Time to find a place of your own

Slow down time by immersing yourself in a place that calms your mind. 

I’m taken back in time by my memories to the island of Lipari. And there, again, is Nino’s casetta – or countryside hut. It’s not much more than an oblong two-roomed storage shed made from blocks of volcanic tufo, like most of the buildings on the island. Inside is a plank bench. One of Nino’s old jackets hangs on a nail. On the dusty floor are empty bottles, stacks of dried reeds for Nino’s baskets, and stakes for plants.

The casetta is set in a landscape of cactus, hay and high red cliffs. Just behind it are a few bare-branched plum and apricot trees, and in front, facing the sea, are rows of dormant caper bushes. They end in a stretch of grass, nibbled short by rabbits. Beyond this is a broken edge of land that slides down into a dangerous-looking ravine. At its base, far below, the land turns to pasture, and more cliffs, before falling into the sea.

There’s a wonderful smell in the air: a mixture of heat bouncing off rocks, sea salt, wild mint and wormwood. I can hear the calls of crows, and the slight murmur of the breeze.

I’m drawn by its peacefulness.

It’s a place for new ideas.

When I lived on the island of Lipari for a year I took to coming to this casetta whenever I could, sometimes daily.  I would sit on its stone step, where I could ponder and scribble until the sun went down, with a flagon of wine by my side.

And, when I returned home after that year away, I quickly found my new ‘casetta’: a place beneath a wiry bush, with sand for a seat, and views across a bay. It felt just right: a place where I could think and write, where no one came to disturb me.

Why not find your own place like this? A tranquil place away from everyone else, where time slows down as the static in your brain is calmed by the calls of birds, water, or a copse of trees.