[ 01:23 thursday 16 april – piscita, isola di stromboli ]

here i sit at the little table in front of the window where i have spent so many thousands of hours typing at successive computers. the window is open, admitting the rush and scrape of waves breaking on the beach beneath. the lights of a yacht several miles out glitter against the dark horizon. the air hangs still and listless, hung between the passing maestrale and the coming scirocco. these are weeks of constant change and volatility for stromboli.

just before eleven i set out on the mule track to punta u brunzu. as is my wont i carried no torch. the night is moonless but once my eyes have habituated themselves the starlight is enough to sense the outline of the path in peripheral vision. i enjoy the heightened sense and alertness that comes with this. one’s feet become like cats’ whiskers, sensing with each step for a loose stone or unexpected root, ready to reply in a moment by switching weight or springing aside. in the absence of artificial light one walks in a world bounded by stars and the wide horizon, whilst a torch shrinks one’s awareness down to the immediate cone of light. tonight the island’s air is thick with the perfume of bushes and shrubs still verdant from the winter’s rain.

having reached punta la brunzu i spent an hour and a half sitting on the helipad watching the volcano. two craters emit a continuous red glow, the pulsing light indicating that magma is close to the surface. one of these, to the ginostra side, erupts every fifteen minutes or so with a broad orange fountain of lava several hundred metres high. the other, to the stromboli side, erupts less frequently with a narrow white-hot jet of similar height, accompanied by a terrifying report and roar. walking up the sky was clear and bristling with stars. as i reached the helipad the whole sky became covered with cloud and within ten minutes not a star was visible. an hour later the cloud dissolved as swiftly as it had appeared and the full panoply of stars was revealed once more.

when i arrived on saturday it was serene and sunny. that night a strong scirocco sprang up and easter sunday saw huge waves crashing on the beaches at punta lena and scari. the waves were breaking over the quay so the island was completely cut off. the evening brought heavy rain. then on monday the wind and waves subsided but later in the day a maestrale sprang up and blew through the night throwing the sea against the rocks here at piscita. this in turn dropped off and tuesday was a glorious day of intense sun. everyone on the island has changed colour, myself included. again today again was hot. tomorrow another scirocco is expected.

to my delight caroline was was able to come over from saturday until tuesday, joining the small group of friends who have visited me on both islands of st agnes and stromboli. meanwhile almost all my stromboli friends are here and there has been the usual thrill of catching up with each other’s lives and adventures. it remains a thing of wonder that so many years after i left the island and returned to london it still feels like i have a life here. after two days gathering threads and absorbing myself into the island’s rhythm it’s as if i never left. every time i come here i’m confronted with this parallel life and the opportunity to pick it up again. but every time it’s clear to me that my path still lies with the complexity and abstraction of my other life and to that i willingly return.

this visit has been particularly freighted with memories. paolo kindly let me stay in his beautiful little house on the lava promontory overlooking spiaggia lunga, which was my first house on stromboli. i lived here for my first six months, my first winter. at this table i wrote the specifications for the school for social entrepreneurs’ learning web in november 2001. in this room i was joined by friends from all over the world to celebrate the arrival of 2002. in this room i learned of michael’s death in january 2002 and constructed my simple shrine as a focus for my mourning.

it was cold on monday evening so i lit the wood-burning stove. i remember it being delivered from lipari and installed by paolo. the only other time i’ve stayed in this house was in june 2003 when sergio and i stayed here for my final week before moving back to london. we organised a huge dinner on the terrace for my friends. sergio and i cooked far too much food including a vast rice salad which ended up being fed to the fishes.

tonight is my last on stromboli for now. i declined several dinner invitations to be here on my own. this afternoon i collected the huge painting of neptune that antonio’s been working on for the past year. it will hang above my piano in london.

