di_mare Special K May 29, 2001 - 12:05pm, Monterosso station We ride for 15 or 20 minutes through a dark tunnel through the heart of a mountain, and when we emerge it is to blinding sunlight and land's end – at last, we have reached the sea. Children in our car spring from their seats and climb to the windows, where they press their faces to the glass beside simultaneously-transfixed adults, already agog at the endless blue-grey ocean. The word is whispered in a half-dozen native tongues, and the ecstacy is palpable. Crazy cliffs and mountains of rock spread for miles, dipping in and out of a calm shoreline. We still have another hour to go to get to our stop, but as the train pulls into Monterosso station there is a frantic exodus as our car –and maybe even the entire train– bolts for the rocky shore and the mild chop of the surf. The trees have gone from cypress to palm, and as we cross a bridge in Chiavari I can taste the salty air. It reminds me of home, my childhood, my father. Someone else's memories that I replay like a movie, or maybe it's just a flipbook of the photos I've seen: One of my mother during the flood, two of my father, the house where we lived by the bay. Days that tasted like salt, and petrol, and tarmac, and Coppertone; nights of lapping water, and moon tides, and jellyfish. A life long gone, never to be reclaimed, that has left precious little evidence behind in the wake. I try to think about lunch, instead. 010606 what's it to you? who go blather from