Boxes sitting in Garage Forlornly

 Anniversary of a Purge: What Price A Future?

    Almost exactly 3 years ago, a cavernous box truck with NY plates pulled into the driveway of our suburban Pennsylvania home. Two men in faded Carhart work gear, faces looking worn and dispassionate, loaded  40 boxes of the sole possessions we'd chosen to remain in our lives. The truck swallowed them up with alarming speed and ease. These were destined for an anonymous container vessel sailing to an unknown port to be delivered by a stranger to our home in Italy. Sometime in June. Or July. Or September. Or...maybe sometime later. Casa da Carmine, my temporary home for 12 years, would now be my permanent residence. 

Loading before Sending it Off

    The Pennsylvania house was 2,500 square feet of living space, with a basement covering the its entire footprint. It was chock-a-block full to the gills with furniture, clothing (vintage and otherwise), outdoor sports equipment, workout equipment and gear, books and more books, kitchen gadgets, recording apparatus, electronics, boxes of photos and slides, vinyl albums crammed beneath an old turntable, performance paraphernalia like juggling clubs, stilts, masks, show props, costumes, teaching aids from a 26-year long career, old children's toys, artwork framed and patiently waiting to be framed for years, scripts (torn and annotated), my father's Hess truck collection, my mother's Precious Moments collection, and crates of my children's collections of everything they wanted to keep - but not in their own spaces. This melange of stuff gathered over 30 years of myriad phases of our lives we had to whittle down to fit in a space of about 1,500 square feet. Much of it already occupied with12 summer's worth of gathered necessities. 

    We had decided in July of the previous year to make the move. So, 9 months earlier, as soon as I returned from my summer of hosting guests at Casa da Carmine, the purge began. And the agony. What criteria do you use to decide which pieces of your life, which tangible memories to toss, sell, or give away? Which things might you need to see and hold in the coming years if your mind starts fading? I had an uncle who was severely diabetic but refused to adhere to his prescribed dietary regime. He kept having to have necrotic bits of himself cut away over time until there was little left of his old self. This paring down felt like a psychic version of that. 

    I would sit on the floor of my office room, day after day, surrounded by items from the category of the moment - work, photos, children's toys, etc. - and whip out the psychic scalpel. Did I need the collection of 15 Commedia dell' Arte character masks I'd used in classes and productions over the life of my career? Only one made the cut - a leather one hand crafted by my Italian theater teacher. The rest I donated to a theater with which I'd often worked. We tried to repurpose as much as we could. Gregg gave his pull down lat machine and weight bench to a friend's alternative school. I gave my sewing machine, set pieces, and scenery to a college theater department. A computer, printer, and office supplies were donated to a start up organization supporting LGBTQ+ youth. Pieces of fabric I gifted to a friend whose hobby was creating purses and clothing from used materials. 

Donated. Wasn't Leather

Sorting photos

     Knowing our stuff would be put to good use made the slice and dice less painful. But what if no one wanted it? What if those things that were so precious to you were dismissed by would be new owners? Sometimes quite cavalierly.  Ok. On to the sacred cows of resale: Holy Craig's list, Sacrificial Facebook Marketplace. Our House of Redemption Consignment Shops. Yet...how do you put a price on things that are burrowed deeply into your personal history? 

    My Beatles' dolls? Can I be reimbursed for the memory of my father driving 5 screaming adolescents to their Shea Stadium concert? 

They didn't make the cut; I sold them

    The Hess trucks? What compensation is there for the look of pride on my father's face when they were displayed at his retirement home?

    How about the mini paddle my husband bought for his son for their first canoe trip together?

    Or a daughter's high school chorus trophy award? 

My daughter didn't want it. Only Photo Remains

    

    As the weeks passed and the date of that phantom truck's arrival grew nearer, we knew that, like my uncle's surgeon, we had to become more ruthless with that scalpel if we wanted the new life.

Daughter's Cover art for School Play. She didn't want this, either. 

Last of the Performance Gear

    Carsful of items went to reuse-it shops. Junkluggers truck drivers became new best friends. We borrowed extra trash bins for the weekly garbage collection. I didn't have much time for nostalgia. But my husband lost 20 pounds and developed severe insomnia from the weight of all that deciding. This idea of moving to Italy began to feel like having entered a relationship with a greedy, insatiable lover. And you were stuck with them. Had we made a huge mistake?

