[ 00:36 saturday 26 august 2017 – piscitá, isola di stromboli ]

i’m sitting with my laptop at the desk in paolo’s house. beside me a flickering candle provides the room’s sole illumination save the blue glow of the screen. through the open window in front of me the warm night air carries the sound of the waves and a faint perfume of jasmine.

this is my favourite room in paolo’s house. it stands in a separate whitewashed cube across the terrace from the main building, overgrown by an ancient and labyrinthine fig tree. inside there’s a giant bed with a carved headboard, two mahogany chests and a highly designed standard lamp from the 1980s made from blue and white glass. one side of the room is piled with books in italian, english and dutch collected by previous generations of paolo’s family. the walls are covered with paintings and drawings by an italian artist from the 1990s, testaments to his obsession with man/bull fusions.

it’s three years since my last visit to stromboli, the longest break since i first set foot on the island in august 2000. last saturday on impulse i bought a flight to catania. by sunday evening i was here. that was six days ago. now my visit is almost at an end. at dawn i’ll leave the house and cross the island to the quay ready for the first hydrofoil of the day to milazzo, on the north coast of sicily.

after such a long absence i feared i would have been forgotten on the island but within half an hour of arriving a dozen people had run up to greet me. by the second day everyone seemed to know i was back. it was a little overwhelming. i feel as if i have a parallel life here that continues even when i’m absent, a life with its own rhythm and narrative separate from my existence in london.

my evenings have been spent in company with friends but during the afternoons i’ve sought complete solitude. after eating a breakfast of sicilian cheese and peaches on paolo’s terrace and working on the laptop for a couple of hours i walk down the narrow street through piscitá to spiaggia lunga, the last beach on the island. since this is august the first short black-sand section of the beach is generally crowded with tourists. i pass through and continue to the longer rocky section beyond, stepping from stone to stone, until the people are far behind and i’m alone. at this point i find myself a flattish rock close to the sea where i can lie down and lose myself in the intense sunlight, the breeze and the shush of waves. at first my mind races with thoughts about relationships, work, hopes and fears. but each afternoon i strive to let go of the hubbub and empty my mind.

this afternoon i broke this habit and went out with marina and pepe in the latter’s speedboat. we skimmed across the azure surface of the water, rounded the western side of the island and anchored at a rocky, uninhabited point known as “le piscine” (“the swimming-pools”). there we donned snorkels and spent an hour harvesting shellfish for our supper.

by the time we returned to the quay and i’d walked back to paolo’s house in piscitá it was dark. i descended the steps from the terrace to the small beach below. the storms of last winter stole all its sand and left it rocky, just as it was the first year i lived here. i stepped across the stones and threw myself into the gurgling swell. in the darkness the water felt warm and sensuous against my skin. i swam a long way out then turned to look back at the lights of the island. a creamy crescent moon hovered above the flank of the volcano.

after my swim i dried myself and walked up the hill to marina’s house to feast on the shellfish we’d gathered earlier. we cracked open the urchins and ate the pink eggs raw from the shell. marina baked the limpets having stuffed them with cheese, breadcrumbs and parsley. she cooked the winkles in a thick chilli and tomato sauce, then we extracted the coiled-up animals with pins. it was all sublime.

it’s been wonderful to visit the isles of scilly and stromboli in such short succession this summer. both these places are integral parts of me, regardless how frequently or rarely i visit. now it is time to pack my bag and prepare for the journey ahead.

: c :