Jesus! Will someone get me out of here? I’m being raped by intoxicating beauty, inconceivable tranquility, warm hospitality and a depthof cultural and historical immersion that contextualises post-war Europe, while at the same time illuminating that the counterpoint of existential pain is humans’ deep capacity for happiness.
The thing is, yes, I suppose staying in a rustic 250-year-old villa in Tuscany bathed in soft light, kissed by gentle sun and grazing on heavenly food would be OK – if you were a masochist constantly chasing a new level of pain. Tuscany? What a hole! I long for the bliss of watching families withskin the colour of phlegm huddled around food-court tables groaning under the weight of deep-fried food and drinking Coke out of buckets; for news of gangland scrag fights and the dulcet tones of talkback callers alerting all to their inflated sense of self-importance by beginning their fifteen seconds of fame with‘I don’t normally agree withyou, Derryn, but in this case you’re spot-on …’ Maybe perverts get off on wandering through sun-dappled forests picking wild strawberries and lying under cherry trees reading books, wine glass in hand, while birds chirp brightly. But not me. How anyone can find such relentless beauty anything other than a violent infringement of human rights is beyond me. As I take a break from my punishing schedule – ten hours’ sleep, three glasses of wine and a book a day – to reach up and pick some of the glossy, sweet red jewels hanging from the boughs shading me as I doze, I can’t help feeling sick withdisgust as butterflies dance around me and poppies spring up before my very eyes. Kill me now.
In the distance my ridiculously handsome and excruciatingly delightful host beckons me to a table he’s laid withcheese, freshly baked bread, fruit, wine and grilled fish under a grapevine-covered pergola on a stone terrace dotted withpots of red geraniums. As I wander up the hill I bravely strap on the fake smile to endure the suffocation of yet another evening of charming hospitality that makes me feel as if I’m being bludgeoned to deathby a romantic cliché. When it all gets too much I escape from my hell by fantasising I’m in a traffic jam in Moorabbin, trapped in a car that smells like Kim Beazley’s scrotum.
God forbid I become one of those people who spends a week in Italy and comes back peppering every sentence withwords like cinghiale (wild boar), faina (a possum-like cross between a squirrel and the cutest thing you’ve ever seen) and retto pruriginoso (rectal itch. Don’t ask. But what a hilarious story of language barriers, synthetic underwear, miming and my inability to break up my predictable and mind-numbing travel anecdotes).
How tiresome would it be for me to suddenly start plonking lines into columns about eating panini con rucola, prosciutto e formaggio con bicchieri di vino withthe arrogant assumption that, of course, everyone understands a sentence I couldn’t ten days ago.
Last night, as we finished our simple but sumptuous candlelit meal of carciofi, involtini di pollo e pannacotta, drinking prosecco, the stifling oppression of warm chat and hilarious anecdotes was abruptly interrupted by the sudden appearance of fireflies, giving the effect of being embraced by hundreds of floating, twinkling fairy lights. As I stood assaulted by this magical spectacle, I found myself closing my eyes, clicking my heels three times and chanting, ‘There’s no place like Craigieburn. There’s no place like Craigieburn.’
Being somewhere as horrifically beautiful and visually mined as Tuscany makes you feel as if you’re in the capable hands of the Dipartimento di Cliché. Sitting al fresco enjoying a caffe surrounded by rolling hills dotted withvineyards, cypress trees, olive groves and stone villas, I felt as if I’d been drugged and strapped into a virtual reality experience. I’m in no doubt the entire mise en scène (don’t mind me while I slip between languages – it appears I’m trilingual!) was a computer-generated image.
After watching movies such as Under the Tuscan Sun and reading those books middle-aged women devour to escape their lives as slaves and emotional potties in suburbs ending in the word Heights, you can’t help feeling ripped off . Because it’s exactly the same as the movie. But this time, you’re in it. Don’t pity me. Just send dim sims and football scores.