Bleary eyed from cross Atlantic travel, I step out the door into the stillness and gentle light of an early summer morning. The only sound is the sea lazily brushing the shore a few strides from where I stand. I take in the row of connected stone houses, and the tiny Dalmatian village I have woken up to.
The sun hits the tops of the pine trees that form an arch over the shore - puffs of luminous electric green that seem unreal against the pure blue sky.
I drag my foot through an impossibly clear sea, back and forth over tiny, cream coloured and smooth pebbles. Not able to resist I bend down to pick some up and let them sift through my fingers. A low lying island stretches along the horizon like a sleeping animal.
The sea is so calm, it seems more like a lake.
There is the sound of a door swinging open, and I turn to see a large figure filling our neighbours doorway, draped in a colourful mu-mu dress. A large woman - broad and tall with the shoulder width of a man, her face hidden under a wide brimmed sunhat.
She begins to shuffle slowly down the walk towards the sea, and me.
Emerging from the shadows, I can now make out her face, and that she is in full makeup. Crimson lips, and nails painted to match. Each one of her man sized fingers has a gold ring squeezed onto it, and she is clutching a cigarette. Her bracelets jangle as she lifts the cigarette in a shaky grip to her mouth. She walks right by me and into the sea without a word or a glance to acknowledge my presence.
Slowly wading up to her waist, her dress floats up and fans out around her in a circle on the surface of the sea.
Turning around, she speaks in a deep, gravelly voice, one eye one me, one at the sky, and smiling.
“Liiiiipo More….lipo, lipo more…”
(beauuuuutiful sea…beautiful, beautiful sea).
