Listen to your body

22/05/2010

Holed up in Firenze.

My dear reader,

I think there is one of you left. You are wondering what happened to Clifftripper.

I left Pietrasanta yesterday after a week or so of fountain building. It was obvious from the start that I wasn’t going to be finishing the project. My back prevented me from continuing with the physical work and Lea arranged for a couple of builders to get onto the job. That happened in the last two days. With the right equipment and tools they were able to form up the remaining bumps and pour concrete into them. Then we supervised the rendering, which was almost finished by the time I left yesterday.

The plan was to come to Florence for a couple of days to see some important ART. There was a new surprise in store for me.

You know how much of a whinger I am. Two things stand out for me in this trip. One is my sore back, the other is my complaint about the lack of toilets in Italy.

I mean, if you had an iron bladder like some people I know, the toilet thing wouldn’t be an issue.

But if you want to pee all the time, especially in the morning, and want to pee almost straight after you’ve gone pee the first time, it becomes an issue. If you join bad back pain and desire to pee all the time what do you get?

Kidney problemo.

Me thinking my back pain is related to broken back. My body played a little trick on me. Also, what do you do when you want to go pee so much in the mornings?- drink less water of course and more expressos. Bad for kidneys.

By the time I got to my hotel yesterday afternoon, everything was aching, even my cagones.

And then I peed.

OMFG it hurt.

That’s OH MY GOD with an expletive added. But my little brain is still thinking that I need shiatsu massage or a chiropractor, so I went on a fruitless search for one of those.

I ended up at the Duomo with countless tourists milling around. Managed to take some pics.Standing there with great pain in the side, suddenly realising I am going to pass out. So I slide down the wall I’m leaning against and just sit there for a long time. I noticed that people were noticing me. I probably didn’t look too good. Strange thoughts were swirling. Decided that there’s enough sculpture been done on that one building, we don’t need anymore.  During this sit and think I realised that it’s my left kidney that is causing me most of the pain, with a bit of broken back thrown in. Who knows how long that’s been the case?

I made it back to the hotel and holed up with big bottles of water thinking that I’d flush the bugger out and that’ll fix it. When, after a long night of  drinking water and excruciating peeing, my pee looked as if it was bleeding with bits in it, I decided it was getting serious.

I know that blood in horse’s pee is not a good sign, so therefore might not be good for humans either. Better get to the hospital.

So that’s what I did. I explained to the man at the desk of the hotel and in front of a group of happy breakfasters that I needed to get to a hospital and why. He arranged to have me taken there in the hotel van.

So instead of seeing important ART, I spent the whole day in Firenze hospital.

Good news. It looks like I’ve passed some kidney stones, that my kidney looks clear and my bladder is too from an ultrasound. Don’t have an infection and the nice doctor sent me away without a prescription for antibiotics, (they do things different in Italy) and the advice to drink plenty of water.

The other good thing is they upgraded my room at the hotel from dingy single to a double with a shower that works, because I asked. Hope it bloody works, haven’t tried it yet.

Booked this room for another night. I want to get well before heading back to Rome and then home to Oz. Still feel like shit but the painkillers have let me write this.

My stopover in Bangkok is looking unappealing and if I can, might change the flights.

So, faithful reader,

I’m coming home soon.

Italiano mangiare

15.5.2010

Had more rain here in a week than Barraba has had in two years. Thunder rolls off the mountain in really long thunderstorms.

Getting a bit of work done each day between the rain.

Lea took me around to a sculptor’s studio, an Englishman from Liverpool , Martin Foot. Martin has lived here in Pietrasanta for the last twenty years and before that lived in Australia. We got talking and it turns out that he used to work with George Proudman on Public Works in Sydney. I happened to start my interest in carving with George, he teaching a bit of carving in return for me helping him in his garden when I was a teenager. We reminisced on what a funny old bastard George was.

The ‘isn’t it a small word?’ thing goes a bit deeper because one of my avid blog readers, about this trip to Italy, is the daughter of the very same abovementioned old bastard, George. We both agreed that he was a font of knowledge about stone and carving; and a generous and funny man when you got over his gruffness, helping both Martin and myself get jobs back in the 80’s.

Jean, we meant old bastard in the most nicest way possible. No offence, please.

Speaking of offending people. It has slowly dawned on me that not everyone will share my enthusiasm for publishing events and photos of events and people and places and things, on the internet. That I should perhaps ask permission of people before I post photos of them or their work or their house on the internet.

