Taormina. Monday May 14.

Taormina. Monday May 14 

Younger than Springtime 

Dear Trail Friends,

Here we are relaxing in our room at the Villa Schuler in Taormina. It is mid-afternoon. I awakened early (since I did not stay up late writing my blog!) and tiptoed out whilr Chris and Judy slept. I thought I would walk down the steps to the sea and then swim, but when I actually arrived I didn’t feeling like swimming. Instead I enjoyed a slow solitary walk along the beach. I did not encounter another person on the whole walk. 

Photo 1 is a collage of the deserted beach llooking back (where I had already walked) in the lower right, forward (where I had yet to walk) in the lower middle, looking down at the beach from the trail in lower and upper left, looking up at Judy and Chris eating breakfast as I returned (in upper right). 

What a great way to begin our last day in Taormina. Having drunk deeply from solitude and walking through natural beauty, I thoroughly enjoyed walking through the crowded narrow streets of Taormina with Judy and Chris, searching together for meaningful gifts and momentos. We celebrated with lunch at the WunderBar (highly overpriced but beautiful bar overlooking the sea famously frequented by celebrities such as Howard Agg, Rainer Werner Fassbinder,  Greta Garbo, Roger Peyrefritte, Tennesse Williams, Liz Taylor, Richard Burton, Ernest Hemingway). Our lunch consisted of bottled water, cannoli and espresso macchiato. Photo 2 collages the before (lower left) and after (upper) and the view of the sea (lower right). 

So that takes care of today, Monday. I try to write these every day because each day pretty much vanishes from my memory, erased and replaced by the next. Looking at photos helps. 

Yesterday, Sunday, we enjoyed breakfast (photo 3) at this beautiful hotel. 

Then Judy enjoyed some solitary wandering while Chris and I walked up the Via Crucis (with the stations of the cross) to the little chapel of the Madonna Della Rocca. We went in for the first time (Judy had told us it was open) and I lit a candle for healing for my sister Bonnie. Photo 4 shows the candles, and also how the chapel is built around the rock (which forms the ceiling of the chapel). According to legend a young shepherd and his flock were caught in a sudden dangerous thunder and lightning storm (I know from hiking that exposed high peaks are exactly where you don’t want to be in a lightning storm) and sought shelter in a cave in the rock. A woman in a blue dress appeared and assured him they would be safe -?and then the storm cleared. 

I realize as I write that I haven’t a clue what we did when on Sunday. I am just making up a story based on the photos and a few fragments of memory. How comforting to remember Chris’s words about myth - that there are many contradictory stories and they are all true. What matters is the story. How wonderful that all of us on the tour (and all of you reading this blog) have shared that idea. 

Whenever Chris and I hiked up to Madonna Della Rocca - morning, midday, afternoon - take your pick - we also hiked up to the castle above it. I had done so alone, earlier, and may have written about it and showed photos - I don’t remember. Peter D. inspired me to go through the locked gate that was missing a bar so one could (barely) squeeze through. So Chris and I did so, again. 

We met an Irish couple at the castle and the man asked (as so many people on the Camino did) Chris’s age. When she told him 87, he laughed and said that he hoped he could come back and climb that hill when he was 87. 

Photo 5 is a collage of pictures of, and from, the castle. Now I probably should be able to tell you a little history or at least a story about the castle but I have nothing. It’s called the Saracen castle but I haven’t a clue how old it is or when it was built. It is old and beautiful and the red poppies growing among the ruins are wonderful. 

What else? So much else - but I need to head for bed and prepare for our early morning departure. The alarm is set for 3:15am and it is almost 11am. It adds so much to my experience to try however awkwardly to weave it into a story (which I could never summon the will to do without your imagined presence and support - and thank you so so so much for all the emails telling me you loved my blog. It was almost too much kindness and affection to take in). 

Which reminds me of a story I do want to tell. Something had happened that made me want to tell Chris how much I love the bright-eyed, open, eager little girl in her - and how amazing I find it that she has kept that aspect of herself so vibrantly alive all these years. Somehow the song “Younger than springtime” came to mind and I found a YouTube of Frank Sinatra singing it. I played it for Chris and we both sort of mimed and gestured to it, acting it out together, making fun of the over-the-top romance but feeling it too, and ever since it has been singing in my mind. Especially “And when your youth and joy invade my arms

And fill my heart as now they do
Then younger than springtime, am I
Gayer than laughter, am I”

It was a wonderful song to have playing inside me, as we walked through all the spring beauty of our last day here in Taormina. 

I want to share Judy and my drawings from yesterday (photos 6 and 7) 

And also from today (photos 8 and 9)

And that is pretty much all for now. There will likely be a break in the blog while we fly back from Europe and make our way to Orcas Island, and as I make the final preparations for the hike through the Grand Canyon and the final section of the Arizona Trail. So I will see you, if not before, at the South Rim of the Canyon. 

I hope you will walk with me then, and that this experiment with blogging a different kind of trail will add depth and dimension to our wilderness hike. 

Until then, happy trails. 

And - please forgive me for my romantic sentimentality, but I have to tell you that writing this blog and being so held and heard during all these solitary hikes is an experience every bit as exhilarating and transformative and mysterious for me as romantic love. So I want to “sing” these lyrics to you now (though I’d have to change quite a few words and images to make it really fit our very different encounter, I am trusting you get the essence...)

I touch your hands and my arms go strong
Like a pair of birds that burst with song
My eyes look down at your lovely face
And I hold a world in my embrace

Younger than springtime, are you
Softer than starlight, are you
Warmer than winds of June
Are the gentle lips you gave me
Gayer than laughter, are you
Sweeter than music, are you
Angel and lover, heaven and earth
Are you to me

Okay. I’m totally embarrassed writing this so I’m trying to decide if I need to delete it or if I can find a way to leave it in. What I wish is that I could feel the childlike delight I felt while Chris and I were acting out the song - and since then, when it echoed in my mind - that I could feel that now, as I write, and that I could share that feeling with you. And even if I lack the skill with language to accomplish that at this moment, it is what I wish I could do. Like that quote from the Neruda love poem “I want to do for you what spring does for the cherry tree.” He wasn’t writing that just to the woman he loved but to all of his readers.

Okay, River. Time to lighten up. Shall we end, for now, with photo 10? It’s of what appeared to be a playful encounter and conversation between Judy and a turtle in the goldfish pond at our hotel. 

See you on the trail.