Lens-Artists PC: As memorable as they come

I’ve got some moments in my life that I will never forget but this one I can not only never forget but also still feel after almost nine years.

Double surprise

On my first birthday in Tuscany, one month after I moved there for amore, I am waiting for him to come home from work. He works in Rome, one hour and a half away by everything.

Even though usually he cooks, the dinner is nearly ready, only pasta is left to be boiled. But he keeps missing his trains, postponing his arrival. I don’t get it. Finally he informs me that his train will come around 11 pm. Our car is waiting for him at the station.

When I hear the car arrive outside our home, something is off. I hear voices. There is nobody living around here, you don’t just bump into people that late. Who could that be with him? I go out. We don’t even have bestia yet. I open the gate – and let out a little shriek, as a wounded animal would.

My parents are standing outside by the car, as if someone beamed them up. It was him, amore, who did it, met their train in Rome, arranged everything behind my back, and I never saw it coming. I have to hold on to the gate. It is probably the closest I have ever come to fainting.

It’s not just that my parents are here. And they are! They stay two nights and we only have one day together. But they can finally see what in the middle of nowhere means in my case. What a nice home we have. How good it is. How cold it is, even thought it is middle of May, almost in Africa. That is the point, that is the big surprise and the perfect present.

But another lurking surprise let itself be known: He is good. He is slick. He is so good at hiding things that I don’t ever need to worry. Unless he makes sure I do, it’s not that I will ever find out.

---

These photos are from the visit in question in May 2013. Dad took the ones with me in them. Our one evening, one day and one morning went by so quickly and they had to board the train and leave again. They returned often but not since 2018.

Thank you, Leya, for a chance to revisit this memory. Your desert is splendid.

• 

  Until I moved to Tuscany at 43 I had never been away from them for longer than a month.

• 

  The view from Capalbio.

• 

  Looking up in Capalbio.

• 

  Niki de Saint Phalle’s Nana.

• 

  Dad does it better.

• 

  Happy mom posing.

• 

  Dad is always on the lookout.

• 

  This access to the beach looks completely different now.

• 

  Mom picked me flowers.

• 

  Costa d’Argento, Silver Coast. You can see why.

• 

  Dad caught me watching the sea.

• 

  The end of our beach at Ansedonia.

• 

  Salad is the only thing I can make beside a blog.

• 

  Mom is saying: “What? I must leave already?”

• 

  “Then I better quickly rap some more.”

• 

  Was it just a dream?

For Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, hosted by Leya: Memorable Events

This day in my blogging history

• 

  2015: The view from my parents’ doorstep in Ljubljana

• 

  2016: The astonishing Future Library project.

  A word after a word after a word is power. —Margaret Atwood

• 

  2017: March 2016 in 12 images for my Calendar

• 

  2018: My first face-to-face with an Ibis plus some flamingos

• 

  2019: The first batch of Thursday Doors from Tatti. That was my parents’ last visit.

Advertisement