: c :

[ 22:13 friday 29 august – ginostra, isola di stromboli ]

it’s eight years since i last spent a night here in the tiny village of ginostra, huddled the opposite side of the island from stromboli’s principal settlement. back then there was no electricity and no quay big enough to accommodate the ferries and hydrofoils which ply the rest of the archipelago. having a shower meant pumping a lever for five minutes to fill a header tank. houses were lit in the evening by paraffin lamps and candles. mobile phones were turned on for just a few minutes a day and could be taken to gian luca for recharging via his solar panel for a modest fee. ginostra has historically attracted a particular class of tourist, predominantly wealthy intellectuals from milan, florence and bologna. they came to live in ginostra for a month or two each year during july and august, a self-conscious retreat from the hubbub of the modern world. they would dress in simple clothes, eat simple food and positively relish the non- electrified inconvenience of the place.

this is what i found when i came eight years ago. the peculiar intensity of the location and the bizarre community there gathered represented a fascinating blend of real and artificial to me. only thirty people lived there all through the year, too few to be a viable community in its own right. they were more like stage-hands, keeping the wings swept tidy and sustaining the illusion of a real village for the gratification of the ethereal summer residents. more than anything it brought to mind marie-antoinette with her shepherdess fantasies at versailles.

that was in the august of two thousand during my very first visit to stromboli. now, eight years later, many things have changed in ginostra. during a fateful san remo festival, broadcast live to the italian nation, a plea went out that the people of ginostra should be provided with electricity that they might share in the delights of the festival. the machinery of the italian state duly creaked into action and a huge solar generation facility was installed. as a result the houses now have electric lighting, hot and cold running water and televisions. mobile phones remain turned on throughout the day. at the same time a huge cement quay was being constructed, dwarfing the old harbour (the “pertusa”) which is suspected to be the tiniest in the world. five hydrofoil services a day now dock at ginostra during the summer months, with ferries arriving three times a week.

other things remain unchanged. there are no roads, no motor vehicles and no street lights. everything arriving at the new quay is still carried up the steep cliffside on the back of a mule. after midnight the village is immersed in an intoxicating silence, even in august. but the advent of electricity and easy transport have upset the previous delicate equilibrium in which tourism was poised. life in ginostra no longer demands such an exacting or spartan sensibility. different people are coming, seeking different pleasures. being here the last few days it has sometimes felt as if an unusually chic suburb of milan had been transplanted to this remote outpost, preserving its complex web of parties, social obligations and status distinctions intact. this is no less surreal than the marie-antoinette fantasy i found before but i cannot help but reflect that its aesthetic qualities are somewhat diminished.

personally my preference has been to seek a certain pensive solitude. right now i sit writing by candlelight on the terrace of the house where i’ve been staying the last few days. ripe bunches of musty purple grapes hang from the vines entwining the roof. the sea stretches dark before me with the lights of the other six islands in the archipelago glimmering on the horizon. a million stars blaze above me with an occasional flash of silent lightning to my left. the air is hot and humid, sweet with the perfume of fallen prickly pears fermenting on the path in front of the house.

for me this is not an idle vacation. there are many choices to make about the next chapter in trampoline’s development. i have come here to unclutter my mind and see things with a clearer perspective. during that first stay in ginostra eight years ago i wrote the specifications for the simple prototype system which was destined to be the seed that later sprouted into trampoline and has consumed these last years. It is fitting that this should be the place to which i return now to consider where the path leads next.

it’s not all been work, though. on wednesday evening i gave a little performance of bach’s goldberg variations for the crowd at stromboli’s bookshop and on the street outside, for which i was accompanied by several cockerels gathered in the neighbouring garden. also gusti has brought a clutch of fire jugglers and artists to the island who are giving a series of performances. and these last days in ginostra i’ve spent many hours sitting on rocks, swimming in the azure water and reading. last night at half past midnight i decided to go to punta u corvu and watch the volcano erupt. i’d never been there before and ginostra is a maze of paths and alleyways but after a variety of wrong turnings my instinct led me where i wanted to go. i sat there an hour or so watching the lava arcing gracefully into the air and everything fell into place around me.

