Eulogy for a Loss

    The ruins of war and violence rarely stand above commonplace lives. The few remaining relics fall down as the progress of the modern day tramples them, and we stand among the shards and shrapnel as observers almost entirely removed from the reality. Familial warfare that lasted generations left its mark on San Gimignano in the form of towers, representing protection and aggression as trophies of sorts, dictating domination to the land below. Houses, peasants, fields, farmers, all formed the living legacy and estate of the few families that rose above, reaching higher towards the intangible god that unified their treason and treachery. San Gimignano carries to this day the dozens of rough towers in varying states of destruction, from conservation to gradual collapse. Only the blows of visitors, footfalls and camera flashes now erode chip-by-chip the half-millennium of stone. The skyline set against the rolling hills of Tuscany now welcomes those it denied open-armed. The streets fill with foreigners walking through painted ceramic and gelato fantasies. Footsteps away, in hidden parks and darkened alleys, the past tramples us and we grow close to a reality much duller and simpler than we looked for, and we gaze up at those fallen, at those ruins, and wonder who won.

San Gimignano formed a part of our school-lead Tuscany trip. I visited in March, and spent several hours walking the streets and observing the city.
Photos @ Picasa Web Albums

Lands of Spice and Stories

              The Arabic spice flows through the Sicilian air and culture as the clouds rise from Aetna's lofty peak. Marzipan and consonant endings fill conversations and store-front windows along a coast defined by the sunny green hills of the triangular isle. Magna Graecia unfolds before us and around us, the serene worn tan of temple columns reflecting the light to give an earthen hew to almond blossoms and cliff-side tombs. The blossoms provide a new, intoxicating scent that obscures the foreign spice yet enhances it, like the amalgamation of culture and time that the island and atmosphere now represent. From the Greeks to Garibaldi, people have come, gone, and founded cities on the shore, Aeneas and Arabs included.

              Inland a view reminiscent of Tuscan hill towns envelops us, albeit with a peaceful volcano rising from the horizon. Stopped on a winding road at a gas station, the provincial governor welcomes us with a Benvenuto ad Agira before we break the city limits. TV cameras and reporters greet us again with salve, leaving us to explore the town with local students, visiting the most important churches and sanctuaries as well as their library of ancient manuscripts and tomes and a Jewish aron preserved in a Catholic church . A hill town by nature, streets becoming stairs over the course of paces, we spend a sun-blessed morning climbing among the panorama of hills and stone. The final ciao presents itself through a banquet of pizza and panini, oranges and olives, all cooked and grown at home. The neighboring Leonforte introduces itself with a Buona sera and once again we roam around through slightly-less-vertical streets, encountering fountains, chapels and a two-hundred-thousand-euro soccer stadium. A parting arrivederci, and we venture to other lands, dusty coasts and ancient harbors.

              Through the boisterous shopkeepers and light-blue doors of the market, a new flavor of spice floats, clustering around piled saffron and silver amulets. Arabic and French define Tunis, the city around us, a nexus of white plastered walls and alternating directions of text. Surrounded by the mix of ancient and modern, colonial and native, we explore through time as we pass by the same government signs and salt ponds for kilometers. The harbor of Carthage marks one chronological landmark. The fields salted by Rome are now covered with trees and water, the outline of a harbor haunting the coastline, baths built by the conquerors themselves. Following history we explore El Djem, monument of desert stone and towering arches, amphitheater exquisitely preserved in the desert south. We hide in the shadows of walls on the sandy floor before penetrating the thousand tunnels, concentric and connecting, that define the shell. Far from out Italic home we find this nostalgic reminder of the empire that once made this mare nostrum, our sea. A unifying force, now faded, shines through at these few points as light through pinholes in a canvas, reminding us of a common past. Days of travel have lead us to exotic lands, filled with hills and sand, and have brought us closer to our common past than stagnancy at home could have allowed. 

I visited Sicily and Tunisia during February as part of a school-lead trip. We visited Napoli, Taormina, and Palermo in addition to the towns mentioned above. 

Photo link @ Picasa Web Albums