The cursor is madly shaking as I write this, and my hatred of the world of modern computers is almost uncontrollable, and the Chinese woman at the screen near me in the Salerno Mailboxes seems to be going mad as well, but I have to go on writing my wretched blog because the television programme about me and my mother is soon to be shown: on Crime and Investigation Network, at 9p.m. next Tuesday, 13th September 2011.
Oddly enough, that date is the ninth anniversary of my mother's death, which seems appropriate, because this programme - which is called "The Last Will of Maria Hills" - is about her almost as much as it is about me. How strange that, after so many postponements, they have fixed it for her death day.
And it may be my death day as well if I have to stay much longer in this modern hell of an internet and phone agency. The Chinese woman is alternately shouting and crying to someone over her headphones, someone has just sat down unpleasantly close to me, and a vast multiracial crowd was only recently at the counter waiting hopelessly to be served. Italy is a beautiful country, but in its modern incarnation it is among the most crowded and pressurised of European states.
Nevertheless, it can be so beautiful. This morning I went to Paestum where the three Greek temples rise from the ruins of the ancient city. Once you pass through the sunny walls you are in a different world, and the calm and serenity are unbelievable.
Most moving of all are the ancient paintings from the Tomb of the Diver, which are unique Greek pictorial art of the fifth century BC. One shows young men making love to each other at a symposium and another them following a flute girl, but the most significant of all is of the diver himself aiming for the pool of death. We cannot doubt as we look at this wonderful work of art that he will come up to the surface with a fuller understanding of things and a new life in union with the infinite.
But before I myself aim for the pool of death, I am going to be a television star. It is with great hope and only a little fear that I contemplate seeing and hearing myself on the screen. Millions of others will also be able to watch in HD and perhaps they will see every chance stain on the colourful shirt and smart trousers I acquired in Otranto on the day of the filming to face the camera. What will they think of me? More important, will it encourage them to want to read the things I write, which to me, as to many writers, are like the children I never had?
I will say no more about my writings. They must make their own way, and I must let them go. But if watching the programme stimulates you to explore what I have published under the name of C.A.R. Hills, or to accept further works of mine, it will have more than fulfilled the hopes I repose in it.
Oddly enough, that date is the ninth anniversary of my mother's death, which seems appropriate, because this programme - which is called "The Last Will of Maria Hills" - is about her almost as much as it is about me. How strange that, after so many postponements, they have fixed it for her death day.
And it may be my death day as well if I have to stay much longer in this modern hell of an internet and phone agency. The Chinese woman is alternately shouting and crying to someone over her headphones, someone has just sat down unpleasantly close to me, and a vast multiracial crowd was only recently at the counter waiting hopelessly to be served. Italy is a beautiful country, but in its modern incarnation it is among the most crowded and pressurised of European states.
Nevertheless, it can be so beautiful. This morning I went to Paestum where the three Greek temples rise from the ruins of the ancient city. Once you pass through the sunny walls you are in a different world, and the calm and serenity are unbelievable.
Most moving of all are the ancient paintings from the Tomb of the Diver, which are unique Greek pictorial art of the fifth century BC. One shows young men making love to each other at a symposium and another them following a flute girl, but the most significant of all is of the diver himself aiming for the pool of death. We cannot doubt as we look at this wonderful work of art that he will come up to the surface with a fuller understanding of things and a new life in union with the infinite.
But before I myself aim for the pool of death, I am going to be a television star. It is with great hope and only a little fear that I contemplate seeing and hearing myself on the screen. Millions of others will also be able to watch in HD and perhaps they will see every chance stain on the colourful shirt and smart trousers I acquired in Otranto on the day of the filming to face the camera. What will they think of me? More important, will it encourage them to want to read the things I write, which to me, as to many writers, are like the children I never had?
I will say no more about my writings. They must make their own way, and I must let them go. But if watching the programme stimulates you to explore what I have published under the name of C.A.R. Hills, or to accept further works of mine, it will have more than fulfilled the hopes I repose in it.
