Living Slow in Italy

[Valerie]

Living Slow in Italy - Haircuts from Hades

Catching a glimpse of myself in the plate glass window provided a frightful start. I had thought that I looked fairly decent when I left the house, but there it was…a horrid hairdo, oh-so clearly reflected in front of the newly-arranged spring fashions. I’ve found that my time here is becoming measured by the long string of bad haircuts that I’ve procured. “Well, this one is not as quite as bad as the one you got from that girl in Anzio,” Bryan offers encouragingly. It’s really discouraging when they’re evaluated in degrees of badness.

I’m not quite sure why it seems to be my fate to go through life in poorly-clipped locks. I am especially confused as to why it’s such a problem here in Italy where fashion and style are so highly regarded, and where there are parrucchiere (hair stylists) on nearly every corner. I’ve seen plenty of gorgeous gals with glorious hairdos. I’m just not one of them. Sigh. Not that I had terrific luck in New Mexico. I had one stylist who was known as “the cocktail queen” because of her adept use at concocting styling libations from as many as five different products. Who can ever reproduce that here? When I finally found a guy I liked, I was willing to drive forty minutes across town and shell out any price. The three-week wait for an appointment was fine with me. I was utterly devoted to him until I moved here.

Maybe it is the language issue. Trying to describe hairstyles in my native language is hard enough. Doing it in Italian, even with visual aids, can still leave a surprising amount to be lost in translation. I’ve found that some choose to ignore what I am describing and cut it any dang way they please. Such was the case with Roby, a stylist my friend Roberta, a former model, swore could perform miracles. “Guarda che bella!” she exclaimed about her new ‘do. Roby is bravissimo! He’s fabulous! I’ll go with you to help choose the style, she offered eagerly. Why not? She had recently decided to sheer off her long locks in favor of a shorter cut. Finding someone who cuts short hair well is even more of a challenge, so I agreed to the outing. We sat on a plush sofa, pored over books while sipping caffe` and watching the clock click off nearly an hour beyond my scheduled time. Like doctors, hair stylists are never in orario. They know they wield power and people will have no choice but to wait.

We narrowed it down to two photos, Roberta chatting familiarly with all the employees. I was ushered to The Sink Arena, an elevated semi-circle where the shampooing and conditioning takes place. Like a patient being prepped for surgery, I was carefully scrubbed for an interminable time and then rinsed. A conditioner was applied and I was allowed to sit upright while it was to be left to sink in and perform its duty of softening and healing my hair. Then the Shampooist, for that is her only job function, went off for a cigarette and promptly forgot about me. I was still marinating when Roby was ready. I was hastily rinsed off and escorted to the Master’s Chamber, this time fully circular and exposed by glass and mirrors so that all other clients no matter where they were in the shop, as well as all the passersby, could watch while skillful surgery was being performed. Just a tad intimidating, I must say.

Roberta showed him the photos and explained what I wanted. He nodded, said “si, ho capito,” then stretched his arms upward and exclaimed, “Leave it to Roby! I will make you beautiful!” He then got the scissors flying about, taking off huge chunks from the back of my head and working his way around to the front until I had so little hair left that I could only describe what remained as stubble. He gelled it, spiked it, and stood back with his arms crossed over his chest, proudly admiring his work. Roberta let out a little squeak, put on a brave face and uttered a weak “bella”. I dunno. Maybe I should have known better than to let a guy with a shaved head cut my hair.

About a month later, Roberta proclaimed that she had ditched Roby and had found a new, utterly wonderful stylist that I should try. That is when I came to realize that my friend, though beautiful and bright, is what you might call a hair whore. She takes a real “love ‘em and leave ‘em” approach with parrucchiere. She flits from one to the next, the current stylist “the best ever”, at least for that month. She rarely stays around long enough to form a real, meaningful hair relationship with anyone. She also visits the parrucchiere almost weekly, signaling to me that one does not go to the hair salon merely to obtain a necessary service, but as a recreational activity.

Women tend to go to the salon for a break. They want to feel pampered and primped up, to be told they’re gorgeous…but that this color or that type of cut will produce even more beauty. The colors are a frequent draw; it is rare to see an Italian woman without dye of some sort, regardless of age or degree of grayness. Indeed, gray hair is practically nonexistent among the female population. Coloring requires frequent touch-ups and therefore frequent trips to the salon, so it is worked into one’s schedule as entertainment. Gossip, coffee, or, if your stylist is really high-class, maybe a glass of wine, are offered up freely. I have seen some that have brought in lunch for clients obtaining intricate, time-consuming dye jobs. One salon provided video and photo sessions along with fashion shows for their clients during the summer months, so everyone could pretend to be a supermodel. Another offered laptops with free internet so you could surf while stewing in your dye. And I thought all I needed was a mere haircut.

Taking matters into my own hands didn’t produce very desirable results, either. Thanks to the wonders of genetics, I followed my grandmother and mother into the world of prematurely gray women at the ripe ol’ age of 19. No woman, regardless of how much she loves her mother, wants to become her mother. Therefore, I have been applying semi-permanent hair color for years in order to not look twice my current age and to not accentuate the resemblance to my mother any further than necessary.

I went to the profumeria, where they sell hair care products, cosmetics, costume jewelry, and a few token bottles of perfume in keeping with the store’s name. I found the brand I normally used at home and perused the shades. I have noticed that colorings here, while bearing the same brand and logo, have different tints that I am used to - definitely more vibrant and “fake”, usually tending toward reds. I consulted the side panel where it shows, “if your hair color is thus, the result will be so”. Nowhere did it foretell the color that my locks would ultimately brandish. I didn’t even leave it on for the full recommended time (meno male for that, as they say here), and when I rinsed and towel-dried, I was greeted by the mirror’s reflection of bad tidings…a purple hue in the magenta range. For four longs weeks.

For his part, Bryan was amused and thought it looked good, saying since so many women around here sport unusual, unnatural hair coloring, my purple hair was just one more step toward becoming a local. Whatever.

After my super-short ‘do from Roby, the no-holds-barred signora who was my next-door neighbor commented, “You really shouldn’t go to your husband’s barber for a haircut”. Uh, thanks. On deeper thought, however, maybe I should go to his barber. Vinicio has been clipping and shaving the good men of Ascoli Piceno for forty years. His shop occupies the space formerly used by his father and retains many of the original features of the old barber shop. His hand shakes a little, but Bryan is always pleased with the results. He also procures a very close shave, still skillfully done with a straight razor. His total bill never exceeds €17.

Mine, on the other hand, never comes close to €17. If I could get them to just do the cut and only the cut, maybe I’d pay close to that amount. But that is not how it is done. The shampoo is required and there is a cost for that. To give you your money’s worth, they froth the heck out of your hair, massage your scalp for a good five minutes, rinse and repeat the ordeal, then slather on a handful of conditioner. The neck-cramping sink moves up and down to ensure that water trickles down your back and soaks your shirt. The cost of the cut varies depending on the stylist and time involved to perform the cut, as well as the complexity of the style. Switching scissors or using a razor seems to elevate the price. Styling is also a requisite – because how else would you know what the cut is supposed to look like – so there is another ka-ching. The gel, mouse, paste, hairspray, spit, glossing agents or any other products that may be required to style the new cut rings up another fee. And, of course, the products that are now highly suggested, so that you can achieve the new style at home, cost you big time.

Trouble is, the results can never be achieved at home. I almost always walk out of the salon feeling good about the cut…until the next day when I try to achieve it for myself. I could just as soon split atoms in an Osterizer as do it myself to the manner in which it had looked the day before. I follow the instructions to “finger comb” it while “allowing the natural wave to create texture”. Then humidity ups the ante, adding more curl in undesirable spots so that the result looks something like a clipped Pomeranian with a bad perm.

My current stylist dries it using a brush in such a complicated way that in order to do it myself, I’d have to be double jointed and have a third arm protruding from my back. He’s not bad – remembering, of course, the degrees of badness; but I’ve recently learned that he is known for his highly specialized coloring techniques, which explains why most of his clients are patiently reading magazines with foil things jutting off their heads, and why he is stooped over me in silent, ardent concentration while cutting. I’m beginning to feel like hair whore Roberta myself, as I will be searching out someone new next time around.

I don’t ask for much. Really. I don’t expect to emerge from the salon looking glamorous or with perfect beauty being miraculously bestowed on me. I ask only a decent ‘do that doesn’t look like a throw-back to my high school days; one that I can consistently style myself at home without lots of goops or three different brushes to wrangle with, without the need for straightening irons or curling irons, and without wasting hours of my time. I am tired of putting forth all that effort and then still throwing down my hairbrush in frustration and screaming, “I hate this freaking haircut”.

Perhaps soon, I’ll find a competent stylist so I can say, “this cut is nice” instead of “this one is as bad as the cut from Giulia but not as bad as the one from Roby”. I want to stop classifying the stylists into the different cycles of inferno. Or, at the least I want to stop looking like my hair has passed through Hades. There is an endless supply of stylists to try, as Roberta can tell you. Someday I may actually be able to walk past those plate glass windows with my head held high instead of cringing. Just not today.

 

[Valerie]

Living Slow in Italy - Internal Affairs

I had an Italian grandmother. She was the youngest of nine children, and while she was born in the US, her older brothers were born in the Old Country. Her parents decided to uproot and bring their young sons to the New World in the early 1900s, toting along my great-grandmother’s entire extended family. They brought along with them their Italian habits, foods, and language. I don’t know much about their adaptation process, what they thought of this new land, or how well they assimilated (or didn’t) into life when they arrived. My grandmother surely grew up speaking the Italian language at home, but in my childhood I rarely heard her utter a word of it. She was a raven-haired beauty with classic Italian features, but she was also an all-American girl who excelled at softball and spoke perfect English.

The cuisine of her parents was not shed with the language, however. Italian fare was the norm in her home and my earliest childhood memory is of my nana putting me up on a chair next to the stove while she made a pot of sugo. One of her brothers owned a restaurant. Obviously, food played a prominent role at all family functions.

My other grandmother was of German stock and a consummate cook. She could feed an army on short notice and spent the better part of her day in her kitchen, even mounting a little TV set in there so she could watch her “program”. I had always thought that both grandmas took a similar approach to food, just with different ingredients and cultural roots. If I got into the cookie jar before a meal at my maternal grandmother’s house, she would scold me by saying “you’ll spoil your dinner”. At my Italian grandma’s, though, I can recall her telling me that eating sugar right before dinner would make my stomach constrict. I always assumed they meant the same thing: I’d be too full to eat the nutritious stuff.

