Junk Drawer

On the train from the airport to Rome, I see the view through a veil of distracting thoughts. Organisational morale, purpose, effectiveness, am I living my values or am I choosing an easy life? It always takes a while for me to shake off the every day overthinking. We pass a hospital that was once a 17th century papal residency. The blackened metal shell of an old factory. Corn-like stalks line the tracks all the way to town.

On the train to the port, a laddish guy with a goatee and sunglasses goes on a long rant, I only make out beetcoin from the quick flurry of Italian. On the left, the sea flashes in and out of view.

On the ferry to the island, we have three beers and feel the thrill of going somewhere hard to reach. We are on the final leg of our journey to Isola del Giglio, a tiny island off the Tuscan coast. We are celebrating ten years of marriage. We do not bring Luna, but I bring four books and some oil pastels.

We watch the France Spain semi-final on the only TV in Porto Giglio. Tourists, locals, old and young gather around the screen at Bar Pierina, where an extension cord and broadband box are zip tied precariously to its legs. A single nudge would ruin the whole operation. A group of ever-multiplying teen boys sit in the front row, each arriving with an elaborate crêpe from the crêpe stand and initiating a full seating reshuffle. One brings a speaker and each time Mbappe comes on screen plays the tagline of the parody song Kylian dictateur. It kills with the front row each time. Clusters of teen girls, every one in a white top, jean shorts and cowboy boots, hover on either side of the boys, texting each other and having full conversations with their eyes across this young male sea. I am more invested in this game than the football.

Francesco sorts us out with a boat for a day. It’s a motor boat with a steering wheel, a clutch and three gears: forward, neutral and reverse. The only qualification for driving it is answering yes to the question have you driven before? We are enamoured with our vessel and circle the island. The first time we anchor, we follow the instruction to face the wind. We settle in the vicinity of another boat, thinking we are far enough away, then botch the drop and drift towards them. The large group of people on the other boat, all draped coolly and wearing Ray Bans, watch our whole operation, unimpressed. The drift becomes a clear path, and as our boat is about to make contact with theirs, Chief Ray Ban sticks an arm out and wordlessly pushes us away. I muster a giggly sorry! as we clumsily pull up our anchor and drive away in shame. My consolation is the fresh mozzarella and tomato I brought for the journey. I rip off soft pieces, milky liquid and tomato juice everywhere, but it is the juiciest most delicious cheese I have ever eaten and the most flavourful tomato and we’re flying over waves, tracing the stone and the green of the shore, and it is exquisite.

Caldane beach is a forty minute walk from the port, twenty minutes along a hilly road, and a further twenty clambering over rocks. You must work for the reward of its sandy hideaway. On this trek, we recall the best beaches we’ve been to together considering swimmability, chillness of vibe and general vistas, among other factors. We agree Sri Lanka, Australia and Bermuda rank highly across all metrics and are humbled by all the stunning sandy corners of the world we’ve been able to see. Parched on arrival, the umbrella lady reassured us there are beers all time. Dunk, read, sip, snooze.

My feet sink into the sand as I step into the water, which gets deep quickly. I float on my back. I am an island. My face, belly and thighs are the land that sit above the sea, the rest of my body is the more expansive ground below the surface. My eyes closed and ears underwater, the waves feel like they’re tugging me out out out to the middle of the ocean. I open my eyes and find I’m still at the shore.

Daniel introduces me to the phrase il dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing. This is one of many things he has helped me embrace over our years together.

We do a lot of nothing, or close to it. We flow from bed to breakfast to beach. We do a lot in quiet. Our silence is peaceful, but at some point I start to feel unsettled. I feel distant. I feel guilty for feeling anything but relaxed and deeply in love.

Our companionship has been punctuated by hard conversations at key moments. They are not scheduled, they usually bubble up when one of us, usually me, is feeling restless about something. We talk about what we’re feeling or thinking about, however scary it might seem to say.

I launch into one of these easy breezy chats on our hotel balcony overlooking the boats in the port and the cactus in the neighbour’s yard. It only works if we give into it fully. The only thing that allows us to find our way back is total vulnerability, surrendering to the unknown, opening up to the new territory the other one is introducing.

We realise we both felt a lot of unspoken pressure around this trip. Pressure to instantly fall back into an easy rhythm with just the two of us when it hasn’t been that way for nearly three years. Pressure to make every moment of this time live up to the majesty of the occasion.

Often naming the feeling strips it of its power. Often we discover that the unpleasant thing one of us is holding, is something we actually share in a strange, unexpected way.

We travel like we build our life together, intuitively and joyfully. And when it doesn’t feel like either, we talk about it. We listen and challenge and stay in it and muddle through and then land in a stronger place. I am never more proud of us and our relationship than in these moments. It’s strangely fitting that we do this here, in this idyllic place where we celebrate ten years of the commitment to a lifetime together. Nothing gives me more faith in that commitment than our resilience. Beauty, comfort and fun abound, but we couldn’t do a whole life if we couldn’t withstand the hard and messy bits. That’s when love feels most like a verb, feels its most real and in the room, hard at work, something we are practicing, stretching, growing. It’s when I know in my bones that ours is built to last.

There isn’t a final word or grand conclusion. Slowly things feel lighter and we feel closer. Love settles itself back into easy silence. We read our books.

We spend the actual date of our anniversary at Fontuccia vineyard. Giglio is covered in vineyards that grow the ansonica grape. Some small and scrappy produce just enough for family and friends. Some slightly more official produce in the low thousands of bottles, supplying just the restaurants and bars of Giglio. They can’t be bothered with marketing, and no one wants to be bigger than they need to be. This small and slow approach is one I increasingly seek out. As we sip generous pours of 2-day, 4-day, and 6-month skin contact wines, we make holiday friends with fellow travellers, sharing silly snippets of our lives. The view is breathtaking. Italy is the only place I’ve been where you can’t tell the difference between the sea and sky at sunset.

I go for a final swim on the morning we leave. It’s 6am and cloudy, the water is liquid silver reflecting the reluctant sun behind the clouds. I watch my toes dance along the rocks along the seafloor. I lie back. I am an island one last time.