Finding Positano – from sweaty to sexy in Italy
By: Claire Ryan
Tags: Italy, Family, Travel, Memoir

When I walk out of the store, my husband’s jaw drops. He doesn’t do a double take, because he knows it has to be me. My son is by my side, so chances are pretty good it’s me.

Husband is not cheap with his compliments. Sometimes he doesn’t notice a new haircut or a new blouse, but if he does notice, and he likes it, he’ll kindly say so. However, until this second, I’ve never seen his jaw go south. It’s my Girl From Ipanema moment. If I could wrap this moment and put a bow on it, it would go in my box of special mementos. I can’t wrap up a moment – for sure – but baby, I can always wear the dress.

It started with a book. Before leaving for Italy, I did my usual search for books that take place in my destination or are by authors of that nationality. On this trip, I brought along guidebooks and four works of fiction on my Kindle. A few years have passed now, and my current habit is to read guide books on my phone, and bring my fiction hard copy. Yes, I dated the Kindle for a while, but I never truly committed.

My favourite of the four Italy-based books is The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. It takes place in Sicily during the lead up to Italian unification. Sicily was not part of our travel plans that summer, but The Leopard has become an integral part of my life – the one book I’ve promised myself to reread every five years from now on. That’s how much I like it.

But The Leopard did not lead to Husband’s astonished approval. It was an e-book called Finding Positano, by William James, selected merely because we planned to visit the small town of Positano at some point during our five days on the Amalfi Coast.

We stayed in the mountains, high above the coastal towns, in a farmhouse which was part of the Agriturismo network, run by a lovely couple, serving local food, growing their own vegetables. My two sons, aged 9 and 10, loved to happen upon their free-range chickens and other livestock squawking, barking and cockle-doodle-doo-ing at the farm.

My younger boy practised his language skills each day, requesting “pizza con salsiccia per farvore, no funghi.” The waiters smiled at this mini-sophisticate, ordering with assurance like an adult. They didn’t know he ordered the same thing for lunch each day and the same thing for dinner each night … for the entire trip. Practise makes perfect! Good thing pizza wasn’t on the menu for breakfast, with or without sausage and mushrooms.

Each day we’d wind our way down the steep mountain roads and stop at the look-offs, one eye on the sparkling azur of the Tyrrhenian Sea, the other drawn to the carcasses of crashed cars at the bottom of the ravine. I can’t remember what they called this road, but I’m pretty sure that “death” was in the title.

Each night we’d return, me white-knuckling it on the passenger side, looking at the clock and counting my blessings we’d survived another five minutes – only 25 more minutes to go! My husband and eldest chatted ever-so-calmly, listening to the new Coldplay album Mylo Xyloto.

We did go to Positano and I made it a point to read the book bearing it’s name both the night before and that day on the beach, on a lounger chair you pay to sit on, gratefully, because there are many stairs in Positano; because you’ve walked a lot; because it’s hot and the kids are happily throwing a football; because you have a moment of peace to read, with no interruptions.

We’d found a restaurant for that night … fine dining. It would be our big culinary splurge of the vacation – white table cloths, and hopefully some version of sausage pizza for young Léo. We thought the restaurant would be within walking distance, but the “few hundred metres” displayed on our iPhone GPS were literally “as the crow flies” – upward, directly skyward, perhaps a 90 minute walk up the mountain to a small village overlooking the town of Positano. We eventually hailed a cab to get there, but other events happened first.

At this moment in time, we’re packing up at the beach, sand between our toes, my sweaty dress sticking to my damp bathing suit, clammy but happy. As we start our “ten” minute walk to the restaurant, we’re already anticipating fine wine and a good view.

Damn! There’s no changing room to be seen and I was hoping to at least get out of my wet bathing suit – even though I couldn’t do much about the sweaty beach dress. We hadn’t known about this nice restaurant before we left the farmhouse in the morning. Had we known, we’d have brought a change of clothes.

But wait!… the character I’d just read about in Finding Positano was about to go on a date. She needed a new outfit and found a nice linen dress on a certain street, close to the beach. Do you think it could be real? Do you think the store actually exists? It IS a work of fiction, after all.

I ask Husband if we could possibly walk up “said” street. It was on the way, in parallel to our goal, so we diverted. There was a small square near enough to the beach you could still hear the waves. The air smelled of warmth and sweet fruit. There were clothing shops on the square and I made a bee-line for the one with a white linen dress softly swaying on its hanger in the warm coastal wind.

“I’ll be back in ten,” I said.

Léo stayed to toss the football with his papa. Max came with me just for something to do. He was useful. He helped me change sizes and find a pair of white shorts to use like bloomers so the end result wouldn’t be see-through.

At the cash on the way out, I found a long necklace made of shells and pink stones. There was a pair of plastic flip flops in a bin, with fake diamond uppers. They were my size. For $20 more, I was bejewelled.

Max and I left the shop early, with two minutes to spare. I stood in the square, outside the store under a canopy of leaves, waiting, already enjoying my nymph transformation.

Husband and Léo still tossed the football, until one of them missed, bent to pick it up, then looked over at the lady in white. Who was she? The store was empty, but for Mommy and Max. Where did she come from?

Then they realized that the vision in white – the clean, linen-clad woman with the sparkly shoes and the pink necklace – was Mommy. The ball stayed on the ground. The jaw dropped. I had my “moment”. I’d walked in “Medusa”, but came out “Calypso”.