Then I moved to Italy. Now I hear echoes of my nana’s voice everywhere I go. I’ve been lectured more than once on the ability of a stomach to clamp itself shut, and the proper ways to tend to it to ensure this dreadful plight never occurs. I have discovered that with the wonders of Italian cuisine comes a responsibility to know how to nurture one’s…uh, internal affairs. My fellow friends and neighbors, if not the entire populace, are thoroughly obsessed with la digestione. In fact, from every quarter- young and old, northerners and southerners, lawyer and construction worker, it doesn’t matter - the one uniting factor in Italian life is the absolute conviction that all manner of ills and woes are directly connected to your digestion.

Your stomach has the great ability to open and close like a door. The proper order of a meal with the dishes well-chosen to compliment one another gives your taste buds a sensory experience, but it also maintains an open-door policy for your digestive tract, so I’m told. It’s like a set of French doors allowing a pleasant breeze of floral air into your dining room. The wrong combinations or overly-spiced foods, on the other hand, will slam the door shut with a bang and let a tornado of digestive woe into your body. Red wine is good with a meal, but if taken before eating will close the stomach. Thus, only white wine should be considered as an aperitivo. Unless you’ve eaten a big lunch and will be having snack tidbits, in which case it’s perfectly acceptable to have red wine in the early evening.

Apparently, everything that I have ever consumed in my pre-Italy life makes me a walking miracle woman of survival. Popcorn? Fa male. Especially if eaten more often than once every three months. It is much too rough on your delicate innards. A friend informed me that I am likely perforated “in there” for having eaten so much of it so frequently in my American life. So, as not to worry her unnecessarily, I didn’t bother telling her that I still indulge in popcorn about once a week.

Milk? Only for breakfast. Or in cheese form. As any traveler has experienced on his first trip to Italy, snickering will ensue in a bar if a cappuccino is ordered after the magic hour of 11:00 a.m. After that point, milk will be too heavy and will coat your stomach, suppressing the all-important digestive enzymes. When a newly-relocated American friend started ordering two cappuccinos in the morning, the barista critiqued her caffeine consumption and milk intake; too much of each in one sitting is not good. A few days later when, in the same locale, we were lunching together and her daughter ordered a glass of milk, all hell broke loose. Giuliano the barista looked at me for translation help. Surely he had misunderstood the girl. “No, you heard right.”

I explained that in America, kids frequently drink milk with their meals. A look of horror blasted away his usual smile. “Nooo! Mi scherzi! Milk? With food?” By this time, the poor offending girl was red-faced and, while not understanding the problem, was fully aware that there was a problem and certainly was not happy that the other patrons had stopped shoveling pasta into their mouths to stare at her. “Ma! Latte fa male. She shouldn’t drink milk with a meal. She should drink white wine!” Uh, she’s fourteen years old. “So add a little water to it.” Not wanting to be offensive, the girl told him to simply bring her some water, but Giuliano had decided to suck it up and let the customer have what she had ordered. He gallantly brought out a tall, slender glass of cold milk on a silver tray. She beamed; he looked queasy with every sip she imbibed and shook his head while clutching his stomach at the mere thought of the belly-ache he knew would occur from this affair.

A few days after that, when this same unfortunate woman’s husband ordered a Coca-Cola for breakfast, it was too much for poor Giuliano to bear, and he wondered if gastronomic offense would be sufficient cause for deportation.

There must be something in the cheese-making process that makes it more digestible so as to bypass the “no milk after 11:00 a.m.” rule, however. It features heavily in “light” lunches and can be eaten legally before a meal as part of the aperitivo or antipasto, apparently without recourse or stomach blockage. It is also prescribed in small doses for the times when you are told to eat in bianco. The white diet is said to be a sure-fire help when you are ill, have overeaten the night before, or feel like you’re coming down with the flu, and is so dubbed because you are told to consume only white foods: fresh (not aged) pecorino cheese, rice, potatoes, chicken, fish, and the like. Pasta with oil or butter and grated parmiggiano is a classic bianco dish and one that my nana used to make when we were sick. But even though it is white, milk itself is a no-no unless you are drinking it warm right before bed to help you sleep.

My chile-eating habit, procured from having spent most of my adult life in New Mexico, sparks no end of controversy in this part of the country. If I lived in Calabria I would not be so harshly criticized, but here in Central Italy my friends insist that spicy foods are very likely to burn your throat and stomach linings. Any dish containing the slightest hint of peperoncino comes with a disclaimer from the serious-faced waiter, “e molto piccante.” Good! Bring it on! “Ma signora, e molto molto piccante.” I can tell you from long experience that it is never “very, very spicy” as advertised. In fact, it rarely elicits so much as a slight tingle. I have tried to explain about la cucina di Nuovo Messico and our penchant to cover all manner of meals in green chile. I tell them how, after years of consuming my weight in chile annually, I’m very used to the spicy stuff and it does me no harm at all. But at the merest mention of it being piccante, all heads quickly wag and a clicking sound emits from their mouths. Clicking is the local way to express a negative. One or two clicks means no; a series of clicks expresses discomfort and disbelief. New Mexico chile warrants a series. This without even attempting to tell them how we ate it for breakfast on our eggs. Spice is said to pizzicare, to bite. And it is just not good for your digestione. It will leave you sick, plain and simple.

Fortunately, or maybe not so fortunately, the Italians also have a sure cure for intestinal indiscretion known as the digestivo. Bottles of strongly-alcoholic herbal brews appear at the end of every heavy meal so as to aid the gastric process along and keep things working like they should. Most digestivi are distilled using various wild weeds, each specific blend supposedly formulated to help indigestion and generally taste wretched. Because the herbs are mostly amaro, bitter, these concoctions are frequently highly sugared in an attempt to make them more palatable. Grappa is another preferred digestivo and there are arguments about which is more effective, amari or grappa. Each has its proponents and critics. One friend proclaims grappa the most effective and that amari, because of the sugar, will not help a bit. Another friend insists amari are better because the herbs are the important key to opening that digestive door, and that my grappa-fan friend is just looking for an excuse to drink grappa, which should really only be consumed as a corrective agent in coffee.

Both are high-proof liquor, which is, I suspect, the part that actually does the cleaning-out operation. I consider most digestivi to be a close cousin to moonshine. The fumes alone could do you in; the liquid heat that it gives off is so intense you can track its progress throughout your entire intestinal tract. I think its burning quality is its efficacy; the little stomach blaze ignited by the liquor consumes the food you just ate. But if grappa is fire-water, then the locally-prized mistra is nothing short of jet fuel. This distillate with a slight flavoring of anise seed is the strongest thing I’ve ever put into my mouth. Swallowing initiated a slash-and-burn episode where it scorched everything in its path and left me feeling sick and sweaty. And they say green chile will make you ill? Hmph.

Digestivo anisetta

There are only a couple of digestivi that I can stomach (pun intended), both said to be “women’s drinks”. Bryan, on the other hand, has come to appreciate the bitter brews in small quantities and swears that they effectively serve their intended purpose. He willingly accepts the cordial glass-sized doses proffered at the end of meals and takes his medicine in brotherly camaraderie. “You’ve truly become Italian,” his friend Gianluca once beamed proudly. He also discusses the sensible balance of meals, how each component is important, if such-and-such secondo piatto will be troppo pesante and stops to consider la digestione when wondering about ordering an aperitivo. He has even been known on occasion to tell me that my gelato when eaten as a late-afternoon snack may cause my stomach to constrict. I am sure that millions of Italians would agree with him. My nana would, too.

 

[Valerie]

Living Slow in Italy - Mal di Primavera

Brilliantly sunny days have been alternating with overcast rainy ones, announcing the arrival of spring as surely as the crimson fields full of delicate poppies. The itchy eyes and blustery sneezes I have been experiencing are the other indubitable harbingers of this season. The newly-watered plants and trees are disgorging their venom-like allergens. Mal di primavera, literally the bad of spring, is how they refer to hay fever allergies and I think it’s a pretty apt description.

The greatest perpetrator is the pioppi, or poplars (see picture to the right), which produce fine, light-as-air fluffs that float and flutter on the breeze and look remarkably like snowfall. It became so insidious that in some parts of town the flurries have accumulated into drifts. The pioppi snow induces nasty symptoms, not unlike the cottonwoods of New Mexico that made me so miserable. I only recently discovered that cottonwood is a variety of poplar, and like the town of Corrales which had the offending trees in abundance along the Rio Grande, my new city has them lining the two rivers that enfold Ascoli Piceno by their protective, watery ravines. Lucky me.

Spring, I must say, has never been my favorite season. Not just because of the miseria of the pollens, but because spring in New Mexico would always be marked by winds. Not gentle breezes, mind you, but blasts of sand-laden air that pelt your face. Wretched daily winds that are normally about 20 to 30 miles per hour but can get very gusty, up to 60 miles per hour. The kind of wind that blows across the expanses, seemingly picking up half of Arizona’s top layer and depositing it onto New Mexico, hammering you so that you find sand particles in your eyes and ears and hair. It would blow forcefully into the house beneath doors and windows regardless of how well sealed they are. Worse, after the meager sprinkles of rain that mark the supposed spring showers in the desert, the blowing dirt would become mottled on the rain-splotched windows creating little sculptured globs of mottled muck that would then harden in the sun and require a good deal of effort to clean.

Bike Flowers

Which brings me to the other reason I am not so fond of the vernal season: spring cleaning. Sweeping up sand, washing windows, clearing away mountains of tumbleweeds, and gathering up the cottonwood crud was never my idea of fun. I’ve found that this aversion has not improved with change of geography. I’m sweeping up pioppi…or rather, trying unsuccessfully to sweep up pioppi. Unlike the weightier cottony balls of New Mexico, the little suckers are so fluffy and light, they go airborne at the slightest touch of the broom, flit around and settle on the floor, only to repeat it all over again when I make another attempt. Only by cornering the beasts and attacking them with the flat edge of the bristles can I impale them on the broom long enough to stick it out the window and shake them away.

But cleaning in Italy is even worse than its counterpart activity in America because there is an unexplainable phenomenon here whereby dust accumulates faster than the speed of sound, or at least faster than the normal rate of accumulation in every other corner of the globe, thus leaving the floors in need of sweeping on an all-too-regular basis. While leaving the windows open is common and would explain some input of dust, it does not account for the supersonic buildup in the house. No matter how frequently I sweep, I gather together a large pile of matter including large, clumpy dust bunnies which seem to multiply faster than…well, rabbits. Fortunately, everything here is tiled; if there were carpets I’d be worrying about the accumulating dirt getting trapped within its fibers and how icky that would be.

Thanks to the advice of my smart sister I procured for myself a Swiffer, that little broom-like contraption that boasts a flat bottom onto which you attach a disposable cloth-like thingy that somehow magnetically or magically grabs the dust and holds on to it. Well, sort of hold on to it, because these dust bunnies are heavy-weights in their class. The cloth becomes caked full rather quickly and it’s not uncommon to whip through three or four to give the floors of my small apartment a decent once-over.

