“Send me out into another life Lord…because this one is growing faint. I do not think, it goes all the way.”
These lines from W.S Merwin’s poem, `Words From a Totem Animal‘ are quoted by Frances Mayes, in her best selling book Under The Tuscan Sun which deliciously, sensuously recounts the restoration of a rambling home in Italy and a charmed, idyllic existence where grapes “smell purple,” black olives are plump and firm and fresh olive oil tastes of hot wind of summer or the first rain of autumn or sunlight on leaves.
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Merwin’s poem describe astutely the feeling of unrest Mayes felt as a time bound American academician before she fell fathoms deep in love with with Bramasole, a run down Italian house which was then reclaimed by her, stone by stone, brick by brick, room by room from mold and loads of “gunk on the beams” and certain oblivion.
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Its structure was redefined, decades of mold scraped off, floors relaid and waxed, walls replastered and painted white, ceiling beams cleaned and painted over months of elbow grease with endless supplies of hope and impromptu spreads of rustic Italian food laid by the author on a long, wooden table in the garden. After endless days of polishing wood and tile with linseed oil, pulling weeds and vines from the garden, the day came when roses (some of them as big as tennis balls!), gold lillies, daisies, iceland poppies, lavender, fuchsias, pansies and wildflowers bloomed, terraced fields came alive with olive harvests, jasmine buds twined around the railing of the steps, hundreds of butterflies came to stay. The kitchen came alive with two inch thick Carrara marble tops, chunky plank shelves, rustic baskets, handpainted platters and bowls waiting to be filled with hearty soups and flavourful pasta.
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Like Mayes, we all feel at some point in our lives, the desire to either start a new life or to move into a new space or redo the one we are living in or maybe just redefine our existence, push the boundaries of who or where we are. Not all of us push ourselves like she did to create an alternate reality when the old one does not fit. We dream of new homes, new worlds, new vistas outside our windows and then relapse into the stifling ease of the known and the familiar because it is easier to belong than to embrace the unknown. But those of us who take their dreams seriously, perhaps end up one day, just like Mayes, in a sun speckled bower entertaining friends and thinking, “Doesn’t everything reduce in the end to a poetic image, one that encapsulates an entire existence in one stroke?”‘ Or rather a house that smells of home cooked broths and lemon cake and lovingly planted flowers? A house that rings with the laughter of friends and family and opens its eyes every morning to see a rolling valley, an open sky and nodding sunflowers?
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I for one am holding this image close and will take Mayes’ advice to “follow thy bliss” till the time comes when I too will create my Bramasole. And I hope, you will too.
** This story was published in a design magazine a few years ago.
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Reema Moudgil has been writing for magazines and newspapers on art, cinema, issues, architecture and more since 1994, is an RJ, hosts a daily Ghazal show, runs unboxed writers, is the editor of Chicken Soup for The Indian Woman’s soul, the author of Perfect Eight (http://www.flipkart.com/perfect-eight-9380032870/p/itmdf87fpkhszfkb?pid=9789380032870&_l=A0vO9n9FWsBsMJKAKw47rw–&_r=dyRavyz2qKxOF7Yuc ) and an artist.