Naples' Children / the sea / the sun

Written on a spring 2013 trip to Napoli with my husband, Rian, a man who could point out the brightest spark of life in the darkest corner with eagle eye precision. He had a penchant for passion and color and beauty unrivaled by anyone I’ve met in my life, yet he was soft spoken and bookish, content mostly to admire the masterpieces of life in quiet contemplation. When he imparted historical details to us it was always in a storyteller’s voice, transporting you back in time, until you almost felt as though you had experienced the battles or the love affairs or great triumphs and small defeats your self, centuries ago.

With Naples it was simply impossible for us to truly tire of the dark, craggy, cramped, decaying alleyways of Napoli. Because we found find them so beautiful. What is that expression? Life in the streets. But that’s not subtle enough. That has no emotion. No color. No fragrance. I’m just an American who falls in love with corners of places. Pages in books. The picture I see in everything. What do I know about it? Not much. But I loved it all the same. We loved it together. Without him I have yet to return, but I know in my heart I still love it because our love for it together could not burn away, not ever, not even in the deep void I hold within due to his earthly absence. I’m returning again soon I hope, because of love, because of him, and because of beauty. The hope of beauty, and the beauty of hope.

I photographed a little group of 11-13 year old Neapolitan boys smoking on the beach for the first time after they robbed a sweets cart of cigarettes like in some 1950s or 1960s Truffaut or Fellini film. The unofficial leader of the gang, a tall blond boy, taught the other boys how to smoke after they bummed cigarettes off a pair of kissing teenagers, and robbed a food cart and cafe of crisps and chocolates. Later we happened upon some typical boys playing football in the corner of a small piazza. The scent of coffee carried on the sea air, the salt so thick you can taste it on your tongue, and we searched for a restaurant in this gastronomical paradiso.

Purgatory Lane in Naples, Italy / off the beaten path

Naples is the flower of paradise. The last adventure of my life. Alexandre Dumas

There is a residential “street”, an off the beaten path alleyway with the delightfully macabre name of Vico Purgatorio Ad Arco, “Purgatory Lane”. I had a love affair with alleyways, you see, and never have I been more sated than in Napoli.

Every narrow opening makes you stop and turn and take in the sights and sounds of Naples. There’s something very beautiful about an alley way, something personal and old, full of secrets and stories and the every day life of strangers. I love the alleys of Boston and New York and New Orleans. Naples alley ways are incomparable because they are places people live to catch sunlight in the darkest places. Neapolitans hang their laundry on little racks on tiny iron balconies. They stack pretty painted clay pots and urns full of flowers. They tie little flags and bunting. The alleys are dark and dank and should be places for trash and death and forgetting. But they are walk ways. They are corners to stop for a moment and discuss the weather with your neighbor. They are short cuts and open windows and the sounds of football playing on an unseen television. They are windows across from cousins and lovers looking at each other when their parents are busy cooking or cleaning. They are the sounds of getting ready for the evening pasieggeta. They are as I had always imagined them: gritty, velvet thick, enchanting, private glimpses of the real Napoli.

There is the foreboding sign which points in the direction of Purgatory Lane. Most people would cross the street to avoid it. But we were different, weren’t we, you and I, Rian? That made it all the more inviting to us all those years ago. Entering purgatory was like stepping back in time. Even in the midst of the buzz of modern life around us.

Kids played football in the streets, they ran through the alleys laughing and dodging each other. Vespas and motorcycles lined the private walks to the apartments. There were surprising flourishes of pinks and golds and soft blues among the blacks and browns. Colors and shadows mixed. We walked through unnoticed. Life was there, the good and the bad. We were just tourists.

Anaïs Nin once said, “I don’t want to be a tourist in the world of images.”

We wanted to step into the picture and become a part of it.

But until I am gone, I am always on the other side of the lens, watching, capturing, stealing images like the thief that I am. I stalk moments and feelings. I want trouble and grit to make something beautiful out of it. I am selfish, a little bit soulless, in my pursuit of another perfect shot. Perhaps the right kind of person for a purgatory?

I chase strangers with the cunning of a secret admirer. I photograph statues like living things and people like sculptures. I cannot tell the difference between the saints and the sinners on the streets.