My photos now have a clever signature with a copyright symbol in the corner. That is supposed to stop other people from using those images.

There is a thing about internet etiquette that I was blissfully ignorant about. Anyway I am making amends, and asking belatedly some people for permission and in the future will ask others before I go splashing their dial and their privacy out in the cloud for all the world to see. This is small time anyway, just for family and a few friends.

Why didn’t someone tell me?

Lea took me to dinner to Marco and Sabrina’s house on Thursday night. There was little English spoken that night. I'm trying to learn fast.

Friday night we fired up the oven and Lea had people over for dinner. Even though three of the five guests were English, they all spoke Italian, so I was kept busy trying to understand anything. I cooked some bread and my staple Portuguese chicken dish that everyone loved. So my solitude has turned successful socialite overnight.

Picture of oven and food should go here, but was too busy to take picture.

Today I went out to get more mesh in the rain on the pushbike. Someone said I looked like Harrison Ford. Ha ha, Indiana Jones (with a beard?). Isn’t he one of the sexiest men on earth? Maybe that was thirty years ago.

Today Lea’s Dad and his wife, her sister and her husband arrived from America. We did the oven thing again- roast veal, potatoes and my bread that was quite impressive according to all that ate it. What a great oven. Definitely building a new one when I get home.

la fontana

This is just outside my door in the little lane where youths drink, smoke and make out.

Lea arrived on Monday evening. We wasted no time in beginning to plan what we are going to do to the fountain. The fountain is a plain circle about three meters in diameter and 700mm deep. The wall is about 200mm thick. Lea had it made and then went and saw Gaudi’s cathedral in Spain. Now the plan is to make a more organic form that will be mosaic-ed, with a sculpture in the centre.

We went off in search of steel and materials on the pushbikes. We found an everything to do with cement and concrete supplier, and began the pantomime of ordering what we wanted. Lea has a special way of getting what she wants. She explains it like this- “I always get there in the end, always stay positive.”

The man said there was no truck to deliver the steel, impossible. So we said we wanted bags of concrete as well. He went away for a while, came back and then a truck appeared, which he loaded and drove. It was threatening rain so we put the bikes on the back of the truck and got a ride back to Pietrasanta.

When we got there the heavens opened up and it pissed down for the entire time the poor man was lugging the 18 bags of concrete up the path about 50 meters uphill. My job was to hold the umbrella over him, attempting to keep the bags dry, not being allowed to lift heavy things (feeling useless).

Lea gave him a bottle of wine and we joked that we’d see him again tomorrow. I thought he must have had some Karma to pay off and got us as punishment, Lea said he had earned some credits in the big scheme of things.

It stopped raining when he finished.

We started on the armature the next morning according to Lea’s model that she has made. We found that it was a bit busy so we reduced the number of bumps from nine to seven. Figuring out a system took a while. We got a basic shape set out to work from by bending 6mm steel and anchoring it into holes we drilled in the sides of the existing form.

That took all afternoon and by the end of it I was pretty sore in my back, hips and neck. Have to learn to pace myself according to what my back can handle. A bath, a good night sleep and some Pilates and yoga stretches as well as some self-massaging with Gretta’s Chi ball and I’m rearing to go again, sort of…

Reason for Being

Tuesday, 11 May 2010

Well, it’s a bit of a miracle, I’ve started drawing again. Tentative at first and only because I ran out of other things to do. Rainy cold weather keeps me inside and finally I picked up a pencil, did a couple of drawings. Then I went outside.

Strange magic, suddenly I can see, walking down the piazza focused on breathing; everything becomes dancing light and a feeling of peace and rightness infuses my being.

The experience is brief but goood.

OMG why can’t I feel like this all the time?

Welcome to Nerdsville

Hi all you happy blog readers. You may have noticed some changes on this Blog page.The Followers section is not there anymore. I made the page wider by going into the HTML scary part and doing stuff- and it worked. Now the page is wider and not using up wasted virtual space. Then found that I could manipulate the little Reaction check boxes that no one has been using- and made a Weirdo box and a Nerd box. You could check the Funny box for that.

Was thrilled to find I had six comments on my last entry and then not so thrilled to find that Grace had made four of those, three being identical and one saying Oops. Thanks Grace, it's a boost to my morale, even if it is a false boost.But it was nice to get one from Todd and you too Grace, Big Sister.