It never ceases to amaze me just how much crap the Swiffer picks up and how gross it is. I cringe, wrinkle my nose and exclaim in surprise every time I use it. I have a sort of absurd fascination with it, lifting the cleaning head to gaze at the crud, often shoving it in Bryan’s face saying, “Will you look at this gross stuff? Look! Ick!” to which he inevitably begs, “Why must you show it to me?” I dunno. Maybe because I think that dust disgust, like misery, is an emotion that loves company?

The bunnies are constant companions. Because of the Rapid Rate of Dust Accumulation Factor, I end up sweeping the floor so much that it looks like I’m training for the Winter Olympics Curling Event. Unfortunately, the Swiffer is no more effective on the pioppi fluffs than the broom is, so the interior snowfall continues to annoy and affect me.

Cleaning in Italy is also compounded by the fact that it requires a great deal more effort to accomplish. Mops of the variety that I was accustomed to do not seem to exist here. Instead, the normal implement is a long-handled, short-bristled brush that gets placed on a rag. Mopping action requires an inordinate amount of muscle and the exercise always results in back-bending, ache-inducing futility because the rag deposits as much dirt onto baseboards as it picks up off the tile. After two years, I have still not adequately mastered this technique.

I found this affair to be entirely too much work and so I invested in a steam cleaner, the likes of which I used happily at home. Unfortunately, I chose poorly and this one lacks the raw cleaning power of my previous steamer, which now resides with a friend who has dubbed it Stanley and adores it as much as any of her beloved dogs. The new one also has no lock-and-load action, thus requiring that I keep my finger on the nozzle at all times, ensuring that I get a cramped-up index finger to go along with the aches caused by mopping furiously to try to get up the dirt. Need to get me a new, more powerful steamer.

All this is frustrating not so much because it is different from what I’m used to, as much as I look around and see that every house I enter is extremely clean. I mean, we’re talking brilliantly, sparklingly, astonishingly clean. How the heck do they do it? How do they keep the dust bunnies from taking over the world? How do they keep the windows so clear? How do they use those back-breaking mops and actually get them to pick up the dirt? These are my whiny lamentations every time I commence cleaning.

My whining subsides a bit when I consider that I am really not investing the better part of my day in cleaning, but am instead usually found moseying around town, enjoying delicious cappuccinos, writing to my heart’s content, studying (when I feel like it), and meeting some wonderful people when they come to see my city. I console myself that while my house is not spotless, it’s fine…even if “fine” requires four crud-filled cloths from the Swiffer to achieve. I have lovely poppies to behold, friends to converse with, and-perhaps best of all-no sand-blasted gusts of wind to bombard me.

Still, I’ll be glad when spring turns to the dry season of summer, when the pioppi snows stop falling, the windows will not be rain-blotched, and the mal di primavera will come to an end. The abiding constant will be the fact that I’ll still have the bunnies under the bed to keep me company. Given their rate of accumulation and my dislike of spring cleaning, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon.

Valerie in Castelluccio

 

[Valerie]

Living Slow in Italy - Bittersweet Journeys

While we were still living in New Mexico, we had the honor of being invited by a friend to his home for a Passover seder. For us it was a cultural experience. The dinner is actually a history lesson, as it recounts the plight and flight of the children of Israel as they were released from slavery in Egypt and began the Exodus. It is an annual observance filled with poignant symbolism and important object lessons.

The seder plate is a main component to the Passover celebration. On it are placed ritual elements: a shank bone which stands in for the sacrificial lamb; salt water to represent the tears shed as slaves; parsley as a symbol of newness and springtime; a roasted egg denotes the burnt offerings brought to the Temple; bitter herbs (usually raw horseradish) indicate the bitterness of slavery; charoset, a sweet paste of apples, nuts, cinnamon and wine, resembles the mortar used by the Hebrew slaves in Egyptian construction works, but it's sweetness also symbolizes hope and freedom.

During the seder, each element is discussed or consumed. At one point, participants put a spoonful of bitter herbs on a matzah cracker along with a spoonful of sweet charoset; the bitter and sweet are consumed together, symbolic that life is an equal mixture of both.

I was strongly reminded of this fact during our recent trip to the U.S.

The main purpose for throwing off our body clocks and making a journey across the ocean was to attend a wedding. Bryan’s nephew was getting married in Illinois and we had promised to attend. It was a great opportunity to spend time with Bryan’s family, who would all be together and spirited for the happy occasion. We looked forward to meeting the bride we had been hearing so much about. We have particular soft spots for our nephews and nieces, and wanted to share in the joy.

Other than awakening daily at 5:00 a.m. with the ferocious effects of jetlag, it all went off without a hitch. I shopped with my sister-in-law and niece, and found (gasp!) "Affordable Pants That Fit", not to mention a couple of cute tops in 100% cotton that would help me brave the imminent heat wave so common throughout central Italy in the summer. Bryan spent some “testosterone time” with his brothers and nephews. His parents were looking fit and healthy, and it was wonderful to be in their company.

The wedding was well orchestrated for the many out-of-town guests, with thoughtful touches like a shuttle bus to transport guests to the rehearsal dinner and to the wedding and reception site, and back again. It was great to not need a rental car, and those partaking of the open bar could make merry without worry. A day-after picnic was held for the lingering family members and we were able to get acquainted a bit with the newest member of the family. A good time was had by all, as they say.

Weddings are always joyful events, and its fun to see the dewy faces of newlyweds. They are young and flush with all the possibilities of life stretching out before them. They are just setting their feet on the path.

Newlyweds

Following the wedding weekend, we arrived in Ohio to find my maternal grandmother reaching the end of her journey. She had walked life’s road for ninety-seven years. Not bad for a girl who wasn’t expected to survive her first week.

Grams was born in August, 1910 and was christened Cecelia Elizabeth. At birth, she weighed only 3 ½ pounds. She was so tiny that her mother’s wedding band fit over her entire wrist like a bracelet - and her mother, Josephine, was not a large woman. Josie cried when she first held the baby, certain that she would not see this child grow up.

The family lived on a rural farm and birthing was done at home with the aid of a midwife. Given the miniscule birth weight and potentially precarious health of this baby, it was felt that an incubator was needed. Ingenuity came to the fore, and a shoe box was lined with cotton 'wool' into which the baby was placed, and the box was settled into the open (unlit) oven to avoid drafts. Tender care, and maybe a touch of German stubbornness in her genes, ensured that she survived, and her petite stature belied the robust good health that Grams enjoyed throughout her long adult life.

My great-grandmother’s premonition of not seeing her daughter grow up turned out to be true, but not for the reason she had anticipated at the time. Josephine contracted tuberculosis and died when Grams was only twelve years old. Because of the infectious nature of the disease, the children were allowed only limited contact with Josie for a couple of years before her death. When her father remarried, my grandmother inherited an evil stepmother and two nasty stepsisters. She didn’t talk much about those experiences other than to say that they had made her life so miserable, she packed up and left home the day after her high school graduation. She took a job as a nurse’s aide and moved to a boarding house. She said she enjoyed her years there, and formed what would become life-long friendships.

My grandmother hated her name. No one knows why she had such antipathy for it, but at a young age she ditched “Cecelia” and began using her middle name, Elizabeth. That quickly got shortened to Betty, which is how nearly everyone knew her.

She married at the age of 29, what was considered “later in life” in those days. My soft-spoken but mischievous grandfather won her over quickly; they became engaged after a mere six weeks’ courtship. They had to wait a few years to marry, money being tight in the Depression years. She boasted that when she walked down the aisle they were earning $18.00 a week. She always said that grandpa fell in love with her because she could bake bread, but looking at youthful photos of her, it’s easy to see that he was attracted to a lovely girl with a ready smile.

"Grams" at a picnic

They were married for sixty-five years and they were very much a team. They both worked hard, lived simply, and had a common life philosophy: heart to God and hands to man.

The full fruit of this became fully evident to us in recent years. After my grandfather died, we moved Grams to a smaller apartment in the assisted living residence. In doing so we unearthed a stack of books, leather-bound diaries with “Year Book” proclaimed in gold lettering on each. I had not known that for most of her adult life my grandma wrote a daily journal of her day. They proved to be enlightening and interesting reading.

She wrote very dispassionately. These diaries were not a compilation of her thoughts, dreams or heart-aches. She wrote instead of her day. Every day, for years. The activities of the family members; what chores or pursuits she performed each day; where she walked; who she wrote letters to or received letters from; who visited. The picture that materialized of my grandma's life is drawn in bold lines, a black and white sketch, the color and depth of emotions are not brushed into the portrait.

The most striking thing that emerged as I read several years' worth of her daily activities was the fact that she did something for someone else every single day of her life. From baking bread, making cookies, and preparing meals to cleaning a house and writing letters. Cleaning the church linen, volunteering at the library, visiting invalid nuns, helping at the nursing home. She took meals to one family daily for more than six months. Having never learned to drive, she delivered her goodies on foot…”meals on heels,” as my uncle called it.

She looked in on another elderly lady and kept her company, washed her laundry, weeded her flower beds. She cared for an aged aunt who became senile and sometimes difficult and spiteful. Yet Grams continued as caregiver anyway. She recognized the needs of the person behind the facade. It upset her, yet she gave her all.

Grams wrote letters, thousands of them over her lifetime. Her poor handwriting was as notorious as her notes were welcome. She wrote regularly to far-away family and closer-by relations and friends. News of the area, words of encouragement, a few lines of poetry or an anecdote she found amusing told the recipient that she was thinking of them. She always included newspaper clippings and sometimes a couple of dollars. During World War II, she took great pride in confounding the censors when writing to a nephew who was a POW. She composed her notes in a tight circular pattern, starting in the center of the page and spiraling out. The nephew reported that his letters were the only ones in the barracks that were not blacked out even once. They were certainly difficult to read, but provided hours of occupation and precious news from home to the hapless soldier.

Grandma’s greatest joys were found in the simplest pleasures - a picnic, a phone call or a card received in the mail, a card game with friends, a visit to family members on a farm, a snowball fight. She loved a country drive and a stop for ice cream on the way home. She had us grandkids for frequent sleep-overs, for her amusement and ours, as well as to give my mom a break.

We spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house. We saw them at least twice a week, but sleep-overs were best. That’s when Grandma reveled in her role and let us eat Choco-Krispies, gave us root beer floats and homemade cookies by the dozen. She never wore pants in those days, but would still get down on the floor and play games with us, or take a turn down the slide at the nearby park. She’d throw the water hose over the clothesline for us to frolic in the spray on a hot summer day. Grandpa made us hand-fashioned skateboards that we’d scoot around on, with Grams calling after us to be careful.

She was an amazing lady who led a simple life. Simple, but not spare. Full. Well-rounded. Complete. Her actions were simply automatic…and they impacted her neighborhood, her church, and her community. She and my grandfather helped the underdogs, the under-privileged, the under-loved, and the undernourished. She influenced three generations of her family, leaving a lasting legacy she didn’t even know she was imparting. And maybe that is the most profound thing of all. She simply went about her daily life, and in doing so touched the lives of many others.

