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The Devouring Sea and the Nothing We Leave Behind
There’s no legacy when change is the only law
The wind knows exactly what it’s doing.
Today, it’s a vente d’Espagne, a warm wind from the south that carries the scent of olives and grilled sardines over the crumpled mountains. But it’s turning. Turning to the east, transforming into a full-throated tramontana, the wild wind that drives men mad.
But the sea doesn’t listen to a word the wind says.
Sometimes, the wind rages and doesn’t disturb the blue, salty surface of the sea. Sometimes, the sea hurls itself at the town, thrown back by the breakwaters into towers of glittering crystal — and the wind barely says a word.
Don’t believe that the Mediterranean can’t rage when it wants to. It’s not the Great Ocean that swallows tankers and cruisers and cities whole. But the floor of the sea here still bristles with thousands of years of dead men’s bones.
I’ll probably leave the house to her.
If I still have a house to leave. This house that lived through both world wars, that sat solid and silent while Nazi soldiers sang the Horst Wessel song and smashed bottles in the concrete bunker you can still see on the hill behind the town.
