I am newly in love. That feeling of pain which sleeps in your stomach when you eat, sleep and breathe the thing which obsesses you. I am living it right now, and I want to keep it to myself. To hide the awe in which I behold this love: Corsica. It’s a land of secrets, and so many complexities. How did I ever live without it?
As you fly over France, you witness the Alps below like some sort of eruption- the white and black peaks daring to puncture the airplane. You feel edgy, comforted only by the blankets of clouds sweeping past, believing somehow they will lessen the fall. As suddenly as the Alps appear, they disappear. Then, the ocean: black, gleaming in the early summer sun. It whispers, ‘I can kill you,’ and you wonder if it will.
Then you search Corsica. A rugged thrust of an island, something you don’t want to tame. The rivers wind sexily down a thousand crevices of mountains, feeding themselves madly into rock pools with thunder and cascades, or with something like lust and seduction into the myriad of coves which meld with the Mediterranean.
I’ve read that Corsican’s refer to their east and west coasts as “over here” and “over there”. Or, “the land of the commons” and “the land of the lords”. To me, forever, Corsica will always be “over there, the land of the lords”. A god has kept it out of sight so a soul can roam it’s flavours without interruption, without haste, and without a German tourist clambering for every white seat it offers on the beach.
I flew into Figari, meeting the late day sun with a smile and some relief. England is cold, or cool, but so very rarely hot. In Figari, rather south and to the east of the island, the heat hovers over the tar, and mountains loom like familiar shadows in the sky. Not so far away is Porto Vecchio. It hides itself on a hill which slopes toward a small port. Ice cream and designer shoes line tiny streets cobbled with history and confused by culture- are these cobbles French? They sound it, with the quiet slick of the tongue. But Italian is mentioned, as you glide over the smoothed edges of the streets, into a piazza of sorts, with Catholic bells singing, and a sombre, cream stone chapel looking over your shoulder as you taste that thick oil, espresso, and wonder at the bitterness of it. Then you realise, quite suddenly, when the wine arrives- a buttery gold clustre of glistening stars in long glass: Corse. Corse. Corse. It slides down your throat and begs you to sing in any language you care to: Corsica.
I dare not mention it to many. I feel, honestly feel, it is my secret. My love and passion and something else wrapped up in this little piece of non-country (it’s part of France) I simply happened upon- ask my friends: they thought perhaps it was Cyprus, or Catalina, or Corfu…or Kosovo, in which I was travelling to. No. Whisper it, but don’t tell. I’m in
love with Corsica…
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