The child that wasn’t expected to live out her first week enjoyed ninety-seven years on this earth. She watched dramatic events unfold over the course of nearly a century. She liked to say that in her lifetime she saw mankind go from a horse and buggy to a man on the moon, and she was a witness to all the changes in between. She was born at the cusp of World War I, came of age in the Roaring Twenties, was shaped by the Great Depression, experienced The New Deal, was a member of the Greatest Generation, gave birth to Baby Boomers, watched the arrival of the Digital Age, and heralded the dawn of a New Millennium.

My grandmother passed away on June 5. She was just three months shy of her 98th birthday. I was so fortunate that I was able to spend some time with her before she died.

"Grams" in a hat

We had planned our travels around a wedding celebration, but ended up attending a funeral. Nevertheless, this journey turned out to be perfectly timed, reminding us that “to everything there is a season…A time to be born and a time to die.” Grams experienced 391 seasons.

“A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance…” As I learned at that Passover observance, life brings the bitter as well as the sweet…sometimes in the same moment.

 

[Valerie]

Living Slow in Italy - Arrivederci Estate

It happened overnight. Literally. Like a curtain descending on a theatrical performance, summer was over without an encore. Gray, drizzly skies brought suddenly-cooler temperatures, making the formerly heat-radiating stones of the piazzas slick and drab. Yes, summer is over, and my friends are lamenting the loss of their tans, the closed-up beachside venues and the need for jackets. Good riddance, I say.

This was the summer that wasn’t. We experienced only the heat and discomfort without any of the usual, accompanying fun to compensate for it. We returned from our June voyage to the US emotional from the bittersweet journey and feeling a little sapped. The heat blazed and we were forced into a form of hibernation, slamming the shutters closed for the entire day to keep the infernal rays of the July sun at bay. The daytime interior twilight just fueled my sense of melancholy and made me feel isolated. We would emerge after dark to catch any shred of cooling breeze and to be among other forced cave-dwellers seeking face-time and human interaction.

We began plotting how to survive the ghost-like month of August when everyone we know flees town for greener pastures or plots of sand. Maybe we should turn tail and run, too? Maybe go to the mountains for a few weeks, transfer ourselves where we have at least some shred of a chance of not sweating through the night.

And just as we decided to go south to higher elevations, we received a call. One of those dreaded, dreadful announcements no one wants to receive. Someone I loved was dying and I’d need to hurry home. The distinct and distressing downside of living in a foreign country is the distance at times like these. I booked flights and we departed from Roma the next day, our hearts bursting with concern and worry.

My uncle was in a hospital bed, beaten down by pneumonia and no longer able to fight the tumors that were suffocating his liver and colon. To call him my uncle is accurate but not apt. He was so much more – a big brother, a father figure when my own father deserted us, a friend, a confidante. He flew half-way around the world to celebrate my Sweet Sixteen and walked me down the aisle when I got married. He was one of those special, select people who are a part of your life no matter what, and now suddenly he was in the hospital, still smiling and joking like always, but looking so frail.

Funny how the clock stops and days run together the minute you enter a hospital room. Everything seemed skewed, like I'd entered a parallel universe. All around me Washington, DC went on as normal while life as we knew it seemed to brake and warp. Time became measured in three-hour increments as we took shifts tending to Dean. We didn't want him to be alone, and someone needed to be there at all times to oversee the medical care.

Nights were marked by numb fatigue. Early mornings brought clammy awakenings to the sudden remembrance of where I was, and why. Days were measured in hugs and prayers and clasped hands. In countless cups of coffee from the hospital cafeteria. In pounding heartbeats, in hopes held tightly while dismay crowded into the recesses. In the number of well-wishes extended, in meals given, in smiles bestowed.

We lost count of the days and the number of tears, which were broken by jokes to dispel the tension and funny remembrances to chase away the fears. We made it through not by taking it one day at a time, but by forgetting what day it was and operating on a different time zone altogether. By leaning on each other, picking up the pieces when one of us fell apart and then getting enough rest to start it all over again.

My uncle Dean passed away on August 6, two months after my grandmother died. To quote my fifteen-year old niece, “This summer totally sucked.” Indeed.

After more than three weeks of stress, anxiety, sleeplessness, restlessness, and overwhelming emotion I was more than ready to return to Italy, to get back to my familiar routine and the pile of work I left scattered on my desk. Most of August had passed me by and I suddenly wanted to reclaim a snatch of summer while it lasted.

I returned home to the wonderful discovery that my upstairs neighbor had found himself a girlfriend who had taken up residence, and who was apparently in rigorous training for a clog-dancing championship. She clumped around to and fro all day and half the night in heavy heels. Clomp, clomp. Clompety, clompety, clomp clomp clomp. It became somewhat akin to Chinese water torture and I’d sit in the front of my computer unable to concentrate and seething. She would cease and shed her clogs right about the time the concerts in the piazza cranked up, so there was no rest for the weary. I was getting cranky and homicidal. Fortunately (for her own life as well as my sanity), the clog dancer departed shortly after the August holiday season ended.

Sleep. Routine. Rest. Good. That lasted one week. Then a virulent strain of something icky struck me down. There is something weird about European viruses and bacteria. They are much stronger and aggressive than their wimpy North American counterparts. They knock you down harder and hold on longer. Of course, they have had millennia to adapt and mutate and grow evil. My New World-bred immune system is no match for the cruel critters.

The thing is, most among my acquaintance here do not believe that colds and flu are transmitted by germs, and being a sociable bunch, they go out in the piazzas and bars and hack away, leaving their bugs behind. If I say that I have a sore throat, it’s blamed on the wind. Stuffy head or headache? Change of weather, it went from hot to cold too quickly. Fever? I must have gone outside without a jacket. When I say, “No, it’s a virus,” it is countered once again with the cambia del tempo reasoning.

Not that I’m unfamiliar with some of these arguments; I have long experience with them from my childhood. My grandmother lectured me endlessly on the need to wear a hat lest I catch a cold, because “one-third of your body heat escapes from your head.” That may be, but I wasn’t about to mess up my nicely-teased 80s ‘do by plonking a hat on it. Besides, one doesn’t catch a cold by being cold, I’d say, to my grandmother’s great consternation. Going outside with wet hair, regardless of the season, was a reckless invitation for pneumonia. Going barefoot around the house in the winter, well that was just insanity that Grams didn’t want to ponder.

My grandfather had such a strong constitution and immune system that he very rarely became sick. On the extremely unusual instance when he did succumb to something, he swore it was not due to germs but must be some form of divine judgement. Given his almost angelic patience, his soft-spoken nature, and the fact that he never said a cross word to anyone (never, I swear!), it was highly unlikely that he was being smited down for penance.

While my grandpa had no mean genes in his system, he could be a little furbo, as they say here. When my cousin came for a month-long annual visit, my sister transferred herself to our grandparents’ house and the two were inseparable. They were also incessant in their chatter, which probably drove my quiet Gramps a little batty. So seizing onto a clever little way to get himself some peace, whenever they were in the car he’d say, “You know, you have to be careful what you say out here, because the corn has ears!” A little game commenced where the gullible kids would hold their breath whenever they drove past cornfields. Northern Ohio, if you don’t already know, is carpeted with cornfields. While they turned blue, Gramps whistled contentedly. But I don’t really think he would be stricken with influenza for that, do you?

Regardless of the affliction’s origins, my mother's orders for a quick recovery are always the same: she is a firm believer in the medicinal properties of a hot toddy. Cold and flu? Hot toddy will fix you right up. Got a headache? Hot toddy! Arm has been severed? Hot toddy! Trouble is, with the long-lasting, hard-hitting Euro bugs, I’d be hammered for a good two weeks if I followed my mom’s advice.

Many of my Italian friends do take her advice, or a semblance thereof, as they frequently recommend grappa. Which, as you already know, is just a tad too much like moonshine for me (read my previous Internal Affairs article). Propolis is the other favored cure-all, which offers a little help for the sore throat but not much assistance in the blocked-up nose department. That’s where the fumes of the hot toddy come into play. (Yes, Mom, I inhaled!)

My cold (or whatever it was) went on the wane just as autumn fully settled upon us. The grape harvests have been nearly completed and they are being pressed and turned into regionally-specific vintages. Several friends are already lining up helpers for the olive harvest (we’ve committed to helping with two). The sagre have turned over from grilled fare and fish to heavier, fall specialties like polenta and funghi. Nights are spent bundled up in sweatshirts since the air becomes chilly, but the heat hasn’t been turned on yet.

The seasonal rhythm brings comfort and the cooler weather brings a sense of coziness that I welcome. My friends are mourning the loss of their suntans and summer fun, but I’m glad for autumn. This summer was memorable, but is not one that I’ll remember fondly or care to repeat. The falling leaves and the olive harvest will bring a timeless cadence; they are sure things in an unsure world. The change of seasons is strangely soothing. So arrivederci estate … I won’t miss you a bit.

 

[Valerie]

Living Slow in Italy - Every Day is a Holiday

It is officially The Holiday Season. We’ve just celebrated Thanksgiving, the day when my fellow Americans gather over a nationwide banquet, when expats lament the lack of canned pumpkin and cranberries, and when friends and family inevitably, innocently ask us, “What do Italians do for Thanksgiving?”

The answer is, nothing. Thanksgiving is not a holiday here. Our Italian friends, upon hearing the words “festa del ringraziamento,” immediately respond with, “Ah, si. Tacchino!” They’ve all seen enough film and TV images of enormous birds roasted to perfection and carved tableside to know our national penchant for turkey. They are always happy to find out first-hand that it is, indeed, our official holiday food. Then they usually shrivel their noses and say, “Mah! Wouldn’t it be better to have a nice porchetta, or something with flavor?” They don’t generally think of turkey as being very tasty, but that, I tell them, is because they’ve never had the pleasure of a succulently roasted bird. Finding a whole turkey in Italy is about as hard as finding a decent caffé in America.

I had decided on our first Thanksgiving here that I wouldn’t even bother with the bird because, even if I had been able to track one down, it certainly would not have fit into my miniscule oven. I would have also had to purchase a roasting pan to contain the bird, and a casserole dish to hold the dressing, because we prefer it cooked outside rather than stuffed into the turkey. None of the above would then fit into the aforementioned miniscule oven. I also would have had to plan ahead by purchasing, cooking, and mashing the pumpkin before turning it into a pie, which just seemed like too much effort to me, so we rationalized that we now live in a foreign country where this holiday doesn’t exist, and besides, we don’t need a prescribed day on which to be thankful and count our blessings.