Raffaella sent me this:
"hi cliff, I sent an email last week to one of your other email sites just to confuse you!! I admire your ability to do the blogging and thank you for doing it because I( and everyone else I would assume) are delighted to read your travel adventures. I look forward to these stories and the photos especially as I am a big fan of Italy. Anyway enjoy and fend off the pesky Italians and make friends with the rest...cheers, raffaella"

And I got a strange one from Steve, who turns out to be the Anonymous commentor. I think he's telling me to chill out, that everything is perfect in the Universe and that I should just enjoy myself. But I'm not turning Catholic and going to the confessional.

Thought about taking up drinking alcohol for my anxiety about life but somehow I don't think that would help. Don't worry, it was a brief thought that I'm used to dealing with. Just breathe.

Went to Carrara on Wednesday to meet Alison from Bondi. It was a really rainy day. I got soaked feet, socks and sandals. Went and had lunch at a restaurant where there were a couple of people to meet. Domonic is a sculptor from Antwerp who lives in Carrara. Lively conversationalist, passionate, intelligent, enthusiastic and loud. I was sitting next to him and he was thumping me with each gesture of his arms to make sure that I was paying full attenzione! That was fun. Oh and the other was a nice quiet old Italian who is a professional box maker for transporting marble sculptures.

Then we went back to Alison’s flat to meet the plumber who was to fix the blocked sink. Alison and Domonic (who is also her landlord, sort of) had a rather lively discussion in the doorway, (some might call it an argument) while all the neighbours watched from their doorways and windows with interest at the plumbing drama. I sat on the couch and tinkered with a ukulele.

The offending knife was removed from the pipe and peace was restored to the neighbourhood. Domonic mysteriously dissapeared, perhaps just a little surprised at the passion of his own outburst. Alison and I walked up the mountain to a sculptor’s studio and yard. Usama has a studio and marble yard where he works and teaches. Alison has recently done a workshop with him and here is her first ever sculpture in marble. Pretty good, eh?

I have left my smelly wet socks at Alison’s so she promised to visit me at Pietrasanta to return them in a couple of days. That’s today and I just got a call from her that she’s coming on the train. More later.

Alison came and we had lunch together. She wanted a look at Lea’s now famous kitchen and the rest of the house. She is also lining up to be Lea’s newest best friend.

The days are passing rapidly and the sun came out today, Saturday, for the first time in a week. Found the local Museum about a hundred meters from Lea's and the picture theatre is fifty meters from Lea's: I went and saw 'Up in the Air' in English the other night.

This morning I cleaned up the house, vacuumed floors, washed things and moved into the Cantina which is the flat downstairs, which is nice too, in time for Lea’s imminent arrival. Then found out that she’s not coming for a couple more days yet. This is the ceiling of the Canteena.

Marble sink, Canteena

In the afternoon the piazza was full of people sitting at the bars in the sun and on the steps of the cathedral. Drank my second San Pelligreno Aranchiata at the bar and then went for a bike ride down to the sea.

Sunday,

Mum rang thismorning from her cruise ship in the Greek Islands to remind me that it's Mother's day. Grace, I tried to ring Mum on her birthday but it didn't work so I sent her an email which she probably won't read until she get back to Oz.

It's weird that she went to Rome and the places I was in a week before, in Sicily. Mum is doing a luxury cruise ship thing. I can't wait till I'm old enough to justify going about in a group with walky talkie around my neck, obediently following the guide with the little red flag, no decisions to make. Maybe I am old enough.

interior Canteena

How lucky I am to have this place to stay in? The violinist I mentioned in the earlier post sleeps at the railway station on the ground near the ticket office. The homeless and the beggars are out there in the street. It's hard to ignore everyone who is asking me for money. The other day I asked a gypsy woman if I was at the right bus stop. She said I was (when I wasn't) and asked me for money. She was pretty and  I (lecherous old bastard) relented and gave her one euro. She wanted more, so I gave her another euro. That wasn't enough, she wanted 5 euro. I said no. Makes me wonder though, why? It could easily be me on the street.

Eventually I found the right bus stop.

Lea's Kitchen

This one's for Grace, as requested, photos of Lea's kitchen. Taken before I clean up for Lea's arrival in a few days, yikes.

