Romania is my country and Corfu is my home island.
I am caught in the magic of the island of cypresses, millennia-old olive trees and nymphs. The satyrs are not scarce either, they just resumed human form. If my words escape you, I would like to say that Greeks are very handsome and “warm”.
I want to relocate in a very small cottage on a mountain side, overlooking the sea and palm trees rustling merrily in the lazy salty breeze.
My single worry was to get up early (at 6 A.M. or so) to still catch the stars and then, the sun. And later, after happy hours of basking in its mellow warmth, watch it jumping into the waves on the way to the other realm.
October in Corfu is like late beautiful spring in Romania. Balmy air, birds chirping, tons of colors and fragrances heralding another spring. The one starting in November!
“Gradually the magic of the island (Corfu) settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen.”
― Gerald Durrell, My Family and Other Animals
I illustrate with my photos: the waning moon at dawn & later, the waxing moon at dusk; the clearest water that I can look into till my eyes turn blue & one stunning sunset; a romantic ship in the Kerkyra harbour & the highest peak – the Pantokrator.
Wonderful and two very powerful, if indirect, influences upon me. Firstly, My Family and Other Animals was the first book I read as a boy which truly transported me out through the night, like Peter Pan, and delivered me to exotic, ecstatic, beautiful new worlds of smell and colour and nature and humanity. I’ve never visited the island, but it lives in me in this way, nonetheless. Secondly, in my impressionable late teens, and as a formative intellectual I suppose, E.M. Cioran’s metaphysics knocked me off me my feet. I think he single-handedly helped me realise the power of the human mind at the confluence of art, philosophy, spirituality, religion, aesthetics, sensuality, language, poetry and history. I read him now and, well, I must say I sometimes feel underwhelmed, but that is perhaps because I have since encountered the genius of the likes of Beckett and Proust and Pessoa, and ways of putting the essence of the struggle that are still unsurpassed. But Cioran’s effect on me, like Gerald Durrell’s are probably two of the most critical experiences in my development as a poet!
Thank you very much! The island is a marvel and Gerald Durrell’s choice of words is magnificent. To my shame, I have discovered the island first, then the book, as I was more enthralled with the works of his brother, Lawrence. With a view to Romanian writers, E.M.Cioran is part of our magic, part of our secret beauty being revealed in few simple strokes of a most amazing pen.
With admiration,
Iulia.
Ah yes! I should have realised. I choose to study The Alexandria Quartet in my final year of High School and later became entirely enthralled by The Black Book. I think Lawrence Durrell is one of the most underrated lights off the English canon. His relationship with Henry Miller was fascinating and their correspondence a work of art in itself.
It’s lovely to connect with you.
Kindest regards