: c :

[ 19:33 friday 8 september – stromboli ]

i’m on top of the volcano with irena, angelo and their two dogs niki and tano. we got here half an hour ago after a brisk ascent. the sun melted into the sea ten minutes ago but it’s still just about possible to see the islands of salina, filicudi and alicudi stretching away to the horizon.

we’re perched on the edge of the escarpment where it falls away to the craters below. the volcano’s more active than i’ve ever seen it. the westernmost crater has built up a lava cone with a constant glow of magma inside. every ten minutes or so there’s a blast of gas followed by a deafening roar as a jet of magma shoots vertically upward. thirty seconds later we’re dusted by a shower of fine grit falling from the sky. a second crater ejects a more typical fan-shaped eruption every twenty minutes and a third wide-mouthed crater makes a deep explosive boom, scattering lava in all diirections.

i don’t stand a chance of describing what it’s like to be here so i’d better shut up.

: c :

[ 02:15 friday 5 may – stromboli ]

i’m wedged between rocks about eight hundred metres up the volcano, on my own.  scrambling up the scree on hands and knees a few minutes ago i was suddenly engulfed in thick cloud. visibility is down to three metres. the wind whips and tugs from unpredictable directions. from time to time there’s the roar of an eruption, above me to the left, and the cloud glows orange. it’s cold. the rocks glisten with moisture. i feel completely alone.

as i write, the clouds open above me and the vast mantle of stars is unveiled, but i know the cloud may close around me again at any moment.

i was planning to go to the summit tonight but this is the first time i’ve come up alone and the cloud is scaring me. even in clear conditions it’s easy to lose your way up here and find yourself on the edge of a precipice.

03:33 / the last hour has been hard work. after writing the previous entry i agonised about whether to carry on upwards or give in. finally i couldn’t resist being so close to the top and started scrambling upward again. sure enough the cloud closed around me five minutes later, punishing me for my arrogance. since then i’ve been painstakingly picking my way down the mountainside, straining to pick out the path (such as it is). several times i’ve erred and had to retrace my steps some distance. i never imagined i’d feel such gratitude for the occasional splashes of white paint left behind by consciencious guides.

the cloud extended about six hundred metres down the mountain and i only emerged a moment ago. looking with gratitude at the starry sky i was rewarded with the second-brightest meteorite i’ve ever seen, streaking across the mountain leaving a brilliant fizzing trail behind it. i made one hell of a wish.

04:40 / back home, relieved, tired.

[ 00:31 wednesday 3 may – punta u brunzu, stromboli ]

this is one of my favourite places in the world, though i don’t think i’ve ever written from here before. i’m sitting cross-legged on the corner of the helipad at punta u brunzu, a hundred metres above the sea at the northernmost tip of the island.

walking along the mule track to get here there’s a powerful sense of leaving the settlement behind, entering the wilder presence of the mountain. from here you see no houses, no lights. humanity feels far away.

all around me the bamboo rustles in the warm breeze. above me the inky sky is splashed with a million stars and a few wisps of cloud. behind me the sea stretches mysterious to the dark horizon. nesting gulls grumble on the cliff below. and dominating the scene, in front of me, rises the triangular silhouette of the volcano with its scar of bright fire on the right side of the apex.

it doesn’t matter how many times i sit here watching it, i still feel the same sense of incredulity and awe i felt the very first time. tonight it’s more active than i’ve ever seen it before. one crater is in continuous eruption, emitting a pulsing fan of lava. two of the other craters follow a more typical pattern, blasting out a jet of lava a hundred metres high every ten or fifteen minutes.

during the two years i lived on stromboli i came up here every week or so. when michael died i lit a catholic funerary candle here on the corner of the helipad and sat with it through the night. all my hopes and fears have been brought here over the years. my eyes have seen a thousand shooting stars. here everything is in proportion.

i watch as the final tip of the crescent moon sinks reddish beneath the horizon.

: c :