We opted to “go local” and go out for lunch instead. But what providence! We sat in the restaurant listening closely to the waiter as he recited the daily menu choices and were astonished to hear him say “filetto di tacchino…” Huh? What’s that…turkey?! Naturally, seeing the signs in the menu we ordered the breast of turkey, which was sautéed in a delicate white wine sauce along with artichoke quarters and a side dish of roasted potatoes, and then toasted our compatriots at home with a slightly frizzante house white wine. We explained to the waiter that nearly every inhabitant of America would be dining on turkey that day and he was rather amused at the irony of it being on offer in their restaurant. We ended up having an American Thanksgiving after all, with an Italian flavor.

Last Thanksgiving, my brother and his daughter were here for a visit. We were in Rome on the holiday and had been invited to our friends’ house for dinner. Giorgio, being a brilliant chef as well as attentive to the calendar, announced he would make his own version of a Thanksgiving meal in our honor. He churned out a very scrumptious dish of turkey legs cooked in wine and rosemary, which we all devoured despite the fact that none of us ordinarily liked dark meat. Giorgio, his wife, and their sons enjoyed our tradition of going around the table to announce what we’re thankful for, each of them giving it serious thought and grinning after their speeches.

This year, figuring we’d probably not happen into such luck a third year in a row, and now being in possession of a slightly larger oven, I decided to go ahead and make a Thanksgiving meal at home. I filled some thickly-sliced turkey cutlets, fixed up a heaping helping of bread stuffing for Bryan, who considers that to be the most important element of the meal, mashed the dickens out of some potatoes and called it a day. Apple-cinnamon crostata from a local pasticceria stood in for pie, and we topped it off with some dreamily creamy fior di latte gelato.

We debated about inviting friends, but since it’s not a holiday for them we’d have had to throw the party on the weekend, and for us it just doesn’t feel right to not celebrate it on the correct calendar day. I mean, part of the fun is in knowing that the entire nation is celebrating together. Besides, none of our friends were inordinately interested when we broached the topic anyway.

Thanksgiving may not be celebrated here, but that also means that there is no Black Friday, that insane phenomenon that gets played out annually in America whereby seriously demented people rise at 4:00 am to storm the malls and discount stores, trample their fellow citizens, punch and claw their way to an item for their children and call it a bargain. Every year I marvel at it, shake my head and wonder why the media must always cover the mayhem with such obvious glee while giving glory to these wack-jobs. Roba da matti, as they say here.

So no, Italians don’t celebrate Thanksgiving Day, but don’t feel too bad; Italy is certainly not lacking in holidays. In fact, according to their national calendar they have twelve public holidays compared to our eight in America. Throw in a few local festas and a couple more saints’ days, and you can garner yourself even more days away from the office. Italians also receive an average of 33 vacation days, compared to our dismal national average of 13.

And that is before they start building bridges. It is common to fare un ponte by tacking on a day or two before or after a holiday to “bridge” it to the weekend and thus turn an ordinary one-day celebration into a three or four day affair. Many of our friends take advantage of the opportunity to pass a long weekend in a neighboring region while also crossing off a few extra days from their work calendar. Clever, actually.

Regional travel companies have seized on this penchant and have started designing package bus tours revolving around these ponte weekends, so here in Ascoli Piceno, for example, we frequently see the piazzas teeming with travelers from Emilia Romagna, Toscana or Puglia during the “bridged” holidays.

The holiday season, as we know it in America, is also much shorter. “The Holidays” as we define it generally encompasses the celebrations of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Day. Here in Italy, it’s just a tad longer with a few more days thrown in.

We get to kick it all off on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, which is also the day that officially opens the Christmas shopping season and is when many people start decorating their homes and decking their halls. Various holiday parties ensue, but those are superfluous enjoyable evenings, not actual holidays.

That leads us to La Vigilia, Natale, Santo Stefano, San Silvestro, Capodanno, and then, finally, Epiphany. Phew. Between the Immacolata and Epifania there are so many holidays involving celebrations with church bells peeling, people gathering, and food to be enjoyed, that you begin to lose count. It is nigh a month before the festivities give way to business as usual, by which time you’re relieved to go back to a normal routine and diet again. For nearly a month, it really starts to feel that every day is a holiday in Italy.

So you see, while we don’t have a Thanksgiving Day here, we still have plenty of holidays to make up for it. We love the foods, the festive atmosphere, and the simple pleasures of gathering with friends. We especially enjoy that we are invited to participate, that we are welcomed and wanted; that our friends desire to share their traditions and hearts with us. Being foreigners yet being accepted and embraced and wrapped into local customs is a wonderful experience…and something that we are very thankful for indeed.

 

[Valerie]

Living Slow in Italy - La Vita e` Meravigliosa

I was in a funk. Despite the twinkle lights and colorful displays that had been festooned around town, I was feeling decidedly un-festive. The low, gray clouds and wet, cold weather hadn’t helped matters. There had not yet been a snowfall like last year at this time, and I would have preferred the crisp freshness of new snow to the damp, drab dreariness of the heavily overcast skies and unremitting rain. I am a desert rat who needs sunshine ... and I hadn’t seen a single ray for at least a solid week.

And just when I was feeling as lackluster as the weather, our landlord informed us that he would not be renewing our rental contract when it expires. I became unrepentantly gloomy and took to muttering porca miseria as I shuffled around cleaning the apartment. Because what else was there to do when the rain kept falling? Going outside would mean getting splattered by sadistic drivers who delighted in hitting the puddles that accumulated in the tire-worn grooves on the cobblestone streets. Bastardi, che cavolo!

Christmas music failed to raise my spirits, not even Harry Connick, Jr., whose jazzy crooning always made me feel good. The music being piped into the piazza was mostly bad remakes of English-language carols, with a strangely heavy emphasis on various arrangements of Silent Night, the one carol I despise above all others. Perhaps it is owing to repeatedly singing it over and over again during my Catholic school years, but I really dislike that tune. Besides, Bethlehem was packed to the gills with no room at the inn, remember? No way that it was a silent or calm night around there!

Even the passing of the rain and the lifting of the clouds didn’t help resurrect my spirits. I resorted to some Christmas baking in an attempt to brighten things up and warm the house, but that turned into an exercise in frustration. My baking never turns out too well here, despite more than two years of tweaking and trying. The butter is denser, the flour is finer, and the oven temperature fluctuates like a yo-yo. Despite that, I took another stab at it anyway. I gave extra beater time to the butter; I measured the flour carefully and tossed in a few spoonfuls of farina integrale as a friend counseled. Still, my sugar cookie dough turned sticky and my shortbreads disintegrated when I lifted them off the pan. Shhhhh-ish kabobs. This further muted my mood.

I started to think that maybe I should just drink a warm glass of vin brule`, gorge myself on torrone, and call Christmas off. And, just when I was pondering that plan I got a call from Francesca, my friend in Rome. After a bit of chit-chat, she stuttered, “Ah…uh, Valerie…I wanted to ask what you’re, uh, doing for Christmas?” Her voice sounded a little strange, even a little embarrassed. I stammered, suddenly realizing that we had just assumed that we’d spend Christmas with them, like the previous two years.

Christmas in Rome had become somewhat of a tradition. The past two holidays we had spent three days doing nothing but sit at the table and be fed great quantities of marvelous food by chef Giorgio, in the company of their family and friends who had become our own family and friends. Francesca and Giorgio sometimes smilingly refer to us as their “figli Americani” and their sons frequently say that I’m the sister they never had.

Giorgio always prepared a huge feast for La Vigilia (Christmas Eve), complete with a table laden down with antipasti, followed by the requisite seven plates of seafood. He would then rise at 6:00 a.m. and putter around the taverna sautéing and simmer sauces while humming contentedly to present an enormous Christmas Day dinner. At some point in the day, Bryan and the boys get into cahoots and regale the company with a little improvised musical skit.

Just when we thought we couldn’t possibly eat anything more for at least a week, these two days of unbridled gluttony would be followed by Santo Stefano, when Giorgio would proudly pour the polenta on a huge wooden board in the center of the table, top it with sauce and sausages and a heavy sprinkling of pecorino cheese, and invite everyone to grab a fork and dig right in.

We would leave the periferia for a jaunt into Rome’s centro storico to enjoy the people parade, the lights, the bancarelli and atmosphere of Piazza Navona. Francesca and I strolled with arms linked from stall to stall looking at the goods, commenting on outlandish fashions, and enjoying general merriment. Francesca would then work herself into indignance and give her annual diatribe about the unwarranted warping of La Befana from housewife to witch. “She should not have a pointy hat but a handkerchief on her head. Guarda! Vedi?” she would exclaim fiercely. “She is not a witch! She is a casalinga.”

After meandering the centro, we would enjoy a caffé to defrost ourselves before returning home, one year stopping by a skating rink to watch the kids do laps while orchestral music was being performed nearby.

It had all quickly become tradition for us. At least we thought. Now Francesca was on the phone asking what we’d be doing for Christmas? “Allora…we hadn’t really thought about it,” I sputtered. “We assumed we would be in Roma,” I somewhat sheepishly told her.

Relief flooded her voice. “Ah, benissimo! We hadn’t given it a second thought,” she admitted “until Roberto called to ask if you’d be here. We said ‘of course,’ but then realized we hadn’t even talked to you about it. We just assumed. Adesso e` normale,” she said sweetly. Now it’s just normal that you would be here.

Normale. Yes. It’s amazing how, in just a couple of years something becomes normal, accepted, customary. We realized once again just how blessed we are to have such friends as these.

The fog was dissipating. Then dear friends from New Mexico arrived for a visit and we enjoyed such hearty laughs, such leisurely lunches filled with camaraderie, and such glee as we watched their enthusiasm burst from their faces at the beauties of our region, that my funk was officially fleeing.

After they left, I found myself singing along with Harry and smiling at the bambini as they ran to see Babbo Natale (Santa Claus). I realized that I had gotten too caught up in mourning the year’s losses instead of counting the year’s blessings. Just recognizing that helped. I was feeling better, brighter…downright festive, even, so that by the time I watched my annual viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life, the famous lines about George Bailey being the richest man in town and that no man is a failure who has friends made me shiver and tear up.

I am still mourning the deaths of loved ones. There are pieces of my heart and soul that are vacant because of their absence from my life. But I am also so very grateful for the years they were present and for all the cherished moments we spent together, and it gives me comfort to think that, like George Bailey getting a glimpse of his influence on those in Bedford Falls, my presence also impacted their lives, and their dying moments, as well.

This Christmas will be celebrated like normale, with full-on feasts and lively chatter. But we have already received our gifts: we have loving families; friends back home who stay in touch; Slow Travel pals we met in person this year; and warm Italian amici who open their hearts and homes to us and treat us like famiglia. It really is a pretty wonderful life, don’t you think?

