Lipari. In the beginning, between sea and wind
Keepers of winds, legends and inexhaustible sources of beauty, the Aeolian Islands remain a constantly evolving reality. Abodes of unspoiled nature and a way of life that makes contemplation of places its cornerstone. The following column has no explanatory purpose in the strict sense; it aims to make those who will read travel not only in space, but mainly in the soul of these suspended places, between sea and sky.
Thus began this journey, between sea and wind.
Between soul and mind, on that boat that every day takes everyone away. And during this parenthesis, I wrote. Of faraway places, dreamlike places and latent dreams. In which, unknowingly, that removed part became the basis of a narrative that speaks of self-reflection. Because I found myself in these waters, which vary from emerald to cobalt blue, amid endless silences and suspended moments. I have always split these moments in this way, I think in order not to give them duration.
“How long can it possibly last? Yet it is but a couple of seconds (in the most driven version, so to speak), but a couple of seconds in which everything is missing in the fullest of ways, in the most intrusive and violent of ways, in which everything is in the same time, or rather in the same non-time. Time passes; sometimes it doesn’t.”
And that is exactly how the Eolie, as a whole, tell their own nature. Asleep and alive at the same time are the forges of the earth, where elements are melted and forged; where, unexpectedly, colors are born. Intense and primitive, they are all there, including black and white. Silence makes them protagonists.
Lipari is the largest in the archipelago, and the first to be populated more than five thousand years ago, although the oldest from a geological standpoint is Panarea. According to numerous footprints, Lipari’s first inhabitants came from nearby Sicily and dared to brave the fury of the Tyrrhenian winds, attracted by obsidian and pumice stone, the island’s main wealth during millennia.
For the episode “Interview with Mother” from the film “Kaos”, brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani situate playwright Luigi Pirandello’s return to his homeland in the South. Walking through the empty rooms of the house, Pirandello recalls a story his mother used to tell him: a journey he made with his brothers from Sicily to the Island of Malta and landing on a surreal place, the Island of Pumice Stone.
And although the island does not exist, the place where children bathe really does exist: it is one of Lipari’s beaches, the “Spiaggia Bianca,” with impalpable white sand created by the pumice stone that falls in abundance on the sand and sea, forming incredible and striking figures.
A special place, a perfect ecosystem or, perhaps, just a magical, generous illusion. Suddenly you find yourself immersed in an enveloping atmosphere that ignores half-measures, because everything here is absolute, taken to the max without limits or restraint.
Like the low tide breaking on patient pebbles. And the elements: earth, fire, water and air are strongly intertwined in the minds of the inhabitants. It is precisely the elements that decide the happy or sad fate of this suspended strip of land, in a timeless time where slow steps, the sound of the sea, and the force of the wind become one. You carry the island within you wherever you go and miss it powerfully when you are far away from it but equally you would like to escape from it, its strength and inconstancy. The island is a magical place in eternal contrast between the desire to shipwreck and the desire to remain, not isolated, distant and forgotten.
To live on an island is to see one’s space downsized. The distance from dry land is measured with the eyes and is always occupied by seagulls. When one lives on an island one walks a lot, encounters follow seasonality, one’s powers of observation lead one to note within oneself what strange thing one encounters passing through an alley on a slow ordinary day.
Present image, reminiscent of a tangible past, made up of active and dynamic memories that are constantly changing, but inexorably tied right back to her. To that remote dream, which takes on the features, scents and traditions of Lipari.
Island, land of fire and saltiness as saltiness burns inside. You love her, you hate her, like a love you can’t forget, like a place where you know that being happy is real even though it may end; a place where every emotion and feeling you really experience, without filters, without barriers, without nets, the island is much more than the idea we have of her, the island is patient stone, a microcosm between sky and sea. The island is winter with its deserted streets and stormy sea, pure and wild beauty, hidden in its alleys and paths, festive squares, the smell of fish and fishermen’s nets.
Island. Constant photography of infinity.
[1] Tournier, Michel, 1972 “Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique,” Gallimard, Paris.
[1] 1984film directed by the Taviani brothers.
©Cecilia Mangini,1952
by James Gandola
The trip to the Aeolian Islands, accompanied by Giacomo Gandola, also took us to discover other islands, dive here: Stromboli, Alicudi, Vulcano, Filicudi, Panarea and Salina.
And if you can’t wait to visit them, book your tour with Charter Aeolian by clicking here.