asuptohtoligr ht
Frances Mayes
explores the world
under other suns
STEVEN ROTHFIELD
In a life marked by wanderlust, author Frances
Mayes sees the world as ripe for exploration.
By Diana Jordan
SOME 15 years ago, Frances Mayes dreamed up a For Mayes, the allure of travel is landing in a
new life. country and not speaking the language, not com-
In 1990 Mayes split from her very correct life as a paring it to places she knows. It is the foreignness
good housewife and mother who wrote poetry on the that most delights and enlightens her: “You come
side. A divorce, and a new home in Tuscany, gave rise back from travels and it enables you to transform
to her phenomenally successful memoir Under the your life in spiritual ways, the way places come
Tuscan Sun and the popular movie based on the together in your mind, the things you bring back
book. Now, Mayes lives in Italy with her writer hus- and the poems you read. Everything
band about seven months a year and feels quasi- comes together.”
An excerpt from
A Year in the World
Italian, although her Southern lilt reveals her roots. Mayes says travel and writing
The author of a new travel narrative, a sensory are natural partners for her. Her
explosion titled A Year in the World, says her wander- conversational writing is infused
lust was sparked at a young age by books. “I always with poetry, celebrating images and
wanted to have another life in another country, even senses. She blends in literature, the
as a very small child in Fitzgerald, Georgia,” she tells arts of the region, the news of the
The Connection. “I got very early a sense of life being day. A Year in the World is her sixth
possible in places beyond my small town and started travel book, preceded by six books of
travelling just as soon as I could.” poetry. “That is how I most deeply
A few years ago, despite the chill caused by appreciate the world—through the
9/11—or partly because of it—Mayes wanted to set- senses. And these places are just such
tle into other countries that she’d only fantasized rushes to the senses.”
about, to get inside the cultures and make these Mayes’ books connect a web of friends, “and
places her new home. A Year in the World dances the that is another way I like to feel at home in the
flamenco in Spain, steps over marble torsos on world.” She has received enough letters from women
Turkish hillsides and winds through a jumble of to fill a book, many telling her of the risks they took,
English gardens. inspired by her stories. She gently says, “If your book
If Mayes has unfurled a magical life, what is the is a catalyst for some kind of good change in some-
key? “I took a big risk when I bought my house in one’s life, that’s very lucky.”
Italy. Creating a life you want sometimes involves As for the life she invented for herself, “It’s as if
taking a risk, but those risks you take—that come I came into the person I really wanted to be.”
from some instinct inside you—usually turn out to There are certainly more chapters, Mayes says.
be the right direction.” “I have not begun to narrow down my life. I keep
Mayes’ life is awash with pleasure, the way looking for ways that open it up more.” C
Moroccan life is awash with colour and Turkish life
is bursting with exotic smells and textures. She loves Diana Jordan (
www.dianajordan.net) interviews
“seeing how other people live their lives and exploring hundreds of authors for her show Between the Lines.
their culture to see what forms them into the people
they are.” She sees in Tuscans how the ancient beauty
of the land shapes the people, their personalities and The Costco Connection
their values. She marvels at the way her neighbours Costco members can find A Year in the World at
revel in nature and their comfortable sense of time. most Costco locations.
“Ever since my first trip
to Europe—I chose
Italy as the first coun-
try I wanted to see—
my profound desire
for home, for the
profoundly beauti-
ful nest, the
kitchen garden,
the friends gath-
ered at my table,
for the candlelit
baths, and the objects
arranged and the books
in order and most of all
the sense of this is my
place—all that has been
at the mercy of an equal
force, the desire to shut
the door, turn the key
and go. Go. The domestic
and the opposite. At the
beginning of these travels I saw that as a conflict. Now I think the
oxymoron is not a double
bind but a way forward.
Does the way forward
imply the way back?”
FROM THE CANADIAN EDITION ARTICLE FEEDBACK
