Notes on Nervi 1

 

We were swimming into the sea, passing the rocks, when Luca was stung by a medusa.

I am liking it here on the Ligurian coast. We are renting a couple of rooms in the E. condominiums in Nervi, which is a small town that got conglomerated into the greater town of Genova after the war.

It is hot. It is, I read, a climate emergency in England. It is also a climate emergency in Paris. If we were there, we’d stay inside during the brunt of the day. But we haven’t rented this place in Nervi to stay inside. We mean to swim, to walk the passagiata, to go get our pesto at the pesto specialty store, to eat pizza at the pizzeria downtown. There’s a large pool at the place where we are renting. Around it, retirees organize themselves on chaises longues and absorb sunlight. So much sunlight. Some are baked so deep it is hard to look at. Other guests have kids. There’s a diving board, but not too high. I impressed Adam by doing a jack knife. Then he worked up the courage to dive, and now it is no big deal.

We started out with our pasty white skins. And now we are getting suitably browned. We liberally splatter sun block on each other. We swim, and then we liberally splatter post sun cream on each other.

I do not wear shorts as a normal thing. I’m way past forty. I have tried to play the dignified older gentleman for a while. My innate goofiness comes through, but I believe in the role. However, I did go out and buy some pastel blue shorts, and now I walk down to the beach or to the pool with those on.

Before Luca got stung, as we were swimming, he told me that he liked Nervi’s combination of resort town and popularism – a clientele that was distinctly middle or working class. He told me he loved the faded resort buildings. Behind us was one – a white structure with a patio on which tables with  blue and white striped umbrellas abounded. It reminded me of the seacoast town scenes in Fellini’s Amorcord. I think Amorcord is my favorite Fellini film. I love the collective life in it, the absurdities.

Luca remembers playing among the craggy boulders here that stick out into the sea. He was a kid. He’d jump from one to another, while his parents walked the passagiata. It looks dangerous to me, jumping around on the boulders.

Still, there are people who spread towels on the boulders, who jump from them into the sea. Umbrellas are put up. A jaunty air becomes general. In the distance, a mountainous crag runs down to the sea. It is bluish, reflecting the water.

Luxury and vulgarity, these are the two cardinal points of the beach utopia.