    Three years on, writing this in the recently painted, cheery, yellow sitting room, I take stock. There are nostalgic items that made the cut: my college era award for a Shakespeare competition, the blanket my dad crocheted in a VA hospital during WWII; restored, framed photos of Gregg's parents dancing; my grandparents' and great-grandparents' wedding photos; a hand carved Mexican ceremonial mask. There are also new items that light up my soul: a tambourine painted with a couple in traditional Abruzzese dress; a local artist's pastel drawings of this town, a wooden framed mirror lined with hand painted ceramic tiles. There are the items that combine both worlds: pillows I made in PA and brought here to grace the couch bought at the nearby Mondo Convenienza, for example. The shoulder bag that that gifted friend made from my fabric and sent here. 

New and Old Combined

    There ARE items I regret jettisoning: my sea kayak. A promo poster signed by Marcel Marceau, personalized. OUCH. But over the 3 years since that truck vanished down our street, I've realized that things don't hold the pieces of your life together. The memories, the effect of the experiences that created those memories are what remain indelibly imbedded in your being. You can change locations but those always go with you. I'm glad, after all, to be here with all of them. My hope is that they never leave my consciousness. 

    

Kathi's Coats

Kathi's Coats

    One of our first bonding experiences (after discovering our mutual mania for the Beatles) was the discovery of our mutual cold intolerance. As college roommates returning from fall break, we simultaneously stormed into the room with boxes full of pile and wool clothing we'd brought from home. We burst out laughing simultaneously, too.  Her laugh. It made you bouncy inside. She loosened it freely and frequently in response to my humor. Another thing I loved about her. She was one of my best audiences. 

    We also laughed about our tiny heads, bemoaning the fact that hats would never fit us. They would creep down over our eyes so that we resembled shady ladies about to sneak away with an extra muffin in the breakfast line. Hats would easily blow off our heads. We joked that we probably wouldn't make it through college because we must have pea brains. I don't know that I would have made it without her. She was tranquility to my drama, groundedness to my flightiness, focus to my dispersed inner being. I referred to her then, and continued to do so for many years as "The Rock". Her tolerance to me was commendable. My half of the room was a vivid landscape of my inner turmoil the year we roomed together. Clothes flung over desk and chairs, shoes whose partners had gone missing dotting my rug, dirty laundry piled willy nilly, bedcovers in a constant state of roiling rumple. Her side was pristine and ordered. She could locate anything in a split second. Before Christmas, I snuck a pet rabbit into our room and, foregoing a cage to be able to hide evidence of it at a moments' notice, I let it run freely. It never could find an open spot on my bed. So it pooped on hers. That did not elicit laughter. The rabbit went home with me at winter break. Kathi continued to room with me. 

    She began chemo treatments in the early fall of 2020. When her hair fell out, she fretted about being cold in the coming winter. I shipped two cloiche' hats to her. When they arrived, she told me she'd laughed. They were the exact ones she'd been thinking of ordering for herself. But she worried they wouldn't fit. They fit! She texted me a photo of her wearing one...my favorite...burgundy color. There was a huge grin on her face. I could hear that laugh again. 

    It wasn't supposed to happen. Doctors told her the cancer was treatable. She would recover. Kathi believed them. She believed passionately in science. Her father was a scientist. She followed to the letter every instruction given by her medical team and everything she'd researched herself. She had confidence that the treatments were curing her right up until she slipped into her final coma. When frankly asked, just prior, "Do you think you're dying?" her answer was a firm "No."

    Afterwards, her husband invited her closest friends to choose items of hers to keep. Among mine were three warm, exquisitely made coats. Kept impeccably. There was no indication she'd ever worn them, but I knew she did because of some tissues I found in pockets. And a few coins. Even the pure while coat didn't have a smudge on it. 

    I also kept the hats. Both of them. 

     I eventually gave away the white coat to a more worthy owner. It broke my heart to part with it, but better to find it a good home than to ruin it with my sloppy ways. The other items, plus a pink wind breaker, and two heavy sweaters followed me to Italy. I wore them all this winter. Wrapped in Kathi. Still able to laugh at my own cold woosi-ness. 

  This house, named after my father, pays tribute to so many people in my life through the items in it. Tribute to those I've loved and still love:

An afghan my dad crocheted while recovering from a WWII gunshot wound;

Items bought in places each of my children live or have lived: Pillow buttons from Philadelphia, Bath towels from Brooklyn, Kitchen linens from Los Angeles;

A quilted wall hanging pieced from my mother's cotton house dresses;

My grandmother's dishes and teapot;

Favorite dessert dishes from Gregg's mother;

A candy dish from Barb - my other best bud and partner in so many adolescent adventures;

Boots from my former partner in theater crime - Camilla.

