Since I had the idea of rebooting this newsletter a month or so ago, I started thinking about the proper way to inaugurate it. What should I write about for its first edition? Should I wait to go on a crazy hike and use that as the starting point for this second incarnation of From the Summit? What if I set the bar too high on my first edition though? Should I start with something more modest? Doubts, thoughts, too many ideas, not enough actions.
As I left the house some 45 or so minutes ago, I had a sudden realisation: there’s no perfect—or even good—way to restart this newsletter. There’s no perfect way to start or restart anything, really. What matters is to start, and so starting I am.
I’m currently sitting on a ledge, a narrow strip of rocks that stretches out from the woods. In front of me, a country that is not my own, although you’d never be able to tell from up here: the view is pretty much the same in all directions. I could ask you to point to the border that separates the two countries and you’d have absolutely no idea where to direct your finger: the woods are all changing colors at the same rate, the sounds are the same—birds, wind, water, a chainsaw in the distance—the villages scattered across the landscape all look the same, and yet part of what I see from here is Slovenia and part of it is Italy.
Walking here I realised that while this newsletter is called From the Summit, it will, more likely than not, end up being more a newsletter about valleys. More specifically the ones where I currently live. There are many places I want to explore around here, places I have never walked, even though I have lived here for more than a decade. My goal is to take you around with me. Fear not, though: there are going to be summits in this newsletter. But there are also going to be a lot of valleys and forests, a lot of rivers and maybe lakes.
As I’m sitting here, admiring this lovely view, I can also see death, both physically and metaphorically, right next to me. Just on my right, a few meters away, there’s a 30-meter drop into a black opening in the ground. Falling from up here would not be a fun way to go out. But also, I’m currently sitting right on top of an old machine-gun emplacement, dug inside the rock during World War 1, more than a century ago. And that brings me to another topic I want to try tackle in this newsletter. No, not death, but history. The history of the places I walk through, the history of the land, the history of the many many old buildings that are scattered everywhere around here. If you like old churches, well, you’re in luck because those are plentiful.
Most of these newsletters will come from my home corner of the world because it’s the place I walk daily, either alone or with the dog. But I am also going to occasionally venture out and will hopefully take you on random explorations around Italy. That’s the plan at least.
But I had to start somewhere and that somewhere ended up being an uncomfortable rock with a nice view of lovely Slovenia, sitting on top of an old bunker.
There you have it, the first edition of From the Summit 2.0. Excited to see where this newsletter will take us, literally. As always, my inbox is open, so feel free to reach out to me at hello@manuelmoreale.com if you have anything you want to share.
Until next time
— M.