Pinmapple code: [//]:# (!pinmapple 41.37920 lat 14.66916 long The Tammaro river below Sassinoro, BN, Italy d3scr)
I drove to the river with Maria today, and it was a glorious outing.
This is the Tammaro river, below Sassinoro, near the north-east edge of the Campania region in south Italy. It's around 30 minutes' drive from Guardia Sanframondi, where I am living.
I was shown these pools, though they have changed a great deal since then, back in the sumnmer of 2010 (my first, scorchio, summer in Italy), by a new friend who had returned for the town's 7-yearly religious rites.
Not many folks know of them, as they are reached via a particularly steep wee road behind the cemetary which if you didn't know it was there, you'd probably think you were about to drive off the edge of a precipice. You then meander through a winding road between bushes and wild orti, then under the superstrada we just arrived on, and over a bridge whose railings were washed right off in the last big floods.
You'd have had to have been shown where the path begins amidst prickly sloes and brambles, and encouraged to clamber down the steep banks from centuries of water erosion, before finding the multiple paradisi which line the waterway...
Every time I come here, the place has changed significantly. From the last major floods in 2015, to the annual high spate of the river in winter or spring, to today, finding a massive rock collapse which had completely filled an area that we used to picnic in! (above)
The scape of each corner has been transformed multiple times; often unrecognisably. When I first came there were miniature raised beaches of round pebbles, and high trees shading most of the water - a strip of bright sunlight catching the centre of the river at certain points - lots of dappled light and cool clean water. The big flood in 2015 literally wiped the rockfaces bare for five metres at either side of the water. Mature trees, roots, natural detritus, nests, bushes, flowers, everything...
Just white stones were left to be bleached by the sun; the water level was around a tenth of its usual summer height before. It took at least 6 years for the plant life to settle back in, and a few more for the whole flora and fauna to return: this has been an enormous education to me around the extremes of weather and landscapein the Mediterranean. (In Scotland there is just lots of water and lots of growth pretty much all the time, all year round. Plants and trees at the sides of rivers are much more robust for perpetual excess of waters.) Below are some images of the metalwork from a smaller bridge that was torn down by VERY high floods, historically.
It is actually like a glorious metal sculptural commission, between nature and the bridge. The metal has been returned to the organic state, and plays with the rocks and plants, natural 'waste' and flow... This is Real Art.
I observed over recent years, how the low pools became even lower because they were missing the vegetation at the sides to shelter them - and much less 'pond life' could survive without deeper waters to not get cooked in: the pools became shallower and shallower, and murkier with green slimey stuff. Stagnant waters welcome a particular kind of vegetation and insect life... But today, many years forward, we saw frogs and a kingfisher, which are both powerful signs of biodiversity returning.
I felt an immediate comuning with the river - the elements not just of water, but also of nature spirit, of nature as a collective and as a conscious entity: Gaia Sophia, if you like... I felt reverence. And sat in reverence. Maria and I had some great, quite cathartic conversations around her son (my ex), ecology, spirituality, health, food and houses. We spoke about our life struggles and our dreams to simply be well and happy as long as possible, amongst all the crazy...
We picnic-ed with her fried chicken, my spiced rice with peppers and onions, and sat quietly ruminating, between stretching our legs and cooling our feet in the waters.
It was quite a thing to be able to clamber across places which I have only known underwater (and thus have not been able to step into!) - the force of the torrent when it is more full is a thing to behold, and one does not totter about the edges carelessly! But we both climbed and slid around to our hearts' content, taking photos and moving rocks about, exploring and marvelling.
In my quiet moments alone(-ish), I felt a strong sense of memory: of first coming here and feeling that finally I was seeing some wild nature, my first unbearably hot summer in Italia. I thought of how neurotic and naive I was then, and how I was trying to please my partner at the time (Sergio, who died this year): I thought of what a rush he was in, and how everything was about status and hierarchy of some sort - which I never related to. I thought of how simple pleasures are so available to me now, and how I wish that Sergio had been able to slow down and enjoy all the things that were right in front of him... And I thought of how I should make extra effort to enjoy such things, for folks who can't - either because they're dead, or because they're in too much of a rush.
a beautiful tiny wee frog
