Home and Back

Driving in along that coastal plain, bleached stubble flowing to the cliff tops on the left, up over the diminutive hillocks to the right, a feeling of strangeness and unreality began to set in. Dry and colorless these hills, waiting to be blown into the sea. In my youth I had often driven this road in elation as spring brought forth a sea of waving green and vibrant yellow of Lincoln Weed and sour sobs. Noxious perhaps, but well pleasing to optimistic young eyes.

Now, as the township drew closer, memories wafted up of wandering those unsealed roads snaking from the coast to wind along ridges and valleys, past working farms and derelict stone houses through a landscape tamed yet vital. Brand new at the time, carried nervously, my brand new SLR camera always accompanied me on these forays. It had been a major purchase, carefully considered against a meticulous travel budget. Dollars assigned to airline tickets, food allowances, accommodation, but no contingencies. It was clear that I’d need to work while on the road.

A year later that road was bordered by stout eucalypts set against a sky of flawless blue. This was not the blue of my homeland but a deeper blue, less bleached, less desiccated. Spain rolled away to either side, dry yet alive with fragrant waving grasses tracing the breezes over gentle slopes. Ahead on the rise, an olive grove slowly came into view, so ancient and gnarled that I fancied it may have witnessed the march of Roman legions as they brought domination, exploitation, road building, roof tiles, government, gladiatorial games of blood and death, poetry and literature, personal hygiene, all the trappings that have inspired civilizations since.

The infrequent traffic sharpened my sense of being elsewhere. The Romans still maintained a presence here in 1973, with Spanish factories churning out the ‘Seat’, (pronounced roughly ‘say-at’), clones built under license to Fiat, Italy. Small, serviceable, four cylinder machines that crawled these unmade roads, sometimes in convoy and more often than not packed with gleeful families in transit to or from endless social missions.

My blue nylon backpack dug into my shoulders, weighed down mainly with my precious camera and associated devices. In fearful determination I had counted guilders out onto the glass counter of the tiny booth at Schiphol airport duty free in exchange for ‘super multi-coated’ immaculate wide-angle, portrait and zoom lenses. At the time I had known that this extravagance would cost me ease and comfort in the days to come. This day was one such day, as I trudged along the verge, sweaty, crunching gravel underfoot, tasting dust, smelling wafts of eucalyptus. It occurred to me that I had become bonded to my possessions and was at this moment serving them as a mule. Economy had dictated that in lieu of train tickets, there had been days of short borrowed rides in small cars and vans leading here, to the middle of nowhere. Overhead, a jet cleft the strange sky, barely a dot at the head of its white plume. Such a wonder had born me here and would one day deliver me home. A pang of longing welled up.

I had returned from my youthful adventure laden with undeveloped black and white film and then spent months stooped over enlarger and trays of chemicals, bringing my travels back to life. In black and white, that deep blue sky was dark gray but the grasses and trees didn’t look that different to my mind, both lands finish their summers bleached and tired. Back in my hometown, more than half a century later, that remote dusty Spanish road had come to mind as I stood with my back to the local town hall, looking out to the bay along the jetty. I suddenly felt a twinge of vertigo, and noticed that everything seemed small and far away, the way things look through the view finder of one of those cheap plastic cameras from pre-digital times. Norfolk Island pines shrank away to either side and the jetty before me narrowed abruptly, almost to a point at its seaward end.

Chris, my companion on this occasion was one of the very few people outside family that I still actually ‘knew’ to the extent that I’d be well received to spend idle time in gossip and reminiscence. As names and events were mulled I became struck with the gaps that had grown in my recollections of this place, like misplacing or ruining various rolls of film.

We walked to the end of the jetty and I propped against the railing, careful to avoid fresh seagull droppings, and looked back toward the old hall. The effect was a faithful mirror of what I had just experienced, with the straight shoreline, so far off, attempting to curl around at the edge of my vision, the buildings diminutive and unreal. As we parted company, wreathed in thick marine odors, I was reminded of gazing into a fish bowl.

Over the coming hours, I set about constructing an elaborate framework for my sensory discomfort. I was experiencing a form of ‘metaphorical consciousness’ in which the self had crafted this dream-like rendering to explain to me that I had outgrown this place, that even if I had wanted to re-establish myself here, I would be hard pressed to find an enduring foothold. This felt quite clever at the time.

Two days later, I was visiting my brother at his farm for the second time since getting home. On the first visit, I had been struck by the flatness of everything, the neutral tones, the lack of contrast, the bleak nature of that harsh hillside. Huge granite boulders dotted the landscape spattered here and there with bland patches of lichen, all to my eye at that time just variations of gray. We sat, my brother and I on a slab of rock, looking down into the valley between two huge rocky outcrops. I poured us each a foaming beer from the sweating bottle at our feet and as I raised my glass to toast him, my glance grazed the nearby rock faces and the world snapped back into kilter. The granite had taken on rich hues ranging from light fawns to deep chocolates and here and there crystalline intrusions sparkled in the late afternoon rays. The lichens, I realized, were not gray, but ranged from soft pastel greens to vibrant oranges to deep rusts and tans and the dull olive green of the stands of trees now betrayed their rich variations.

I remained silent, taking it all in as the bitter draft fizzed in my throat. I had, just now, returned. The old place had finally let me back in.

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