An inked footprint of my newborn granddaughter.

    Walking around the house, I see, hear, smell, and live with those loved ones. I feel their spirits. I am reminded that this is a house and a life that all of them helped me make in one way or another. Like Kathi's coats, I am always wrapped in them.

Homage to the Olive

 

A bit ago, a friend - a kindred Italophile - pointed out something I'd never known - In olive groves, the centers of the trees are cut out to make room for sun to reach the rest of the tree. Ahhhh...sun seekers...like me!

I love olive trees. They're dramatic and expressive. They have personality and each seems to be a different character. Several years ago I used the image a 500-year old tree as the centerpiece for the set of a production of "The Crucible" I directed. It was deformed, dark, commanding, and scary as hell. 

Here in the Fino Valley, there used to be 11 frantoi - mills that crushed the olives to make oil. Few remain, but the tradition and importance of olive growing, gathering, and pressing is strong. Both Virgil and Ovid (our Abruzzese native son) wrote about the "olivacolture" here. The pressing of the olives is referred to as "transforming" the olive. Indeed!

Olive trees are both sacred and mundane. Like the buffalo of US first peoples, everything is used. There is the olive itself. A "paesani" recently gave me a jar of them preserved in brine. When I told him how much I enjoyed them, he came to my door and presented me with two more jars!

When the branches are pruned, they are left on the ground to fertilize it. They're also burned to smudge the trees to protect it from freezes. 

The wood is hard, dense, and non-porous. It's fashioned into spoons, bowls, washboards, axe handles - even, at one time, pistol grips. 

The pits can be burned as fuel for heating and cooking.

Then, of course, there is - THE OIL! Oh, the glorious look and taste of fresh pressed virgin olive oil! The pungent, peppery taste that enhances everything from bread to pasta, to grilled vegetables. The pressing of the oil is a community event. Many hands are needed to shake olives down from trees, carry them to the olive presses, press and conserve the oil. It was and still is a time for gathering of friends and neighbors - and all-hands-on-deck activity that has a very short window of opportunity. Usually it takes place anywhere from late September to early November, depending on the weather. It often coincides with all saints' day - Olgnisanti" It signals the last physically demanding work of the farmer. It's a short window of time. A lot rides on getting the timing just right for optimal taste and volume of the olive. So - when everything aligns right - it calls for a party. What's a party without good food, especially from the recently pressed oil! One of the foods is "spaghetti alla trappitarra" so named for the "trappa" - a part of the olive press. It's thin pasta with olive oil, hot peppers, and garlic. Simple, but oh so tasty! Tradition says that a person who heads into winter with "una buona corta (a good supply)" of olive oil is a "persona perbene" - in decent shape. 

But besides the practical uses of the olive tree, it holds many sacred and ritual aspects. 

I'm told that "i primi potatori" - the first to prune the trees - make the sign of the cross before the first cut. 

Of course, who hasn't heard of offering an olive branch as a peace symbol? In fact, the UN flag, created in 1946, used two olive branches aside a world map. 

Jesus descended from the Mount of the Olives to make his triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. The word "Gethsemane" is said to derive from the word "es-shemen" - tree of oil, further derived from a Hebrew word root meaning "to shine". Oh, boy, do olive trees shine! Even on this late January day, as I write this, I can look out and see olive trees in full leaf. When the sun is out, they glint silver. Through the shortened days of this winter, they remind me that all is NOT barren. There is always the promise of life. 

The oil has been used to anoint kings, prophets, and high priests. It's said to have antibacterial properties so it's used in pharmaceuticals. My grandma told me that warm olive oil could be dripped into your ear to treat earaches. I took her word for it, but never tried it. The oil is used in soap and cosmetics, and, at one time, for lighting. 

For me, though, the major symbol of those imposing trees is one of resilience and hope. The olive tree is a marvel of persistence and hardiness. A tree can live 1,000 years. It survives in poor, stony soil. Even when destroyed by disease, drought, frost, or fire, it is capable of regenerating itself. 

“I’ll Be Back”

The olive trees I pass on my run down the country road are my boon companions. As I jog or huff and puff past them, I see them, paused in graceful dance poses or manifesting their unique personalities. They speak to me, encourage me, inspire me. Sometimes they amuse me. They remind me to keep going or to do or be something - anything my mind can imagine - when the workout is done. 

