Cari amici,
It’s been too long, but you see, first I was on the road with my son, then at a writers retreat, then other stuff, and then I returned home with excruciating neck/shoulder/arm pain (thus severe sleep deprivation) that’s v-e-r-y slowly resolving, and am now dealing with a wasp infestation in my upstairs bathroom. So, reasons. I know, I know, you’re not waiting with bated breath for my next letter to drop; still, this interval has gone beyond my comfort zone.
Along with doing PT, I’m now in the midst of upgrading my workplace environment, which I’ve been very stupid about, in the sense that I’ve been writing hunched over my laptop, a practice that has certainly contributed to whatever is causing this pain I’m having (not to mention a crappy sleeping situation for a week, plus two straight days of driving to get home). I mean, I had a full ergonomic setup in California, so why on earth did I not do that here? Che scema. There’s an MRI in my future.
Anyhoo, along with everything else going on, I was dealing with the rights reversion for my first novel, and I’m stoked to announce that a new edition of the book is forthcoming next month from Cennan Books, an imprint of Cynren Press. So that’s been a bit of work. I have to say it’s been quite cool to revisit the book and make some changes; we’ve also added an author’s note and historical sources. I just got the new cover—ta da! (When the photo is larger you can see a cool veining effect in the sky.)
Last time I wrote I teased a road trip story, so let’s get to that.
My son came to visit, and the plan was that we’d spend about a week together and then he’d head off for wherever. So we hung out in Bracciano, where we have friends, then came back to Perugia for a few days. I was set to leave for France on June 2, with a stop in Antibes before arriving in Collioure for the Come to Your Senses writers retreat. This was my birthday present to myself—a week of writing talk with a bunch of likeminded folks in a beach town in the south of France, which I hoped would provide community, camaraderie, new discoveries, new resources, and plenty of fun. Did it? Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
Preparing to leave for France I’d proposed, half joking, that my son drive there with me, and to my surprise he said yes. Hooray! The plan was that he’d go as far as Antibes, then head off to do his own thing.
Off we went. June 2 is a national holiday in Italy, the Festa della Repubblica, which I thought would mean fewer trucks on the road. (Driving the autostrada here is a constant game of lane changing due to slow-going trucks, cars of apparent supersonic nature with urgent needs to pass anyone driving the speed limit, and geezers who think 40 km an hour is a good pace.)
Wrong. Not only were there trucks galore, but also rallentamenti (slowdowns), and plenty of them. All told, between Perugia and Antibes, at least six, all of them lengthy, some that came nearly to a standstill. The unfortunate souls traveling toward Italy from Nice faced a kilometers-long rallentamento that had people out of their cars and socializing on the road. So much for holiday travel.
We were near the Firenze airport when we hit a major rallentamento. By that time I’d had to pee for a while, and the next opportunity wouldn’t come for another 20 km or so—normally not a problem.
This time it was. I was rapidly approaching the point of no return, so we exited the autostrada as soon as possible. But then there was the toll plaza, then the need to actually get to a place with a bathroom, and by that point I was actually in pain. (Turns out a UTI was looming; who knew?) So I ditched the car near the toll plaza where a stand of trees offered some privacy and took off to find relief. (My son kindly refrained from videoing me returning to the car, though he claims the temptation was great.) We made a U-turn (almost certainly illegal) and hit the road again.
It wasn’t until that evening, after dinner in Antibes (watch out for the bread-snatching waiters who don’t ask if you’re done with it and the ones who have some passive-aggressive need to forget you ordered a beer), that I discovered I’d picked up a stowaway. “Get this thing off me!” I shrieked, and my son came running. He took one look at the tick near my shoulder and disappeared, then returned brandishing a removal tool. “I’ve had this for ten years and never used it,” he crowed. “Finally!”
Fortunately the tick had just begun to embed itself in my warm, cozy flesh, and with one swipe of the hero’s gizmo it was off me. Never have I seen a man so thrilled to come to the aid of a damsel in distress (even if said damsel was his mother).
After that came a thorough inspection of all the clothing I wore that day. I’d had on a longish sort of crocheted top layer that we suspect provided a ladder for my stowaway, who then had to traipse through all its folds and openings to arrive at my shoulder. (At least that’s our theory for why it hadn’t yet embedded after, like, twelve hours.) Happily, no more offenders were found.
