capri, italy, 1998

The solitary espresso in Capri, sitting at the tiny, empty cafe in silent awe
of a small funeral procession rounding the corner before me and stopping
beneath the 15th century church only several feet from me in the small piazza.
That moment stretched on into a dream state. I felt completely a tourista,
a witness, some mute observer.


The hearse stopped it's movement and the mourners got out of the miniature vehicle to cross themselves below the church and exchange tiny ball-like yellow flowers. The casket was carried by solemn pallbearers and the family followed them down the steps out of the old church. I sat and stared, afraid to move and shatter this peek into
such an intimate moment: this ceremony of death, of mourning, of burial.


The church bell rang precisely at that moment and its eerie, hollow ringing
sounded forlorn in the wind. The casket was carried into the back of the
Italian hearse and the family entered the car. Some of the mourners walked
up a cobble stoned road up to Anacapri in the same direction of the hearse.
I wanted to follow them, to see further into their traditions, into their lives.

I wanted to know them, but secretly.


I wanted to pack my belongings, or to give them up entirely and stay in Italia and never leave. I wanted to live in some simple little flat and open Dutch windows every morning and breathe in the warm Italian sun and eat fresh oranges and lemons before a long walk in the green country side or a stroll on the seaside. I wanted to take photographs of faces and eyes of real people... people who were alive, who were unapologetically themselves. I wanted an old fashioned black typewriter to write on and to type out strange stories.


I wanted to make love in white sheets, in a white room with wooden floors that creaked. I wanted to learn how to make Roman artichokes and aubergenes and lather olive oil on my hair and face and body at night and take honey baths in a large white old tub. I wanted to dance in a black dress with red hair in a piazza while Italian jazz musicians or wild-eyed gypsy's played reminiscent tunes and I felt like the barefoot Contessa. I wanted the world to be cinematic but real in only the way a movie
could appear real. I wanted to wake in a foreign land with another language on the tip of my tongue and a new day, very different from any I had known before, ahead of me. I wanted the impossible. I wanted the dream. But sometimes dreams spring forth into fruition.