Misida

For years the postcard pictured above has stood on my dining table. Today in an idle moment I resolved to explore its origin. When I've been bereft (a not unenviable condition, as it happens), I have imagined I would stroll the Misida Quay, and be consoled.

(I am remembering here Kurt Vonnegut, in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, one of my dearly beloved books, having his protagonist advise, "If thou would be unloved and forgotten, be reasonable.")

It is here, on the Misida Quay, somewhere in the early nineteenth century, that I have often found my senses. I arrive as the small figure in white, and leave as the purposeful and energetic fellow passing.

As it turns out (compliments of a Google search) I have discovered that Misida is ostensibly on Malta, as the photograph from the antique postcard above describes. The Digital Globe map merely confirms that it is a "populated place," though its precise geography can be established: Lat:35,8925 Long:14,48278.

However, upon closer inspection of the map above, the town appears to be inland on the Aegean Sea side of Malta, so the context of its purported quay remains a mystery. George Nelson Godwin, a "Chaplain to the Forces," made rather disparaging note of Misida ("an unhealthy neighbourhood," to quote him) in his 1880 Guide to the Maltese Islands, also pictured above. It appears Sir Alexander Ball much improved the locale by constructing a stone quay and wide road. Perhaps this postcard demonstrates this very achievement.

Godwin writes, "Misida is variously interpreted to mean 'the valley of fishing,' or 'the fishers' or 'the Mother of Our Lord.' Ah, I think to myself: so that is why I hie myself to Misida.

Misida does not have to exist, or can exist only marginally. Spiritual refuge is the province of one's soul.