“Good morning, Marco,” I say.
“You off for the walk?” He moves his arms by his sides like he’s skiing.
“I was going to do the steps up to the Path of the Gods,” I say.
Marco reacts, sweeping the back of his hand against his forehead.
“So many stairs!” he says, like I’ve just suggested the impossible. “Up and up and up!”
“Is the start or entrance close?” I ask.
He points out the door to the right, and I get a glimpse of the street—still sleepy at this hour.
“You find the stairs, you go.” He points his finger straight to the ceiling. “You keep going and then you get there.”
“Thank you!” I wave, but Marco stops me.
“Wait!” he calls.
He returns with a bottle of water stamped with the hotel’s insignia. “The Positano sun is strong,” he says.
I thank him and leave. A few paces up there is a clothing store with all types of elegant linens hung in the window—tablecloths and napkins and lace-trimmed handkerchiefs—and a shop next to it with a granita machine. I see the bright yellow lemonade churning and churning. And then there, to the left of the store, is the first flight of stairs. I take them up. Stone steps, one after the next, after the next. Up, up, up. They wind to the side of small hotels and houses. I peek in the windows at the stirrings of life. After sixty seconds, I’m out of breath.
I can’t remember the last time I went on a walk, let alone a run or to the gym. I am out of shape, out of practice, unfamiliar with pushing my body this hard. My legs have stood still this last year. They have stood still while my heart and gut and soul ran in circles, screaming, hysterical, but I notice that moving my body, now, seems to have the opposite effect. While I am sweating, gasping, my insides are quiet. All I can think about right now is the next step.
Marco is right: the stairs are steep and seemingly endless. But after about ten minutes of heart-pumping cardio, I reach a landing. Out of the immediacy of Positano, the town becomes moreresidential. Nonne begin to sit outside, chatting with neighbors over morning coffees before their households awaken. I wave to a woman sweeping her stoop. She waves back.
I’m struck by the timelessness of Italy. It is not the first time I’ve had this thought—that the Italy I’m returning to, now, is not all that different from the one my mother first fell in love with thirty years ago. The country has been around for thousands of years. Unlike America, progress is rated differently. It happens slower. Houses are limewashed in the same color palette used for a hundred years; institutions prevail. Churches and icons have been here for centuries, not just decades. The same dishes return year after year.
After another five minutes of climbing, I’m thoroughly drenched. I unscrew the cap off the bottle Marco gave me and drink appreciatively. I survey my surroundings.
I’ve reached the end of the stairs, and from here there’s a dirt-and-stone path that disappears into much more natural surroundings. This must be the mouth of the Path of the Gods. From a quick summary on our itinerary, I learned that the Path of the Gods gets its name from a legend. Apparently, the gods used the path to come down to the sea and save Ulysses from the Sirens that enticed him with their singing. For centuries, it was the only way between the towns of the Amalfi Coast. It is well traveled and well loved.
The view up here is breathtaking, reminiscent of the one leading into town. The boats on the water, once entirely sketchable, are now tiny white dots on the sea. Here you can see the sweeping wash of blue and the hotels and houses of Positano like watercolor droplets. We are high above it all.
I take a seat on a little stone step. My legs are quaking underneath me, and the sun is now fully birthed, coming intothe world today raging and singing light. I no longer feel even the slight remnants of the fog of a hangover. No wonder everyone can drink wine so freely here.
I think about this path. How many people have come and gone along this trail. How many stories, how many steps.
I think about my mother here, all those years ago. I think about her here now. Her long auburn hair, her wide smile, her sundress and sneakers, the gleam of sweat off her suntanned brow. The same person, and yet someone else entirely.
“There you are!” she says, panting. “I practically had to chase you up here!”
She’s real again, in the flesh. All the dewy youth of someone awakening to a new day of nothing but salt water and wine.
I scramble to my feet. “You came here to find me?” I say breathlessly and with so much relief.
She sticks her hands on her hips and leans down, winded. “You passed by my balcony this morning. I waved but you didn’t see me, so I tossed on my sneakers and came up. You owe me a massage, probably.”
I look at her lean torso, her strong legs. “Don’t you do this path every day?” I ask her.
She looks at me like I’m nuts. “Are you kidding? I’ve never been up there. That’s like twelve thousand stairs.” She straightens up, surveying the view. “But I have to say, I am so glad I followed you. This is pretty spectacular.”
I go to stand next to her. I think about a postcard from this place. It probably looked the same a hundred years ago. I hope that will be true a hundred years from now, too.
“Back home in LA we have this hike off Mulholland called TreePeople,” she says. “Have you been?”
I shake my head.