 

[Valerie]

Living Slow in Italy - New Year, New Adventure

One thing I've discovered about myself in our adventures abroad is that I'm a 'nester'. I like to feel settled-in and cozy. I mentally rearrange, renovate, or redecorate nearly every home I enter, thinking, if you take out that wall and add a fireplace... or, this place would be great if you move the sofa over there, install a wall-to-ceiling bookshelf and change the artwork. I’ve been known to shuffle furniture around in vacation rentals in order to get a comfy chair closer to the reading lights or make a snug room easier to navigate. This usually makes the room feel larger, more functional, or more comfortable for our stay, but the problem with this activity is that I then forget the exact spot where the furnishings had been before my intervention.

I’m also a habitual picture-straightener. If I see one hanging crooked, I have to level it out. Don’t mind me if I do it in your house; you’ll thank me for it later. One picture in our home in New Mexico refused to hang evenly no matter how often I adjusted it. After many months of poking and prodding it to try to get the dang thing to hang properly, I discovered that the wall was slightly uneven. As you can imagine, that news didn’t sit well with my need for proper proportion.

It was probably the ‘nester’ in me that drew me to the concept of Slow Travel in the first place. The opportunity to live like a local, have a place to call home, even temporarily, instead of sitting in a small, sterile hotel room, held definite appeal to me. And I’m sure this same instinct is what made us plant ourselves in Ascoli Piceno for more than two years now. We settled in and sort of stayed put. Sure, it's been our base and we've employed the ‘concentric circle’ concept to explore some of Central Italy from here. We have certainly seen every hamlet, castle, and rabbit trail within a 100-mile radius. We have ventured into Umbria and Abruzzo, have made forays into Lazio, and have visited beautiful Bologna. While we've made several trips to farther-away Basilicata to visit la famiglia and explore the motherland, realistically we've not spent much time truly traveling around other parts of Italy.

When I stop to think that we've been in the bel paese for more than two years and have never seen Sicily or Puglia, even I am startled at myself. Two and a half years! We must surely be the slowest of the Slow Travelers!

It was this realization that partially contributed to a sort of wake-up call. That, and the fact that we would be finding ourselves effectively homeless at the end of the month. Do you remember that in last month’s article I mentioned that our landlord wouldn’t be renewing our lease? He had started dropping subtle hints a few months back. They were so subtle, in fact, that at first we missed them completely. Then he stepped up the tone a little, casually asking us “What will you do when the contract expires?”, or mentioning la crisi economica and how we could surely find a lower-priced appartamento when the contract expires.

Yeah, okay. We get it. The contract expires. However, he was still mum on why he wanted us out until one day while collecting the rent money he felt particularly and uncharacteristically chatty. He spilled the beans that he actually shouldn’t have rented out the apartment in the first place. He had technically sold it while restorations were still underway and the buyer had put down half of the purchase money, and had chosen the room arrangements, and the tile colors and bath fixtures she wanted. Of course, if she would have asked me, the internal design would have looked much differently, but that is neither here nor there. Things turned sour and for some reason or another, the sale has been tied up in court with the buyer trying to back out for a couple of years now. Knowing full well how long court proceedings can take, our landlord figured he would make a bit of money off the place in the meantime, but the would-be owner got wind of it and protested.

Since it took us more than five months to locate and procure this apartment, we didn’t have much hope of finding something else on a short-term contract on short notice. Most owners in these parts want a minimum of two years, but are much happier if you’re willing to sign up for a three-year lease. We definitely can’t make that kind of long-term commitment. Nesters we may be, but that is excessive even for us.

This cattiva notizia coincided, most unfortunately, with a deep look into the depths of our bank coffers only to find the well was starting to look as dry as a New Mexico stream in mid-summer. Not encouraging news to start the New Year. Not encouraging at all.

But then, we’ve often found that when things look bleak, a glint of sunshine breaks through the embanking clouds, and this time was no different. Not long after the dual discouragements arrived, a friend sent an email that turned out to be a note of electronic generosity. He was offering us a house-sitting position in his splendid villa on the Costa del Cilento. He didn’t want it left empty all winter, and we didn’t blame him. We recently chatted with a local carabiniero who told us that there had been more than 120 break-ins and burglaries around our province between May and October. And that’s just our little provincia.

Our friend also said that he wanted to have some small projects completed during the off-season months, so our presence there would make it easier for him to schedule the workmen to come. Do you just love when those moments of perfect timing intervene? We get to enjoy a few months of southern sunshine just as the rainy season is in full dreariness, and will have a gorgeous place to live just when we fretted and despaired of where to go. That we can also be useful to our friend and help oversee the work he needs to complete just makes it all the brighter for us.

So, we'll be heading laggiu` at the end of the month, and will take the change as the great opportunity it is - a chance to explore a beautiful, relatively unknown area while trying to regroup and coax the money tree to sprout and bear fruit again. We’ve learned that it’s a pretty persnickety plant, the money tree. It is particularly sensitive to global climate changes. The slightest cool breeze can cause the buds to wither. Soil conditions must be optimal, and even if it receives constant care and attention, it can drop leaves and refuse to bloom. We have been diligently tending to it, but only time will tell if the Spring sunshine will bring blossoms and eventual fruit or if the scirocco winds of exchange rates and downturns will do the poor thing in forever.

We’ve already had some tearful farewells and more are planned in the upcoming days as we meet with friends before our departure. However, our plan is to return to Ascoli Piceno, which we consider 'home', when business picks up again or some form of measurable income starts to trickle in again. Meanwhile, we'll be down in the land of the mid-day sun, lemon groves, and mozzarella di bufala where we plan to seize every new opportunity that presents itself to fully enjoy our adopted country and all her allures. We will explore new concentric circles, and pick up the pace a bit. We may even leave the provincial roads for a few strade statale instead. After all, maybe we have been living just a little too slowly.

Whatever roads we choose, they are sure to lead us to new adventures. That’s what a New Year is for.

 

[Valerie]

Living Slow in Italy - Predictable Unpredictability

Predictably, when we announced our impending move to the hinterlands of The South to friends and acquaintances in Ascoli, they widened their eyes, wrinkled their noses, and asked incredulously, “Sud?” with particularly heavy emphasis on the “d”. “Come mai?” Why on earth would you go down there? We already know their views about the Mezzogiorno, so we had expected their reactions.

But the weather was on our side ... specifically, the cold, damp chill and unremitting rain that created dark moods and low spirits also caused them to see the silver lining of going south, where at least the temperature would register higher up the thermometer and the sun had half a chance of shining. They began to express something close to approval at our opportunity.

We had rounds of dinners and get-togethers before leaving Ascoli Piceno. We packed and departed in the rain, just like when we had arrived two and a half years ago. It was sheeting in torrents when we got to our new temporary home on the Costa del Cilento, too. There seems to be a trend of moving in the rain. Maybe there is some deep message in that, but I have not yet figured out what it is.

Also predictably, the renewals of our paperwork, which we had applied for six months ago, were not yet ready when we departed. We had contacted the Immigration Office to check on the status. “Soon,” they told us. “They will be ready soon.” How soon, no body knew. Our friend who works at the Questura also tried pressing the capo to see if they could speed things up a bit. Pazienza, they told him. They had no control of it; they were waiting for Rome to send them back.

Four days after we left, we received the notification that our permessi were ready. Somehow we knew that would happen. A six-hour drive back to Ascoli would have to be planned.

We started to settle in, find our way around, explore a little, and figure out the local customs. We quickly found that the driving is crazier, the accent is thicker, and the coffee is something to swoon over. The bread is also better- thick, hearty and crusty, with salt even, unlike the somewhat mealy-textured, bland bread of central Italy. Our one real disappointment with Le Marche is that the pane is really nothing more than a sauce-sopping apparatus rather than a food group of its own to savor.

When the rain cleared and the sun came out we discovered that Spring was already arriving. Vibrant fluffs of mimosas, riotous explosions of pastel almond blossoms, and exotic bird of paradise were blooming all around us. Delicate yellow wildflowers carpeted the fields beneath the olive trees and daffodils stood up and showed their sunny heads.

Beautiful Sunset

Since our first evening we decided that we would always try to be at home in the early evening so we could stand on the terrace and marvel at the sunsets. We had forgotten how majestic they are. In Ascoli, the sun doesn’t set so much as it tumbles behind the mountains. Here we get an unrivaled seat to watch as spectacular orange or purple streaks are painted onto the sky. We decided that sunsets are like snowflakes, no two are alike.

Hilltop villages are more plentiful, dangling over the sides of nearly every crest, or tucked into folds of mountain valleys. Many can barely boast a thousand inhabitants, yet they manage to live on ... preserving their historic centers and their rustic charms. We started heading for the hills with picnics, delighting in medieval streets, ancient history, ruins of stone windmills, and sweet old folks who stopped in mid-stride to give us a look-see.

Hilltop Italian Village

Despite having lived here nearly three years, it turns out that life in Italy isn’t so predictable after all. We felt a vague sense of déjà vu as we spent several days feeling rather ignorant, not unlike when we first arrived in Italia and didn’t know how things worked. Where is the fresh pasta shop? Well, there isn’t one here, at least not in the off-season. The locals, one barista told me, prefer pasta asciutta. Hence, the pasta all’uovo shop only opens in the summer when “the Northerners” want the stuff. Otherwise, “fresh” pasta is available in packages in the refrigerator case. No prob. I can do maccheroni like everyone else.

We discovered shop opening hours and closing days are on a different schedule, and surprisingly, the grocery stores are open on Sunday mornings, unlike in Ascoli. Bryan’s cell provider is not as widely used and its coverage is not as extensive or reliable, while my signal is stronger and more prevalent than before.

There is also a difference in regional cuisine. In Ascoli, despite its proximity to the Adriatic, the culinary traditions are much more tied to the hills than the sea. The two pesce shops in town were owned by the same rude guy, who didn't like my requests to clean the fish for me. (At least take out the innards, I pleaded, which seemed to be too much of a chore for him, despite Chef Giorgio assuring me it was assolutamente normale to ask for this service anywhere else.) So we shunned seafood unless dining out and partaking of the Fully Monty feast.

I have very little past pesce experience to draw from. I grew up in Northern Ohio, where the only fish we encountered was of the fried persuasion. You could have it on a bun or on a plate, always topped with globs of tartar sauce. Then I lived in the desert for a long time where fresh fish is pretty scarce. Sure, there is the occasional river trout but everything else that swims gets flown in from long distances. I'm sure it's fine, but still ... I always had my doubts about freshness.

But now we find ourselves back on the Mediterranean where I watch the fishing boats tooling around the bay, and where I have chatted amiably with a few of the seafarers while they were dockside repairing their nets or painting their boats. I figured we really should partake while we're here where it's so fresh.

Italian Village and Fishing Boats

There is a fish shop down at the bottom of the hill, and while the offerings have looked pretty abundant and good when I have passed by, it is also the local old-guy hang-out. That means that absolutely anything that transpires within the shop is completely open to public scrutiny and any purchase would go something like this:

Me: "Uh, what kind of fish is this?"
Owner: "That's a flounder."
Observer 1: "Mah! She doesn't recognize a flounder when she sees one?"
Observer 2: "That's no flounder, that's a halibut!"
Owner: “Gennaro’s right. That’s a halibut.”