The Scream

“Look, mom and dad- no hands!”

Old Man

Dancer

Shave and a Haircut

Dragon Head

Welcome, stranger 

I'd like you to meet the cast of characters along my country road. They're my good friends. I share them to make them yours, too. 

Trash Talk

 

Now that I have your attention...

Pardon my absence from the blog for so long. It's been a screaming tilt-a-whirl of a summer full of hurried waiting. 

I am now living permanently in the house that inspired this blog. I've heard a lot of people say that living in Italy full time is very different than visiting - even being here long term to run a guest house. It's true. Take, for example - here it comes - trash. 

In our town, it is collected 5 days a week. You separate different kinds of trash and each has its own pick up day according to a schedule that rivals the logistics of large armies. I've liked the system, though. It seemed ecologically sound. I got used to what went where and when it was picked up. 

And then...everything changed! Suddenly there were posters stuck on community billboards announcing the BIG MEETING about...trash! As a responsible citizen, I went.

The mayor presided and introduced several important trash-knowledgeable people. I could tell they were important by the way they scootched the one available microphone over to themselves with authority and thumped forcefully on it ino order to be sure they were heard. The voiceover actor in me cringed. After each of them had spoken, we were introduced to the BIG CHEESE trash guy. I knew he was the main event because he was handed the mic. No self-scooching. He didn't bother thumping it. It was set up for him. He spoke in calm, serious tones. For a long time. 

I had a difficult time following all the Italian (my vocabulary is lacking in refuse-related words), but the summary seemed to be this:

* You all have gotten out of hand with your willy-nilly trash separation.

* There will be tragic consequences for our region if you don't shape up

* So there will be lots of new rules which, because we know you'll try to circumvent them, we've come up with a way to police your trash

* Everyone in the communie will be gifted new, color coded trash bins. You're welcome.

* These bins have micro chips in them. If you try to cheat and throw trash that doesn't belong in a bin, checkers will point a chip reading gun at it and BANG! your transgression is recorded and you'll be issued a multa - a ticket, and fined. 

Example of bins. These are for public use. The individual household ones are, thankfully, much smaller. 

The used oil bin. I've yet to find the used clothing bin. 

The BIG CHEESE  trash expert explained all the rules - which bins were for what kinds of trash, what specifically went into each, and what day of the week each had to go out (between the hours of 10 PM the previous night and 5 AM the day of pick up). We had a little over a week to memorize everything before the BIG TEST on the first day the new trash rules went into effect. Thus began my studies for a doctorate in trash separating. 

There are 12 categories on our trash separation guidelines. Each category lists the definition of said category, what trash is included in each, what is FORBIDDEN in each, and what color bin each kind of trash goes into. 

Trash from A to Z  Actual brochure we were given. 

Note, in caps "Separating trash is obligatory!"

The categories. Same number as the number of apostles. 

I studied and studied. I circled around the bins, trash in one hand, list of rules in the other, thinking,

 "Are cellophane wrappers plastic or paper?" 

My housekeeper spent 45 minutes tutoring me in trash separation. I gathered two other American friends to have her explain it again to them. We took notes. (I'm not kidding!).

The day of the implementation of the new trash rules arrived on a Thursday. It was the designated day for collection of the dreaded and most confusing indifferenziato (formerly known as secco residuo - which translates literally to "dried remains". I've often wondered if that's where you hide dead bodies.) This is basically where you put everything that doesn't fit in any other category. With the exception of:

 - anything made of paper, cardboard, glass, metal, organics, plastic, green waste, used clothing, electronics, toys, light bulbs, batteries, pharmaceuticals, or recyclable packaging.

With a mixture of hope and trepidation, I placed a full blue plastic trash bag in the dark grey bin designated for the indifferenziato and placed it on my front step. 

Then, like a child awaiting Santa Clause, I went to sleep full of anticipation of the next day's find.

The morning broke hot and cloudy. I peered over the railing of my balcony to the steps below. There was the grey bin - open. The blue bag was still there! No pick up! I failed the test! 

I brought the bag back inside and opened it, and with the rules in hand, rifled through it to find the offending refuse. The trash police must have done the same. My husband said he'd seen them open and check other neighbors' bags. I was stumped! Everything in the bag was legal refuse. What was my infraction?