For all of you frustrated comment posters and I know there's heaps of you who just can't get through (well at least one), why don't you email me your comment to beulahstation@gmail.com and I'll post it for you.

See, here's a comment from an ardent admirer that I recieved by email yesterday and my reply. (some language editing was necessary)

"cool Cliff,
looks like you're having an interesting time! i'll be f****d if i can figure out how to reply to your blog, so 1 to 1 my comments must remain!
take care old (mountain) goat!"

My reply:
"Ah young buck,

Can't you get it together technologicallywise? Other people are having the same problemo and I keep trying different settings. Keep trying. By the time I get back might have it sorted.

I've wasted an amazing amount of time f*****g around with learning how to upload photos and struggling with computer stuff.

 I think I'm just avoiding getting down and doing some art. Art, what's that? I've had artistic constipation for years now. Hoping that feeding myself some culture will loosen things up, like castor oil.

It's weird keeping a blog. I can't really tell the world all that goes on inside my sordid brain and how screwed up I feel sometimes. So its sort of a glossing over the surface of what's really happening for me.

Lea's arriving in a week and I'm going to help her with a fountain here in her garden. that should give me some sense of purpose.

How's things back at Limore?"


Today its raining. After stuffing around on this computer for too long, I'm going to attempt to write a real letter with pen and paper to Lesley who is kindly looking after Wedge and my house at Barraba.
Lesley is one of the few remaining humans who doesn't use a computer or even have a mobile phone. So neccesity calls me to find some paper to write on. If I don't make it could someone tell Lesley that I really appreciate her generosity and what a great woman she is? When the world goes back to donkey and cart, Lesley will be the only one not writhing around in agony, suffering technology withdrawals.

Pietrasanta

Ooh, Anonymous has left a comment! Welcome Anonymous, yes I had a bath thank you.

On Saturday I ventured out with a bicycle that had flat tyres. Walked it down a road until I came across a petrol station with air for tyres.

Then I launched into the traffic. Went looking for the house we used to live in in 1985. I know I was very close but couldn’t pinpoint it. Even the street names were sending my synapses into spasms. Memories with giant gaps were coming back to me. The gaps may be caused by the amount of local Chianti that I consumed back then. The area is a mixture of medium density units and old farmhouses still with plenty of farming going on. Via Africa rang a bell and so did Via Apua. I rode the bike around the streets until the locals started giving suspicious looks.

Then ventured on towards the sea past the lovely forest. The beach looked so familiar and just as disappointing as it was that long ago, parking must be more of a hassle too.

Found a strip between the private beach areas, which are oh so ugly, parked the bike and went for a walk on the beach. I won’t say too much except that Aussies are spoilt with the most beautiful beaches and you just shouldn’t make comparisons.

It rained all Saturday night and Sunday was raining steadily. Lazed about for some time before venturing out to the piazza, which I expected to be empty. Surprised to find that a street market was happening despite the rain and lots of people were out and about sitting at the bars. The African guys who are usually pushing hats, handbags and sunglasses had switched to selling umbrellas.

I love the piazza (really it’s just a closed off street). Its only about 40 meters wide and 200 long. I paced it out. I’m planning the Barraba revolution, which is to create a piazza in the main street and bring some life back into a dead town. Wish me luck.

In the evening lots of people come into town and walk the piazza and surrounding streets, which are also pedestrian, only service vehicles allowed at certain times. There’s bars (coffee shops that also sell alcohol) little bakeries, patisseries, gelatarias, restaurants and humans. I sat on the cathedral steps and ate a gelato on Saturday evening and on Sunday evening I stood under a shop awning and ate a gelato. I’ve yet to talk to any humans but that might come. Dogs and cats understand me. Already I recognise the characters that are always there.

The frustrated looking violinist who sits at the bar smoking and drinking when not busking. (then busking for more money to spend at the bar smoking and drinking). He plays well.

The happy black man hawking hats. He keeps his hats piled twenty high on top of his head and ten handbags over his shoulders, and a shopping cart full of other goodies. He has a nice smile and doesn’t seem to care that no-one buys anything off him.

There’s a pixie that looks as if he comes from South America and wears the strangest hat and colourful clothes. He has a long instrument that looks like a didgeridoo but isn’t and some prayer bowls, maybe he’s from Nepal. The thing is he’s always there in the street crouched against a wall, usually deep in conversation with someone.