THE BLIND GIRL OF POMPEII

I have traded cows and grasses for goats and ferns. Alpine air for sweetly spiced thermals that sweep through Ticino's valleys where the sun lingers, taking extra care to attend to all its verdant disciples.  Every human is a gardener here. Tomatoes, grapes, squash, and all manner of beans weave through trellises, wrap around fence posts, and hasten  towards the sun. This is no rectilinear, monocrop operation. Whether moved by wisdom or wine, the locals here have scattered their harvests in the most precarious and strikingly organic fashion. So imperceptible is the boundary between the cultivated and the native flora that a passerby would be forgiven for helping themselves to the bounty. having no ability to discern a blackberry bush tended to by God or Giuseppe 

The valley is awash with a kind of song--a symphony of wind strummed leaves and the groan of old heartwood pestered into dance like an arthritic Nono at a family gathering. This place feels much more like home than any other in Switzerland so far, in fact were it not for the occasional red and white flag one could easily assume this land to be Italian, the food certainly is. In fact, the language, the attitude, the traffic...are all characteristically Italian. Even the weight of humanity on the land is distinctly Italian. Whereas in German Switzerland the infrastructure exudes intention, a careful study of geometry and material science, here the people live as if they had set roots wherever the wind had scattered them.  In every crook, crevice, and cranny on the wooded slopes of the valley lie stone hamlets. Many abandoned and yet even those that are inhabited belie little hint that they know in which country their denizen was born. Stacked stone walls and tiered slate shingles prevail in this valley stuck out of time. The goats are tended to by little more than wood stave fences and the berry brambles that buttress the cliffs edge. 

There are no roads to these hamlets, and you will not hear the hum of power lines or the drone of engines. Everyone here makes the journey by foot, picking their way along single-track trails and switchbacks. Erected along the path are shrines to the Virgin Mary. Some are over 200 years old and yet their sun drenched frescos are alive with rich hues of blue and red. Whether their potency is a testament to their divine provenance, or to the stewardship of the locals--the shrines make the ascent into the valley a spiritual experience even for the agnostic.

In so many ways this land called to me. Conjured in my mind the possibility of a life much different from the one waiting for me at home. A life led at the pace of my stride, and with burdens limited to what I could carry on my back. There's something in the water here, that eradicates the existential like an antiseptic. Unimportant questions faded away, hypotheticals and doubts sublimated from my being with each deepening exhale until I was left beautifully and overwhelmingly grounded. Every stone I encountered stayed quite happily unmolested, I cared not for what may lay under them, in this valley of ferns and sun, I was whole.