Climbing the cliff
Celebrating a day of work.
I had the opportunity to spend five consecutive springs in Italy writing a novel. I still can’t believe it, almost a decade later.
One of the details that stays with me is the ritual of climbing the cliff.
It started there, on the cliffs of Positano, to climb the cliff to have dinner and to read what I’d written that day.
The climb shifted everything. My legs ached instead of my hunched back, and the last step was a devious touchstone, a double-height stair for my trembling legs to clear. One final push before I could turn and look out over the darkening turquoise water, watch the stars flip to ‘on’ one by one, and after a brief moment, neither my legs nor my back ached anymore. The work of the day was done.
Time for a different view of the work. And a bit of society.
The metaphor lives on, the days I climb the cliff are good ones.
