonna rides by on a motorcycle, splashing through the puddles, yelling “lava come lava” (washes like lava), winking as she passes by.
If that doesn’t signal life, if that doesn’t signal what is exquisitely alive, I don’t know what does.
As the storm passes, we return to the darkness for a last dance.
Saath nibhaye jo tu janmo hi janmo ka toh yeh
Yaari reh jaayegi
Takta rahun teri nigahon ko darbadar ke,
Kuch toh keh jaayegi
Dur tu hai ya hum ho gaye?
Faasle the ya ab ho gaye?
To gorge on the melancholy. To be gluttonous in our goodbyes. Abundant in our arrivederci. Thank yous that tow the lines between what is and what could be.
To rub this sparkling black sand against and into the soles of our feet.
To suspend ourselves — free of concern, free of clothing — in the sea.
To re-member what made us come alive.
To honour our no’s.
To hold up a mirror to what has gone, what has moved, and what has emerged.
To visit each other in our homes and say “I see you.”
“I see an artist.”
Sì.
“I see a student.”
Sì.
“I see a mother.”
*Laughs* Sì.
“I see pain.”
*Silence* Sì.
“I see a volcano.”
Sì.
“I see a child.”
Sì.
I was here. You were here. We were here.
Cheek to cheek, chest to chest, we whisper through hair and skin, “I can hear your heart beat.”
We place our palms against the walls that held us, and say “This place is more magic now because you were here.”
A bracelet exchanged from one wrist to the other over held hands.
So many ways of saying, take me with you, keep me with you, you are a part of me.
A scarab as a stand-in for the words that escape us.
Ten minutes, dieci minuti, as a stand-in for infinity.
An intentionally last-minute kiss planted on either cheek before setting sail.
To climb up this road is to become intimate with one’s heartbeat.
To be of this place is to honour the rhythms of this heartbeat.
To be of this work is attend to crumbling systems while accompanying new beginnings.
And for me, to be of this lifetime, to be of this last life, is to let go of the attachment to a single love story and yield to the infinite possibilities of romance that await in its wake.
To eat, to pray, and to love as though niente è impossibile.
p.s. Grazie mille to Firenze for being the place where I could start to string together these words, to process the magic and magnitude of Stromboli with some-but-not-too-much distance. For the overwhelmingly abundant carb options (FYI broccoli will be the only food group I’ll be consuming when I get home) and the decadent dairy that has somewhat evaded my intolerance. And of course, for the beauty, elegance, and romance that seem to be baked into its bones — as a professional daydreamer / starer-off-into-space, I must say, check, check, and check!
p.p.s. Should I crowdfund my next trip to Stromboli by selling smize postcards??? #SponsoredByCanva
FOOTNOTES
*Reference to Francis Weller’s quote, “there is some strange intimacy between grief and aliveness, some sacred exchange between what seems unbearable and what is most exquisitely alive” from his book The Wild Edge of Sorrow.
