Amalfi

[evieshka]

Written June 17, 2017.

Amalfi

We drove down curving roads on a cliff face in Amalfi, made more dangerous by buses in the oncoming lane and mopeds speeding in either, irreverent of things like blinkers or speed limits. Roads made treacherous (or more so) by a threatening storm and a wash of fog. The smell of ozone and lemons crept in through the cracked windows as we passed through tiny cities with names only I could pronounce, and only badly. Cetara, Maiori, Scalla, Ravello.

Two of us in the front, one in the back, feeling semi-secure in a massive old car with a headlight held on by duct tape, listening to the soundtrack of some television show none of us watched, with the redheaded Hipster in the back showing displeasure for the choice in mood music. (A search of the radio would produce nothing but static or too-fast, too-loud chatter in a language none of us could follow. Commercials about cured ham from Parma and shoes on sale, the actors sounding manic in their excitement.)

We stopped before the storm broke so we could put our bare feet in the sea as though none of us had ever been to a shore before. For me, it evoked memories of beaches in other places, warmer waters and whiter sands. I wasn't there, but home, hearing seagulls only as echoes in my memory, seeing thunderheads as sunsets and feeling the lukewarm air as something balmier that blew the scent of salt miles inland and ignited cravings worse than addiction. It wasn't the crafting of a memory, being in that murky water; it was homesickness. Still I smiled, snapping photographs, and perhaps they smiled away their disappointment, too. Or maybe it was exactly what they had imagined, with castles guarding the inlet like great stone giants and the Mediterranean Sea spreading before them like a promise.

Maybe I'm spoiled.

We piled back into the car, our feet dirty and bare and so much the better: it was more waterfall than storm when it let loose, and we still had places to go. Miles of coastline and little towns to explore.

We parked in a flooded lot in Amalfi so we could see the church and the limoncello distilleries. Water up to our calves washed away evidence of the beach, reclaiming it with the rest of the trash and shit washed away in torrents from uphill city streets. We thought of buying an umbrella, but what was the point? We ducked into stores pretending to search through tacky souvenirs for things to send home, though I had no one - and who has use for a cheap lace fan with a panorama of Sorrento painted on, anyhow? (Though perhaps they, whoever they were, might have appreciated the irony of the little gold sticker on the handle that read 'Made in China'.) Into souvenir shops to thumb through postcards or pizzerias for coffee, distilleries and chocolate shops, sightseeing we appreciated all the more because it kept us dry.

We screamed laughter down to the car again, picking at a box of chocolate-covered lemon rinds and imagining warm towels and dry clothes waiting at home.