by Writer in Residence Sean Russell.
I felt I had to leave the UK and London for many reasons. First among them was that I could. With the switch to working remotely the whole world became my office. It took a friend to make me realise this, but once I began to think about the possibility of what I thought would be impossible in March – I decided to go to Palermo, Sicily.
While the first reason was that I could leave, the next reason was a feeling of being exhausted with the country. Tired of the outrage and anger; the divides so clear. Tired of the city. Samuel Johnson said if you’re tired of London you’re tired of life. Samuel Johnson probably never paid £700 for a room in a shared flat in the middle of a pandemic where all of those great things that make the rent worth it are closed.
I longed for the countryside and quiet, I longed to be alone. I longed to change my perspective.
As a writer there is perhaps little better you can do than change perspective. When you are so comfortable in the place where you are, the people you have around you, your routine, what can you possible write about? Or more importantly than “what” is how can you be sure of anything you write when you haven’t seen anything else? When you have nothing to compare and contrast.
Italy fascinates me for the obvious reasons – the food, the scenery, the architecture. But I also love the cinema, the cycling, the history. I wanted to learn Italian, a language which prefers a beautiful way to say something over a functional phrase – there are at least 10 words for “the”. And so I decided to go to Sicily, just to see how it was, to change my perspective. It was, as Jonathan Harris might say, “the next clear thing” for me at the time.
And so I left.
Accompanying my arrival in Palermo came a peace in solitude. I began to think clearer about my own little personal problems and saw that really they were not problems at all, mostly – not in the sense of real problems. I saw that everything in my life was good or as good as could be in a global pandemic, and I am lucky and grateful. I saw that people were outraged in the UK because they are exasperated, because the country that once I was so proud of is an embarrassing mess. I understood that they knew no other way to express this than in anger and outrage on social media.
To me Italy has always been an idea, a fantasy of mine. I had images of Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley in my head. La Dolce Vita – I saw myself sitting over an espresso with La Gazzetta Dello Sport, wearing a suit and looking over my sunglasses like Marcello Mastroianni in 8 ½. But the fact is, as with most fantasies, the truth wasn’t there, at least not in Palermo in the middle of coronavirus.
One of the issues of travelling during a pandemic is a constant feeling of anxiety. You’re not entirely sure what’s going on around you, but everyone is keeping to themselves. And that’s a hard place to be when you’re alone. I’ve never much found travelling alone hard, but in a pandemic it takes the confidence right from underneath you.
But I did travel to Solunto, lauded as Sicily’s Pompeii, and it was empty because there are few tourists at the moment and I took the train out and walked up hill for 35 minutes in Birkenstocks because I believed erroneously that it was a five minute walk. And there I had a Phoenician/Greco/Roman settlement to myself. I walked around and imagined mundane scenes because really people haven’t changed all that much and probably were complaining about such and such a pain in their back and how hot it was or something. I found a room in a ruined old house which said it was the toilet. Now, the toilet to me is a great thinking place, and so I thought it must have been for someone long before me. So I sat on the “toilet” and did my thinking where once someone else did their thinking, and it was comforting to be able to meditate in this way in this place.
I'm not sure I could live in Italy, but I could spend time here, I could get away from the UK and breathe and ride my bike into the mountains which is perhaps one of the finest experiences I have ever had in my life here in Palermo, and I could do that every year for the rest of my life and that would be a happy life.
But while here I also began to think about pub culture, I don't really know why, except that I love British pub culture. There’s something about those stale-beer smelling places of friendship. I realised little things, like in the UK most everything just tends to work, whereas in Palermo I just assumed they wouldn't and was happy when they did.
This is not a love letter to the UK. I am distressed by the state of the country and its government. I am embarrassed where once I was never embarrassed. And I cannot get over the odd obsession with World War 2. But good or bad the change of perspective helped me think clearer.
Whilst here, I began to experiment with other forms of writing also. Here in Italy you cannot help but think of beautiful things when surrounded by them all the time.
Haiku (the modern kind as opposed to the pre-modern style) is something I have never played with. It never really made sense to me. But being here and trying to see things differently there is something about those 17 syllables that forces you to see things for what they are with no imposed judgement. The symbolism is suggested, the idea is hinted at, but ultimately, they are all about the same thing, the moment, and the impermanence of all things.
Being confined to 5-7-5 makes me think and see things differently and I hope to continue writing Haiku when I return to the UK and beyond. How better than to capture a moment? To change one’s perspective?
There’s a ring of wine
Amongst others on my desk
All of them are mine
A lizard scuttles
Downwards past the balcony
A fly flies away
A blue shirt old man
Puffs his cigarette butt
Over his face mask
A chocolate wrapper
Washes up in the bright sand
A small fish struggles
Salt and pepper man
On the balcony clips his nails
They rain on the street