Happy Tuesday, my friends. Thanks for being here, your support is amazing and means a lot to me.
This week I want to share with you an idea, something new and, maybe, a little weird. I prepared an interview with my friend Joe about his poetry and his life. When I was thinking of how I could present it to you, I came up with the idea of turning it into a little story. What you will read is a mix of fiction and reality. Joe’s answers to my questions are 100% real. The “environment” comes out straight from my imagination.
Since the story is pretty long, I divided it into two parts, the second being issued next week.
Enjoy!
I was sitting on one of the red-covered chairs of the American Airlines lounge at the Orlando International Airport. I was exhausted from the long day that started many hours before in Milan when a first flight took me to Rome and then to my current seat. The wait for my next flight was planned to be only a couple of hours, but the approaching of a huge hurricane forced the carrier to delay the take-off until more precise info about the landfall time and location was supplied. I was trying to rest a little when the screens on the other side of the room beeped. The flight to San Francisco, my final destination, had finally been cancelled. I grabbed my hand baggage and made my way to the customer care desk to get some more info. A few steps and I felt like I was pulling a block of stone to the top of a pyramid. Winds, I could see it from the wide windows on the corridor that led me to the desk, were getting stronger and stronger and the palm trees were starting to seriously bend under the gusts. Idalia (the hurricane) must have been closer than I thought. After a quick chat with the lady at the customer service, I was informed that I could reach San Francisco only the next day if no damage would be registered in the meantime. She offered me a night at one of the many hotels used by the company in situations like this and then called me a taxi. While the driver was screaming at all the other cars on the street, I picked up the iPhone from my pocket and recalled a name from the contacts.
“Hey, Joe! What’s up, man?”. ”Matteo! All good here, just waiting for Idalia to arrive” he replied. ”Don’t tell me…I landed in Orlando a few hours ago and then my flight to San Francisco got cancelled. I’ll be a host of American Airlines customer service until tomorrow when I should be able to leave for San Francisco.”. I’ve never met Joe in person, we have only had a virtual friendship over social networks, but knowing I was often travelling to the US for my job, he left me his phone number during one of our chats. ”I was thinking”, I continued, “are you free for a beer and some talks tonight?”. ”Sure, that’s a great idea! We can finally meet up and make a proper introduction!”. We had a plan. I closed the call and relaxed for the rest of the drive.
Joe is a 67-year-old man, born in a small hilltop town in southern Italy called Calitri. During our online conversations, I learnt he travelled a lot in his life. He first moved to Sursee/St Erhard in Switzerland to join the rest of the family at the age of 9, and then, at 12, they emigrated to Sydney, Australia on a one-month-long ship journey.
He told me he grew up in a small farm on the outskirts of the city: that was not an easy life, but a rewarding one. He began to travel at 21 discovering the East Coast of Australia until, one year later, he decided to return to his roots and head back to Italy. He returned to Australia only 20 years later, first to Kojonup, a small rural town in Western Australia, and then to Katoomba, a beautiful scenic town in The Blue Mountains, just 2 hrs west of Sydney. His wedding, celebrated back when he was in Europe, and which also saw the birth of his one and only child, ended after 25 years. In 2011, he met the lady he calls his twin soul and, after 4 years of a long-distance relationship, he permanently moved to Orlando, Florida.
I remember, when he told me about all of this, I realised he had seen 10 times the places and lived 10 times the adventures I had seen and lived.
I was lingering in these thoughts when I saw the big board of my hotel appearing through the window. When he stopped the car in front of the entrance, I paid the taxi driver and recognised I was desperately needing a shower and a nap.
When the alarm rang, it was almost dinner time. Watching outside, I noticed that the wind was not as impetuous as it was before. Turning the news on, I was happy to hear that Idalia changed its course and was now moving west following the coastline directed to the Gulf. I quickly got ready and went down to the restaurant.
I don’t like to consume my meals alone. For this reason, when I’m travelling for work, I try to take quick ones and then go out and enjoy the places I’m visiting. This was no exception. I had my dinner as fast as an Olympic runner and then moved to the bar of the hotel. I took a seat in a quiet corner and waited for my friend to arrive.
***
The young and elegant waitress of the hotel had just left my beer on the table when I saw Joe entering the bar and looking around to find me. I stood up and shook my hand to catch his attention. ”Hey buddy! I kept a seat for you” I said when he joined me at the table. ”But I see you didn’t order a beer for me!” he replied with a smile. ”Ha! You’re right! Let me do that now!” In a few minutes he was also served and we spent the time of the first pint talking about socials, the queue of relatively small damages left by the hurricane and why I was there in the US.
When the second beer appeared in front of us, I asked him: ”Man, you’ve told me something about you already, but when did your love for poetry start?”
