I still remember how our fatigue-drenched bodies exited the airport. I was overjoyed to see my father-in-law waiting at the exit to handover to us the keys of his car. We didn’t want to risk any contact with him. He left with his nephew and we drove separately to Tramin, struggling, along the three-hour trip to stay alert and vigilant amid the fatigue. It might have been almost midnight by the time we arrived at the apartment where we were to quarantine for two weeks, at the base of the Sankt Jakob Kirche, where, three months later, we would be married by a priest. 

The past one year has mostly involved trying to hold myself in place. During our quarantine, we took long walks in the vineyards leading up to Sankt Jakob, and I remember the uncertainty with which I walked, constantly afraid of tumbling downwards, as if the inclined earth were eager to reject me. The Alpine landscape with its constant undulations terrified me. Each bout of breathlessness felt like a mockery of my city-based upbringing. Settling in has necessitated relearning how to walk with both feet on the ground, one step at a time, but through coordinated efforts, relinquishing the tendency towards either bodily apology or defensiveness. To survey one’s site of adopted domesticity one must sense the earth through one’s feet, navigate texture and terrain by imagining the softness or density of soil. 

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Since the 8th of June, 2020, I have made massive strides. All my discoveries and revelations are somehow scripted upon the soles of my feet. It’s intriguing that I spent much of February last year in crutches, on account of a torn ligament. Walking after such an injury felt like a privilege. I am still re-piecing all the fragments of my life that lie dissipated, either in storage, or with a friend, or that are now part of someone else’s possessions. It’s why the sequel to my first book is so delayed, because the narrative can be told from so many vantage points and I’m afraid now of tumbling downwards and not being able to pick myself up. What should have required half a decade, I’ve had to manage in the span of a year, replanting myself, grafting my body within a landscape to which I am not indigenous, acclimatizing to weather patterns alien to my family ancestry, adapting to a diet not native to my gut. These days I feel like the stalks of lavender bursting into bloom, their scent percolating the landscape. I stand out but also fit in.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx

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