“Sardinia, which is like nowhere. Sardinia which has no history, no date, no race, no offering.”
“No date, no race, no offering”… really?
Oh!
You realise it’s happening when you are walking, minding your business, thinking about the mic or something. With your peripheral vision you notice that people in front of you have stopped.
And I stop and I rise my eyes, look in front of me and…
Oh!
“It’s a question of discipline, when you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet, you must be sure you pull up the baobabs regularly, as soon as you can tell them apart from the rosebushes. It’s very tedious work, but very easy.”
Combed. This is the word that comes to mind. It’s a tiny slice of hill, rising in front of me. A well-groomed piece of land.
Maybe it’s because it is so tiny and I can contain it in one glance, maybe that’s why, while looking in front of me is not “Sea and Sardinia” by D.H. Lawrence that comes to mind, but rather the tiny planet with the rose and the baobabs.
And yet it’s Lawrence’s chronical from the beginning of last century that locals obsess about. Every village, road, piazza, café, visited on his trip boasts a commemorative plaque detailing his passage, and plaque after plaque after plaque It’s almost like the villages are called into existence by his passage. I have seen more than one English-speaking traveller wielding the book comparing the written word with... The landscape? The look of the locals? Is it smugness in his English voice?
If you want to throw something in English…
Comes doomsday you won’t need English, won’t help you either.
I’m wielding Lawrence too, on my visit to Stefano’s vineyard in Nuragus. I don’t even know whether Lawrence ever stopped in Nuragus.
We make a little stop here and we see an ancient pozzo nuragico from 3400 years ago.
What’s the name?
Coni
Magic, of course it’s magic, everything is magic in Sardinia, that’s why we like it…
Magic, of course it’s magic. The (magic) well from over 3 000 years ago. Everything here is magic.
Of course it’s magic. That’s why it is so easy to…
It’s so easy be caught up in Stefano’s enthusiasm. I knew this land was magic the moment… the moment I left. Doesn’t everybody feel the same?
TRANSLATION: It is a way of describing a place that does not want to be just a physical place, I don't want to use the word 'metaphysical' but certainly a place of the soul, in the sense that it is not possible for us to think we are telling our story, decontextualizing it. We are strongly linked to this context, we cannot think of doing anything else, we must move with this mindset.

It’s a way of talking about a place, but it’s not just about the physical place. I wouldn’t say ‘metaphysical’ but it is certainly soul bound. It is ludicrous thinking of telling the story out of its context. We feel so connected to this environment that we cannot think of acting in any other way, this is our M.O.
And yet, that’s exactly what they do. Travellers, fascinated by this land. “Strange and rather wonderful, not a bit like Italy.”
“Strange and rather wonderful, not a bit like Italy.”

TRANSLATION: I made do with what was possible with hitchhiking, by ship, in so many ways, however I always came home. Because this really was an attachment that I don’t want to define as morbid… but almost. I have always loved this thing, these stones…
back then I made do with whatever was available, by sheep, hitchhiking, whatever, but I always had to came back home. Because this affection I have for the land… I don’t want to call it ‘morbid’ but almost. I have always loved this, these stones…
What does it take to leave ‘this’, these rocks, this dirt, this soil.
What does it takes to leave.

TRANSLATION: The most beautiful views are the perspective ones, as you still have to move away to be able to feel even more attracted, compared to those who have never left.
The attraction comes once you leave. You have to leave to experience it. And only once you leave, and only if you leave, it overcomes you. You have to leave to experience it.
Perspective gives you the best views.
And yet, I wonder… what must have looked like to the smug traveller of another century…
“It has that curious look, as if it could be seen, but not entered. It is like some vision, some memory, something that has passed away.”
“Passed away” … as in something that has been forgotten or something that is not more? And what happens with memories, once they are forgotten, do they dissolve? Disappear? And what about the land, can the land have memories too? Because if it can, then this land, the land on which I am standing now, this land extraordinary how scrubby and uninhabited the great spaces of Sardinia are
“Extraordinary how scrubby and uninhabited the great spaces of Sardinia are.”
This extraordinary land must have a memory of what it was like before progress, before airports, before irrigation systems – when hope for rain was all it was

TRANSLATION: Let’s say that the hope of rain has always accompanied us…
Maybe Stefano is right, it pays to sacrifice, because after you have gone through a rough patch, you either go under, or you resurface stronger, better, this is why Stefano is raising the wineyards like a last century’s grower, with no water but for the hope for rain, and “La speranza della pioggia ci accompagna da sempre” [TRANSLATION: The hope of rain has always accompanied us]
And while I’m here, inundated by the sun, touching and tasting this grape – heavy with sweet juice, exploding with flavour inside my mouth…
Mmm… Che buona, è dolcissima… [TRANSLATION: Mmm… that’s good, it is very sweet]
I pause, and peer into this impossibly blue space, outside and beyond time, away into the distance.
Sardinia is another thing, much wider, much more ordinary, not up-and-down at all, but running away into the distance.