Holiday

This week I’m on holiday so I decided to pass the #SinfulSunday baton to one of my great friends Haiku known as @19syllables on Twitter. (Although not really using that hell site these days) Although she is also on holiday she has sent me this amazing image and words for you.

Valldemossa 23/08/23

It’s noon; even my shadow has left me. I luxuriate in the solitude and heat by the pool. The cicadas in the olive groves behind the house are at their loudest, they make a fizzing sound; white noise, but somehow restful in the way moving water is. I’m listening to Chopin: 24 piano preludes he wrote while he lived here with his lover beside the monastery nearly two centuries ago. I can see how this beautiful place inspired him to live, create and love recklessly.

These pieces must have been forming in his mind as he scaled the worn limestone stairs that characterise this mountain village. His steps making a rudimentary rhythm for fledgling melodies. The bell chimes I hear are the same that marked out his days into phrases, his music into scales, crescendos and arpeggios. He must’ve heard the same cicada applause.

Quietly reckless for a moment myself, I untie my bikini and slip into the water.

(These observations and events happened exactly as I wrote them, but of course, there was no-one here to take the photo! Happily, Mr 19syllables, took this picture the next day during our pre breakfast swim – I hope you’ll forgive the peccadillo as artistic license.)