Gino's
I often go to Gino's in the mornings to write, and can’t even consider writing anything before ordering a long macchiato.
Gino emigrated to Australia from Italy and opened a tailors shop in the centre of Fremantle and later turned it into a café. And Gino’s Trattoria became the life blood of Fremantle. And Gino loved drinking coffee with his old Italian mates and the Italian in the background sounded like music to me, and made it the perfect place to write early in the mornings.
For a long time, I sat next to the Sicilians. Dom asked me one day 'What are you writing about'? and I said I was writing about ‘Criminal underworld activity in Australia’. I don’t know why I said that, but they became much less friendly, from then on, and would only speak in Sicilian(they became paranoid about making it into the book, and come to think of it they have just made it into the book, and I might have to go and live somewhere else).
Sometime before, I had mentioned how I had paid for some stone work in Bali and it had never been sent(it is a long story but I wanted to get an a sculpture made and had handed over the money, but it hadn’t been sent). When Dom heard about the situation he said 'I have 'contacts' in Indonesia, if you need any help', which was a kind offer, but the missing $200 didn't seem enough to have the man’s legs broken or for him to go missing forever.
I love writing at Gino’s but there can be distractions. A woman came up to me one day and asked if I had a real job to go to’? And I just laughed and didn’t say anything(which is what I normally do when I don’t like what someone just said). I only knew she had once been a high level political aide(and maybe even once a Head Prefect). It was hard to know what had triggered her? Was it the writing, the reading, the reflection? Was it the inwardness? She seemed to think I should be more focused on success and taking more concrete action.
Should I say that Carl Jung said that the inner life is in no way less than the outer life? And that I had turned my back on success, for a while, because I was hoping to find the ‘deep place where life flows’ as Rilke said? That I was looking for the green fuse that drives the flower? And that ever since reading DH Lawrence I was hoping to admit some of those strange angels he spoke about, and what would be most lovely of all is if I could ‘yield myself and be borrowed’. And I was waiting to be borrowed so that I could then write something.
And I was going to blurt out that I wasn’t even sure that the person with the most toys wins. But I didn’t say any of those things(mainly because I didn’t think of some of them until later). And also because I didn’t want her to contact the Alma St Clinic and care facility just down the road. And in a strange way, it did make me think about why I write, and one of the main reasons why I write could be so I can say things I don't say out aloud in public. And there have been times when I have thought maybe writers are just people who are prepared to share some of what is happening on the inside of their own ‘psyche’ in public(and some of their own teeming unofficial hidden private inner psychological life).
And I can understand why people might want to focus more on their ‘persona of success’ and their status and their social standing in the world. But then again, people have been writing since the beginning of recorded history. And we do seem to need to find some kind of a language or expression for our inner life. And some kind of language for the tremendous mystery so much greater than ourselves(and people have always tried to express that). And I have found writing is a way into the deepest part of myself, and a way to know myself more, and understand things better, and to bring it into some kind of a form in the world.