Then a lively and lengthy discussion would ensue while I stand listening, ignorant and fish-less. I've had these experiences before. They can often be very interesting and enjoyable, but I really wasn't in the mood to have my ignorance put on trial.

I went into town to a smallish shop not far from the seafront. I watched the guys delivering the fresh catch just as I arrived, which I thought boded well. I wandered about looking at the fish while being careful to not set my gaze on the squid and seppia. Anything of the jelly or squishy variety is strictly off my list and the sight of their gooey mass makes me a little squeamish.

The guy asked what I wanted, so I just confessed up front, "I'm not sure. I don't know fish well, I'm from the desert." “Eh? Straniera? Va bene. Would you like the sea bass? Or maybe some nice vongole? Shellfish? What type?"

Boh. A fish, not frutti di mare, I said. Quickly grasping that I don't know my bass from a rombo, he gave me a little guided tour, speaking very slowly and loudly, I guess to compensate for my foreignness.

"Qui, questa e` spigola. SPIGOLAAAAA. CapitoooOO?" Si.
"Questo...QUESTO PESCE QUI...," poking at it, "OR-A-TA." And so on.

I chose the spigola and asked him to clean it, per favore. No problem! (Thank God!) He asked what I would be doing with it ("Grilled? Al forno? Do you want it filleted?"), and set about scraping off the scales and gutting it.

We chit-chatted about New Mexico and how the landscape is indeed similar to the John Wayne films he has seen and how that explains my fish ignorance. He handed over the goods, knocked a little off the price and wouldn't take a tip for cleaning it, despite the hand-written sign I spotted saying a gratuity was appreciated for that chore.

I've been initiated; he told me I could come back anytime for further fish lessons and he would make sure I get the nicest ones he has.

Most of the town has figured out who we are (we have heard strains of “loro sono gli Americani,” from passersby), and we are now pretty well acquainted with the area, so we no longer feel like fish out of water. It’s been another adventure and process of adapting. Just when you think you have things pretty well figured out, you learn that even the little things in life can be unpredictable. And in Italy, that’s one thing you can be certain of.

 

[Valerie]

Living Slow in Italy - The End is Nigh

The flimsy tent was erected off to the side of the piazza. “Revival” was scrawled on a poster board, placed to face the main passeggiata flow. Inside, only a handful of people were scattered among the neat rows of folding chairs, but outside grouped a crowd of curiosity seekers, gazing in to see what was happening in the nylon inner sanctum, not willing to enter, yet wanting to know what was going on. They jockeyed for clear-sight positions and bobbed their heads to and fro, alternating their gazes from the workers unfurling sound equipment to their cronies, while commenting and asking for insight about the possible goings-on within. I must say that they resembled, perhaps somewhat ironically, a flock of bleating sheep.

Their confusion and amusement were understandable; after all, it isn’t every day that a Bible Belt-style tent revival rolls into Matera, deep in the south of Italy. And just when they thought they had things figured out, the microphone crackled to life and a voice, unmistakably trained, even in Italian, to share the news of brimstone and hell-fire began to do just that. As the talking and questioning from without began to rise in crescendo, so did the voice from within to compensate. All through the piazza echoed an old-fashioned preaching-to, with words ebbing and flowing that were mostly incomprehensible to me, except for the repeated refrain of the Italian equivalent of “The end is nigh.”

I couldn’t help thinking, don’t I know it. Not the end of the world but the end of our Italian adventure, which at first seemed something like the same thing. I was not (and still am not) ready to go. But la crisi economica that has plagued our homeland has hit home here, as well. The savings statement was weighed on the balance and found lacking. There was nothing to do but face it head on- after a few months of deep denial, of course.

Unfortunate timing for being involved in tourism and property management, and it seems editors aren’t buying many articles these days, either. I spent an inordinate amount of time writing my CV in Italian, which received compliments from my gracious proofreaders but niente from the recipient organizations. That’s when reality reared its hideous head, telling me quite convincingly that no income means no rent money means nowhere to live. At least not for very long. Hellfire and brimstone reality, indeed.

Plans were unwillingly and sketchily made to return to the US. Where we will eventually end up and for how long is still undetermined, as we fully plan to brighten the bank account and hot-tail it back across the pond as soon as possible.

Our countdown to Re-entry began with our departure from the Cilento Coast. Our friend needed his villa back. Relations were coming for a visit and we had promised to show them around. T minus two months. We kicked off the first leg of our Farewell Tour to make the most of the remaining time in the Old Country before heading back to the New World.

First stop, Ascoli Piceno. Diane and Brian loved it, as we knew they would. We introduced them to the sights and flavors we had been enjoying daily for the past few years. They enjoyed wine tasting, heaping helpings of pasta, and stellar sea views from the rental apartment we booked. They explored forts and castles, hill towns and hidden gems. We loved seeing it anew through their first-timers eyes.

We met with some of our Ascolani friends and broke the bad news of the terminal state of our savings account, and they helped us mourn its imminent death. One was so upset that he lamented not having extra space to offer us, no room in his small home that we could use. “But…” he said, after pondering things a bit, “I do have an empty garage.” He considered the possibilities a little longer before determining it would not do. Too dark and damp. “Mannaggia! If there was anyway that I could make it habitable for you, I would do it.” He was bummed out, he told us, that we would be going away.

We appreciated his sentiment, but we are definitely past that age when living in a borrowed basement (or garage, as it were) would be comfortable for us. Twenty-five years ago, maybe we would have considered it. Maybe. Still, it was nice to know that our departure would be as unwanted by them as by us.

Next stop on The Tour: Rome. The Eternal City, packed with historic relics … and crammed with kids on their gite scholastiche (school trips). There were also crowds gathered from the length of the peninsula, converging to march for a labor demonstration. They snarled traffic, overtaxed the piddly Metro system, and occupied every available bench and staircase in the city for their picnics.

We witnessed the overwhelming multitude from every tribe and nation gathered in Saint Peter’s Square for Palm Sunday with the Pope. The mass of humanity ribboned out of the piazza and down via della Conciliazione toward our vantage point at Castel Sant’Angelo, many wearing the native garb of their homelands. Beautiful.

Our rather shabby apartment on Piazza Barberini turned out to be a thrill, despite its cramped quarters, quirky baths and less than comfortable furnishings, because of the front-row seat it afforded us. From our first-floor windows we watched the buzzing activity below in the piazza and waved to tourists on the upper deck of the Open Bus. We peeled ourselves away from the interesting voyeurism to show Diane and Brian the splendors of Rome.

Piazza Barberini at Pranzo (lunch)

Then our world was rocked. The earthquake that struck L’Aquila woke us up, as the building moved and the wooden floor of the loft where Bryan and I slumbered began to squeak and sway. In my barely-awake state I thought, gee, that feels like a tremor, but dismissed it. After all, we were in Rome where seismic activity is not very common. We had felt several tremors in Ascoli Piceno where the mountainous terrain is more conducive to shakings and rattlings. But Rome?

When we really awoke at 7:30am, we heard the horrible notizia of severe damage and tragic deaths in the region of Abruzzo. The images were heartbreaking.

Diane was the lucky one; she slept while Rome trembled. Too bad we all awoke to a nighmare-ish situation affecting so many. It is so strange to realize that thirty seconds can change the lives and landscape of an entire city. As we viewed scenes of destruction, it felt somewhat personal; we had visited L’Aquila a few months back and found it to be a lovely city with friendly, open inhabitants.

Bryan quickly phoned a friend in Ascoli who said the tremor was very strong but there were, thankfully, no problems there. Sant'Emidio has again been hailed for saving the city from destructive earthquakes.

We felt a little disappointed that we were not in Ascoli during these events, not because we had any desire to feel more pronounced tremors than we already had, but because it seemed strange to not be in our normal element, among our friends, participating in the piazza-side discussions; to perhaps be where we could have done something useful to help, instead of lament and cry from a distance. We longed to give some kind of comfort.

Instead, somewhat guiltily, we boarded a plane for France to visit my cousin for Easter. She had begged us to come for more than two years, but something always crept up to interfere. Considering that France isn’t really that far from Italy, you wouldn’t think it would have been so difficult, would you?

We enjoyed a little interlude from the constant barrage of distressing news and images, and had a personal guide to a slice of southern France. Not Nice, not Provence, but the Minervois, an area I had never heard of before. This is the land of medieval Cathars, peasant heroines, and vengeful crusaders. Gloomy Gothic churches are embellished with grotesque gargoyles. The countryside is sprinkled with stone villages adorned with pastel shutters in joyful shades of lavender and cornflower blue. We glimpsed abundant walking paths, a still-operable canal, and tree-lined avenues. Their friends and other local villagers were eminently patient with our strange blending of Italian and English, when we have ventured out sans our French-speaking relations.

After the almost overwhelmingly heartbreaking week in Italy rattled by wretched news and aftershocks, we felt a little lighter and more rested.

And that brings us to the latest leg of our Tour: Basilicata. We have been holed up in the fascinating city of Matera, which is even more eternal than Rome. We have spent much time here over the past few years and feel very attached to the place. The history stretches back to pre-history, the complex uniqueness of the Sassi captivates us from every turn, and the buzzing city life up in the centro reminds us it is a livable, vibrant place, as well.

Matera Murgecchia Civita View

It seems that wherever I wander in Matera, I hear music.

In some parts of town it is the songs of the birds that thrive in the ravines and church towers. Chirpy, rambunctious melodies from small flocks conversing among themselves, which faintly mimics the musical conversations I overhear in Italian.

Walking anywhere in the vicinity of Piazza del Sedile brings strains that are more practiced and perfected. One day it is from violins, another from flutes. Sometimes it is an orchestrated arrangement of blending instruments forming a beautiful, classical refrain. Once in a while we hear a wrong note, or scales being practiced as warm-up. The Convervatory of Music has its seat in the Piazza del Sedile, and the surrounding neighborhood is pleasantly serenaded daily.

I have heard Jazz emitting from doorways and windows. I read somewhere that this classic American musical style has long been loved in Matera, and it shows. They host an annual Jazz music fest, and a locally-produced beer is branded Jazz. Even the flow of the passeggiata seems to be unconsciously carried out to unheard strains of a soundtrack by Henry Mancini.

Then there are the churches. The bells don't toll, they melodiously chime. Sunday, while walking to the car, we passed the church of San Pietro Caveoso, which rests right on the edge of a dramatic outcropping of rock and seems to almost melt right into the natural formations. Out of the door wafted a heavenly choir of synchronated voices, raising up hymnal praises.