A few days later I prepared to leave for Collioure. My son was still with me, having decided Antibes was worth checking out. “I’ll go with you to Collioure,” he said, “then figure out the rest.” So off we went, arriving during the town’s anchovy festival, capped off with a fireworks display at 10pm. The town is a little gem, all delicate colors and fabulous shops and blue-green waters and beachfront restaurants. “I think I’ll stay,” my son said. So we found him some housing and he hung out for the week while I did my retreat thing.
We were scheduled to check out on Saturday, at which point the plan was that I would go to Arles and he would go wherever. “Why don’t we stay longer?” my son said on Friday, and so we found new accommodations through the following Thursday. Then Wednesday night rolled around and my son said, “Let’s stay an extra day,” so we did.
Finally, on Friday, we parted ways. I dropped my son off in Perpignan to catch a train to Barcelona, and I headed back to Perugia. The six or seven days I thought I’d have with my son had turned into 24—how lucky can a mom get?
End of road trip saga. But what is this glimmering of which the headline speaks? Well, I’ll tell you.
The retreat is led by fabulous authors—Karen Karbo, Jeanne McCulloch, and, this time, Pam Houston, who talked about using what she calls “glimmers” in her writing. Glimmers are moments that resonate, in which our senses are fired up and we’re aware of this place and moment we’re in, and we’re finding meaning in it and (though we don’t know it at the time, necessarily) we’re stoking our memory banks—because memory, Pam says, is “a chorus of glimmers.”
Is that not a fantastic way of thinking about what matters most to us? Here are some of my glimmers.
Glimmer: floating, weightless, in clear water while gazing at the clock tower of a waterfront church, Notre-Dame-des-Anges, whose clock is three minutes fast.
Glimmer: wandering around Collioure with my son in search of cats and art. We found both, plus an abundance of bougainvillea and some way cool downspouts.
Glimmer: playing pétanque (the French version of bocce) with a bunch of locals and finding out I’m pretty good at it, and waving to the driver of the hokey little tourist train that the day before had taken us up to a mountaintop fortress.
Glimmer: knocking someone else’s pétanque ball out of play with a well-aimed drop-toss and having some random passing dude cheer for me.
Glimmer: following the Fauvism trail of reproductions of 17 paintings by Matisse and Derain and feeling the presence of the many artists who revolutionized their art in Collioure. The town is still a magnet for artists, whose ateliers number in the dozens.
Glimmer: walking along the harbor at night with new friends from the retreat, talking about writing and books and life. The feeling of being held within a new community.
Glimmer: the awakening of my taste buds with the garlic aioli made by Kristin and Helen, the chefs for Come to Your Senses. Oh, and the perfectly cooked (very rare but not raw) beef, and the thin-skinned potatoes, and the haricot verts, and so much more, including an endless supply of the palest of rosés.
Glimmer: walking around Collioure swinging the plastic beach buckets in which our scrumptious lunches (sometimes brilliantly imagined from leftovers) were delivered. We had to return these each evening at dinner or pay the price—for example, one forgetful retreat-goer had to write a haiku on the spot, which she did with skill and admirable snark. Solo karaoke performances were also threatened.
Glimmer: karaoke, my first ever experience. What a blast it was to, well, blast out old favorites with co-singers, not to mention nearly everyone else in the room. “Sweet Caroline,” anyone? How about “Hotel California”? The pétanque gang joined in, growling out French songs in foursomes.
Glimmer: my son convincing me to spend a day at a beach resort in Antibes (I always complain that I hate lounging around on beaches), where I discovered what fun it is to have a mojito and French fries brought to me by a waiter who could easily have modeled for Dolce e Gabbana. In fact, that could be said about all of the waiters at our chosen place—all were men and every single one was beyond bellissimo.
Glimmer: being brought almost to tears by the stories of my fellow retreat-goers.
Glimmer: my son saying he’ll stay a little longer—not once, not twice, but three times.
Tante belle cose, alla prossima—
Cheryl
Pam Houston read from her forthcoming book, Animals Taught Me Everything, at the retreat, and based on what I’ve heard you’re going to want to preorder it.
Yeah, No. Not Happening: How I Found Happiness Swearing Off Self-Improvement and Saying F*ck It All – And You Can Too by Karen Karbo
All Happy Families by Jeanne McCulloch
How Long a Shadow can be preordered at Cynren Press, bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon (U.S.). It’s not yet available for purchase outside of the U.S. The Wild Impossibility is available on Amazon while supplies last; a new edition is forthcoming in August. Three more ways to support authors: ask your library to stock their books, recommend the books to your friends, and leave a few lines of praise on any bookish site. You’d be surprised how much a rating or review helps authors. Baci!
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