Through a process of ingenious sleuthing and the help of several neighbors, I discovered that the problem wasn't the trash - it was the bag! Blue bags are verboten for indifferenziato. That trash requires a plain, black plastic bag. That and only that! The commune did not supply that kind of bag, so I traversed the town and surroundings in search of. Luckily, a nearby grocery store had plenty in stock.

1 week later - time again for indifferenziato collection. 

Black bag? Check

Legal contents? Check - I think

Correct bin? Check

Correct pick up day? Check. 

Next morning - I open the front shutters ad peek over the balcony...

There's the monolithic bin. Open. And empty!!

I've passed the trash exam. Hopefully, I will have avoided any inclusion in the criminal records system and won't receive a multa. 

But now...how to I dispose of all the blue bags?

"Oh I love trash

Anything dirty or dingy or dusty

Anything ragged or rotten or rusty

Yes I love trash"

In Search of A Donkey

 

Today I went in search of a donkey. I could have written “in search of an ass.” The common word in Italian for “donkey” is “asino” - literally “ass”. Asina if it is the female variety. There is also a word I remember from childhood - slang most likely - that sounded like “choo-chool”.  It was used as a derogatory term for someone who was a patsy, a chump, a fool easily taken advantage of or parted with their money. I decided “donkey” would be the best choice of words here. 

So - I went in search of a donkey today. Every morning sitting in back of the house sipping my own made cappuccino (with varying degrees of quality I add lest envy possesses you) I hear two regularly recurring sounds: an overly cocky rooster and a braying donkey. The donkey’s tone is either pleading, complaining, or demanding of unrequited affection. In any case, it doesn’t sound happy.

My house is in the center of town. There are no farms I see that are close enough to allow one to hear braying (or crowing) so loudly and clearly. I decided it was high time to discover the whereabouts of donkey as well as rooster.

It was a quiet day- “tranquillo” as my neighbor declared with a sigh this morning. It is the Festa della Repubblica - the celebration of the day in 1948 when Italy declared itself a republic after its fascist reign and created its new and present constitution. 

I set off for a part of town to which I rarely go. It is outside the “commercial area” I usually traverse this part by automobile to head out of town to Bisenti, the next town over. I’ve never traversed it on foot. 

Italian hill towns are like nothing I’ve seen elsewhere. There are houses tucked down into steep drops and shoe-horned into tiny crevices. I was barely past the last residential buildings before empty country spread out ahead of me when I spied a sizable garden thriving on a dramatically inclined slope. 

Strolling around the perimeter was a rooster. We locked eyes. He puffed up to 1 1/2 times his size at initially sighting me and let go with a loud, strident crow. Almost mocking me. Yep. That was my guy. However- no donkey was to be seen or heard. There had to be a donkey somewhere, though. The two animals sounded like they came from the same space. I’d heard them together often enough, didn’t I? Now needing not just to locate the donkey but assure myself I hadn’t been mistaken in identifying the sound I heard day after day or even worse - imagine I’d heard - I plodded on further out of town. 

Past the nuovo faux castle built by an inhabitant far more full of himself than Mr. Rooster. 

Up a dusty hill. Back down. Up barely there ruts of a wagon path. In my search for the asino I began to feel like one myself. Or at least like the proverbial “Choo-chool”. Or “chooch” for short. I got tired and hot and hungry and mad at the world for tempting me to go on such a wild goose chase. That’s when I stopped searching and started seeing. I looked out from inside my head and viewed my town from a completely new perspective. High on a hill just below a ruin I’d never noticed before I saw a wider expanse of the surrounding valley than I’d ever seen before. I was struck anew by the sheer singular beauty of the place I’d been coming for 11 summers. By now believing I’d seen it all. 

I returned to the house and had lunch. Then set out to walk slowly around the town for probably the ump-  thousandth time and look - REALLY look at what is here. I peeped into narrow vicoli that hid abandoned or unobtrusively occupied houses. One dark warren of rooms still held a set of delicately painted flowered plates in a dish drain beside a rusted sink. There were pots of fresh flowers flanking brightly colored doors behind which I imagined people lived mysterious, romantic lives. There were narrow stone stairs that led to hidden gardens. All had been there for every one of the 11 summers that I’d been coming. They have been part of the magic of this town all along. Waiting for me to discover - if only I took the time to look. 

I never did find the donkey. Maybe I never will. But I found more of my town. I received a renewal of the inexplicable pull that led me here in the first place. It was like experiencing a first kiss again. 

So please - go ahead and follow the pull. Let curiosity lead. It may feel like an asinine pursuit. But you never know where it could lead.