It also seems that wherever I go in Matera I see familiar faces. Not because I know many people here, but because many Materani look like family members … and my own reflection sometimes stares back at me, too. Several times people have greeted me very familiarly, only to embarrassedly say, “Oh, scusi! I thought you were someone else!” At the parrucchiere today I eyed a woman who was the near replica of my aunt Carol. Maybe that’s why I feel so comfortable around here.

When we leave Matera we will venture to the Motherland for a couple of weeks among la famiglia. After that, only a few more weeks will remain in our Farewell Tour. The calendar is reminding us constantly that the end is indeed nigh. As the old song goes, Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking into the future.

 

[Valerie]

Living Slow in Italy - Just What the Doctor Ordered

When I was a child I hated going to the doctor. It wasn't that he was harsh or uncaring; he was actually a pretty nice guy. He was very tall, or at least seemed that way to me in my smallness, but he would sit down on a low stool to put himself at face level with me. His secretary was the mother of a classmate and she always chirped cheerfully about school or who had been in because of a black eye on the playground.

The overall experience really wasn't so bad, considering the fact that I was generally in a doctor's office in the first place because of not feeling well. But I dreaded getting shots, and for some reason most of whatever my now-forgotten ailments were seem to have required treatment at needle-point.

It didn't matter that there would be a lollipop waiting for me afterwards. I would sit in the waiting room with tension and terror building until my stomach churned. By the time they led me back into the exam room, I had myself worked into a good lather and would burst into tears, crying, "I don’t want a shot! Please don't prick me!" And so focused on the dread and crying that I didn't even notice he had given me the shot during my hysterical outburst.

That's pretty much how it felt leading up to our departure from Italy.

Our Farewell Tour wound down with two weeks spent in the Motherland, where we holed up in a small apartment at a wonderful agriturismo and wandered to all the sights around Basilicata we had not yet had the opportunity to see.

We visited Aliano, made famous by Carlo Levi's year of house arrest. We stomped among the ancient ruins of Grumentum, the only visitors that day except for a local shepherd and his flock. We seized the opportunity to view a little-known, recently-discovered portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, which was found in the tiny but charming hamlet of Acerenza. We walked country roads breathing the mountain air and marveling at the breathtaking views, and lost our hearts all over again.

Carlo Levi statue, Aliano

Our love for the landscape and people increased along with our melancholy at leaving.

Our final stop was a week back home in Ascoli Piceno. Our former landlord, apparently feeling bad at how things had transpired, generously offered us a furnished studio apartment for our stay.

It felt strange to be visitors in our adopted hometown. We had our calendar chalked up with appointments to meet friends, have rounds of dinners and drinks and coffees. We rambled around and marveled yet again at the wonderfulness of this place we have called home, wondering why it is still so undiscovered, yet a little glad it is still all "ours."

We took photos of people and places that somehow, in nearly three years, we managed to not capture on film (or digital, as the case may be).

The place was the same, yet it had changed. Sadly, we noticed that several shops had closed in just the few months we had been away, and we were told that several factories and small business operators had shuttered as well. Some of our friends reported difficulties with their own businesses. La crisi economica was on everyone's lips and worried minds.

And yet the spirit remained the same. The passeggiata was still paraded, the piazza was still packed every evening, and the caffés had their usual flow and rhythm. The girl who hits up everyone for cigarettes was still on the prowl; Rita still circled the town on her bicycle yelling who-knows-what at the passersby; the Don King look-alike still hung around. All the personaggi (town characters) were in their predictable places, as much a part of the landscape as ever. And so were we. We were back in our usual haunts, feeling right back at home.

Which may not have been such a good idea.

It made it harder to leave, not knowing exactly when we will return. Everyone asked us for a date, a time frame they could count on when they would see us again, and we were unable to say for certain. We could only state definitively that we will return to Italia.

I tried hard to keep it together, a task rendered useless in the face of our friends. Some of those who cried at our departure completely took me by surprise. I expected it from Roberta, but when I saw mist in Gianluca's eyes, I commenced unbridled bawling. Two other male friends openly shed tears, one an elderly gentleman named Ezio, whose emotional display blind-sided me. Since no one ever cries alone in my presence, I spent several days red-nosed and puffy-eyed.

By the time we arrived in Rome I was exhausted and taut from emotion and from hefting heavy boxes and bags. We took over Giorgio and Francesca's taverna, which we divided into sections of "to take" and "to store." We mounded up clothes, started stuffing them into duffel bags, then retreated for a little perspective before returning to the piles and yanking out other non-necessity items so as to lighten our very heavy cargo.

I hate packing for even a two-week trip; this was a miseria. The uncertainty of our immediate future made it difficult, but we also knew that we would need certain items when did return. As we packed our hearts grew as heavy as our overstuffed bags.

We took a sanity day in the centro. We love our friends but they live so far from the centro that I wouldn't call that area Rome. In fact, their house is just a smidgen from the GRA, the ring road that encircles the city. We spent the day wandering the Eternal City, viewing churches and galleries we had not yet seen, and capped it off with aperitivi on a tranquil, panoramic roof-top terrace before finishing up at the Fontana di Trevi, where we plunked in our coins for good luck and a speedy return.

Exchanging coins for luck at the Trevi

With such a heartrending couple of weeks, I dreaded the departure. But, oddly, when we boarded the plane that would transport us away from Italy, we sat down tired but wired and feeling a little … well, giddy, which was not the emotion we had expected to be experiencing at all.

This unanticipated buoyancy was partly owing to an encounter with the Airport Angel. Like all good angels, he appeared as if from nowhere and performed an amazing deed of kindness. Like all good friendships in Italy, we formed a bond over food - in this case, mozzarella di bufala. We met Angelo by chance at a caseificio and talked several times after that. We learned that he worked at Fiumicino airport.

When he called on Easter to extend his auguri we told him our departure date. He asked us to contact him when we were en route to the airport and he would meet us for a caffé. We arrived to find him waiting on the curb outside the international terminal in uniform. Turns out, our friend is on the security detail. He had prearranged with the folks at our airline for a streamlined check-in so that we would not have the headache (or backache!) of juggling our seven (count 'em!) large luggage pieces (plus carry on bags) through the snaking line. Afterwards, he wanted to buy us coffee; after much insistence we got him to relent and allow *us* to buy *him* a caffé. He also gave us a piccolo pensiero (little gift) in the form of chocolate. Oh these Italiani! Their amazing hospitality and thoughtfulness are what have made these past three years so incredible for us.

There was another reason for our sudden lightheartedness. While we were in Rome we purchased a few little souvenirs, along with a larger keepsake. We bought a house!

Okay, actually it is a very small apartment in a tiny village, but it is a habitable piece of property nonetheless. We looked at it during our sojourn in Basilicata and debated over it for a few weeks. We made the decision to buy just 16 hours before we left the country. It may seem crazy to you, but it made perfect sense to us, and it definitely made it easier to board that plane, let me tell you.

And, since we were being impulsive we figured we'd really do it, we made the purchase agreement over the phone. We didn’t really have any other choice, given the eleventh-hour decision. We had already met with the owner, who resides in Rome, and she took a liking to us. We stayed and chatted with her for a few hours, talking about all manner of things, and by the time we departed she had invited us to her vacation home in northern Le Marche and offered us some furnishings if we decided to buy.

For some reason - now we are not sure why - we debated over it for another solid week (after meeting the owner) while we packed and stored our stuff. Finally, the day before we were due to leave we looked at each other and said, "Good grief, what is there to debate about? It's inexpensive, it's actually habitable, and it is in a location we love." And so that decided it.

That, along with the fantastic view from the windows.

View from the piccola casa

When I tugged open the squeaky French doors in the living room, jagged mountain peaks, emerald pastures, and an enormous turquoise sky greeted me. The key selling point for Bryan: it comes with two cantine, hewn right into the rock hillside, where generations upon generations have stored their vino and prosciutto and other goods. It is also in easy reach of my ancestral villages.

We are waiting on the paperwork, but we will soon have our own small place in Italy and we couldn't be happier about it. While our lives are currently in flux and we have no fixed home in the US, the one place on Earth we know we will return to for the rest of our lives is Basilicata, the Motherland.

After we buckled our seatbelts, I clasped Bryan's hand tightly and squealed, "Oh my gosh … we just bought a house in Italy!"

Like my childhood doctor visits, all my anxiety and dread turned out to be fairly innocuous. We will give the savings account a shot in the arm and it will be healthy again soon. Waiting for us back in Basilicata is a small 400-year old place to truly call home, and that is just what the doctor ordered.

 

[Valerie]

Living Slow in Italy - Resources

Changing Your Life

The New Road Map Foundation (name changed to Financial Integrity), started by the late Joe Dominquez and now run by his partner Vicki Robins, a resource for examining and changing your life.

Your Money or Your Life, Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, Penguin Books; New edition (September 1999)
First published in 1980, this book and the seminars by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin inspired many people to examine and change their lives.

A Reasonable Life: Toward a Simpler, Secure, More Humane Existence, Ferenc Mate, W. W. Norton & Company, 2000
An idealistic but well thought-out rant about modern society with practical recommendations for simplifying and enjoying life more fully, from an author who made the transition and lives in rural Tuscany.

Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic, John De Graaf, David Wann, Thomas H. Naylor, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2005
Intelligent analysis from PBS confronts the "socially-transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more," presented in a witty and insightful manner and urges you to examine priorities. Based on two PBS documentaries Affluenza (1996) and Escape from Affluenza (1998) produced by De Graaf.

The Dream Giver, Bruce Wilkinson, Heather Kopp, Multnomah, 2003
Begins with a parable about Ordinary who leaves the Land of Familiar to follow his Big Dream. This small, spiritually-oriented book helps overcome the obstacles and fears involved in making life-changing decisions and pursuing purpose in your life.

Moving to Italy

Transitions Abroad: www.transitionsabroad.com
A useful magazine and website with information for Americans wanting to work in overseas. Also information about travel and living overseas. Buy it at your magazine stand or go to their web site.

The American Online: www.theamericanmag.com
Online and print magazine for expats in Italy and Europe.

Live & Work in Italy, 4th edition, Victoria Pybus and Gordon Neale, Vacation Work Publications, 2005
Chapters on buying a home, retiring to Italy, working, starting a business, from a British perspective, but with relevant information for North Americans too.

Living, Studying, and Working in Italy: Everything you need to know to Live La Dolce Vita, Monica Larner and Travis Neighbor Ward, Owl Books, 2nd edition, 2003
Details on working or going to school in Italy. A short chapter on buying or renting a home.

Living in Italy: How to feel at home, make friends and enjoy everyday life: a brief introduction to the culture for visitors, students and business travelers, Alvino E. Fantini, Pro Lingua Associates, Revised edition, 2002
Small book about the way of doing things in Italy. This wins the award for the longest title of the smallest book.

Note: These are the resources from when these articles were written in 2007. We will update them with current versions.