Summer on My Skin

The volume of the radio would rise on its own as we drove along the Turin–Savona highway, the road that took us to the sea, the road of holidays. Six thirty in the morning sharp. Ready to leave. That’s how our vacations began—the first week of August in Finale Ligure. Twenty-three, always the same, unchanged but always beautiful. They were the tunnels my sister and I prepared to count, as we did every year. It was our pastime, in the back seat of my father’s Fiat 600, lying down more than sitting, between two cushions with my mother’s intention—always unfulfilled—of making us sleep a little longer after she had dragged us out of bed at five, on the night when sleeping was impossible anyway. Once the tunnels were done, the next game was spotting the sea. I always let her win because she usually got tangled in counting the tunnels and, at a certain point, declared sadly and sighing: “You’ve won again.” Back then I wasn’t competitive; I became so out of necessity in later years. I only wanted the vacation to begin with a smile, without resentment toward me.
That moment when you could glimpse the sea shining in the distance was beautiful.

There was a precise instant when everything changed, even the smell of the air transformed and took on the scent of the sea. A second earlier it was a mix of gasoline and burnt rubber, and then the salty tang of the sea took its place, settling into our noses to stay there—and it was vacation. I could feel summer on my skin. Even with my eyes closed I would have known the sea was right in front of us, but I let my sister be the one to say she saw it first. When we arrived in Savona, the magic of that moment faded a bit because of the port’s chimneys, but it soon returned when the buildings once again allowed us to glimpse that shimmering surface, hiding it immediately afterward only to reveal it again definitively to our eyes.

At the sight of the sea, even my father seemed to relax from the tension caused by not knowing if the 600 would make it over the Apennines. Because of the radiator overheating, he always forced us to make an unscheduled stop, which over the years turned out to be an indispensable part of the trip, as it invariably took place near Altare.
That stop—planned or not—was a relief for us. Finally, we could go to the toilet and eat the ham sandwiches my mother had prepared for everyone the night before our departure.
The first half of the day was devoted to organizing the apartment: cleaning everything—floors, wardrobes, and bathroom fixtures—with diluted ammonia that my mother brought from home, along with everything else—food, drinks, sheets, and enough toilet paper for an army. The second half of the day was for unpacking and putting away two large bags and three boxes containing clothes, swimsuits, and everything needed for any eventuality, including unlikely weather changes. We children were exempt from the hard labor and allowed to go see the sea, but without getting wet. So I took her hand, and we set off. The grip was unusual, different from the one I knew when I walked her to school: lighter, freer, summery. It was as if the sea erased all dangers and tensions, and nothing bad could happen in front of that third liquid lung that breathed softly but endlessly.
When we reached the sea, we looked at it in silence for an indefinite time, and only afterward did we greet it together, loudly and smiling: “Hello, sea!” We did the same thing in the car before leaving to return home, adding, however, a quieter and unsmiling “See you next year.”

My sister, on the other hand, always smiled, even though there are few photographs of us together. The only ones I remember were taken during those weeks of seaside vacation. One in particular shows both of us, happy. We’re holding hands; I’m looking at the camera, she’s looking sideways at the sea. The horizon line shows that the camera was tilted quite a bit, our feet cut off. Flaws that a good photography school would teach you to correct. Technically all wrong—a disaster, fit for the bin! Yet, imperfect like life itself, it’s my favorite photograph. Those vacations were full of yielding out of an ancient courtesy hard to uproot; they were made of sea-scented wind that blew the wrappers of abandoned ice creams across the café tables. Children’s laughter and postcards with stamps licked with wide-open mouths, the taste of the glue that exists only in summer and never again afterward.

The lines to call our uncles in Turin—three tokens to say: “Hi, we’re fine, it’s hot but at least we can sleep at night, there’s a breeze, not like at home.” Another two tokens to hear: “Lucky you, it’s unbearable here,” and then say goodbye and hang up with the excuse that “people are waiting,” knowing that five tokens were enough and six would be too many. Happy holidays.

Roberto Cristaudo
NP June/July 2025