I was born and raised in Trieste and lived there until 2004 when I first moved to Dublin, then Paris, Barcelona and eventually to London where I’ve been living for the past 13 years.
In the most recent years I started being obsessed with sunsets. Wherever I travel, I need to see one. But I need to be facing it from the right angle. If it is hidden behind a hill, a mountain, or a building – something is missing and I feel almost uncomfortable.
The colors of London sky and being able to see the sun go down from many different spots is the reason I have been able to live here for so long. Every time it all gets too much, too fast, too lonely or too busy, I just need to look up at the sky. I am lucky to have a lovely view of it from my bedroom roof window where I live, in south west London.
I feel the same way about water. This strong need to have it around me. Sometimes I just walk to the Thames and watch the waves move. Or I jump on a train to Brighton in the middle of winter only to look at the sea. It’s as if I long for something: an unexplained yearning of these two elements. I could never really understand why I have this need that turns into an almost obsession. But then I understood: those are the elements you have inside of you, the ones you were born with, that make you who you are, but which you never think about consciously.
Often times you take the place you were raised in for granted. You don’t stop at every sunset in Piazza Unità to look at the reflection of the sun on the mosaics of Palazzo della Prefettura, or take thousands of pictures from a cliff hike above Strada Costiera trying to capture every bit of light reflecting in the water. The house where I was raised was sitting on top a hill in San Luigi and I could see the sea and the sunset straight from my desk window every day. But although I now vividly remember it as a snapshot printed in my memory, at the time I wasn’t really looking at it that much.
As every expat will tell you, each time you come back home from abroad, you see it all. That’s the way I see Trieste now and her picture perfect sunset on the sea. She is a bit European and a bit Italian, just like myself.
By Valentina Balzano