“I feel like poetry has always been in my soul. My need to express my emotions has been with me from very early on. Even as a little “bambino” in my birth town of Calitri, I was known as the kid with the vivid imagination and storytelling. I wrote my very first short story about a rat and a jar of Italian sausages at the age of nine. When I returned to Calitri as a 22-year-old, all my old school friends still remembered me because of that story, and the fact our teacher kept hounding them to be more creative, like Giuseppe.”
“Ha! You have to share that story. I’m now curious to read it! So you’ve been a poet since always.”
“Well, writing took a back seat for me, while I tried to adjust to new countries, languages and lifestyles as a reluctant migrant, and not always successfully. Firstly when we moved to Switzerland and then to Australia. I began writing again in my teens while on the farm. I remember my first attempt was a poem about the sadness of memories. I longed for my old childhood in Calitri. During my high school days, my friends and I started a band based on Queen. Even though no one could play an instrument. I did write about a dozen songs. None thankfully survived, hahaha”
“Ahahaha man, I also had a band when I was a teenager. I used to play the guitar – which is now collecting dust under my son’s bed – and, as you can see, it led to nothing else but fun” I replied.
He smiled back and continued with his story. “When I turned 18 I left home, shared a small apartment in Bondi Beach and started my first job, working in the Green Room of the Sydney Opera House.
At the age of 21, I began my travelling career. I spent a year travelling the east coast of Australia, working on road constructions and tobacco picking. By age 22 my traveling bug got into full swing. I told my family I was going back to rekindle my connection to my birthplace, Italy. It was meant to be a 6 to 8 months trip. I never saw my family again for 20 years. I boarded a plane for the very first time and landed finally in Rome, then a connecting flight to Naples, and eventually to Calitri. Sounds simple enough, but in Italy simple is always complicated.”
“That I perfectly know. I live there and I’ve got enough life behind me to tell you it’s not going to be better any time soon” I said.
“After almost a couple of years hitchhiking through Italy and other parts of Europe, I ended up in London.”
“Oh wow! I can’t imagine myself doing anything similar. I’ve always been too comfortable in my life to dare such adventures. But, man, after I visited London for the first time, I thought it was like no other place I had seen before.”
“London in the 80s was more of an educational experience than a life. I spent a large part of my time surrounded by artists, actors and musicians, and later on photographers. I began writing again, but only in short moments. Life for me was going at a breakneck speed, and I loved it so much, I didn’t want to miss any of it. I soaked up everything that was thrown at me and still asked for more. After working three brutal winters as a building construction worker, as well as an assortment of other interesting, but very ungratifying jobs, like bartender, window cleaner, Health Club attendant, selling homemade jewellery, and antique furniture restorer, I stumbled upon a job that changed my life. I was offered the opportunity to work as an E6 Photographic Laboratory Assistant.
Push One, as it was called, was a photo laboratory for professional photographers. It offered a high-quality E6 film (transparencies) processing service, as well as film supply and off-site black and white development, and printing. It also came with door-to-door service and a rentable daylight studio. This was a whole new world to me. The only thing I knew about photography at the time was shooting and sending the film to so unknown location to have it developed, and then waiting.”
“I kinda know the feeling.” I said. “It’s exactly what I felt like when I was younger and had my vacation pictures sent to the ‘photographer’ to develop the negatives and get my images back. I’ve never understood (or even wanted to understand) the magic behind it since a few years ago.”
“On top of learning this whole new way of processing films, I was exposed to some of the biggest names in professional photography. From advertising, fashion, cooking, album covers, band shoots, news, catalogues, cars, as well as some very interesting experimental work. After a few days, I realized that I figured out the workings of this job like a duck understands water. It just all made sense to me. My understanding of the developing process made me responsible for quality control. That was a huge responsibility, for the reputation of a place like this rested on the ability to give not only great quality but do it consistently. I’m proud to say I rose to the challenge and I received a number of awards from all the major companies of the time, like Kodak, Agfa, Fuji, and Ilford, for high and consistent quality of film processing”.
“That’s amazing! Gosh, listening to your story I realise how little my knowledge and my experiences are. And we’re just in the 80s…there are still 40 years of life to go!”
I was truly astonished. The beers had been gone for quite some time now. He was so much into his story and I was so much hungrily listening to it that we didn’t realise how fast time was flying.
I took a quick look at the watch and asked him if he could stay longer. This story was so incredible and interesting I could not leave it unfinished. He also checked the time and said he could tell me the rest, but first had to take a small break.
He grabbed his phone and walked a few steps away to make a private call.
I hope you are enjoying the read of Joe’s life as much as I loved knowing from him. Second part to come with the next post.
Meanwhile, you can have a look at Joe’s work here.
