Ciao, Berlusconi But You're Not the One and Only

Italy has been in the news a lot lately. Unfortunately, often coupled with Greece and the two countries' impact on the world's impending financial demise. So much hand-wringing on Wall Street: What to do? What to do? What to do? The money brokers were offered a brief glimmer of hope when Silvio Berlusconi resigned a week ago. They expressed themselves with more points on the NASDAQ. Never ones to be outdone in the emotional expression department, Italians in Rome and other cities jumped for joy in the streets and waved signs with various exit wishes for their former leader. I asked my Italian friends how they felt about this. Most said "Mi sento contentissimo!" [I feel very happy!]. But more than one tempered the joy with the understanding that there are still a bazillion politicians in power with the same self-centered mindset as Berlusconi. Politicians who suck up funds and bleed the resources of their country for no other purpose than to buy more villas in Sardinia, Lake Como, or the islands off the coast of Sicily. When I asked one of my friends, "How can these politicians do this?" she ramped up her passion by degrees as she shared her thoughts, emitting a shower of hot emotional sparks as she went. "They are blind!" she said, "They don't see what there is in Italy. How can they line their pockets when there are good Italian people out of work? How can they take free train and plane rides when opera houses are closing for lack of money? How can they put more and more friends and cronies on the payroll when historic landmarks are in need of repair!"
How can they (or not), indeed. How can they not see the treasure we who have not lived there all our lives have come to fall in love with? We who dream and save to see, touch, taste, smell, and experience the tantamount aspect of Italian sensibility FEEL what one travel book described "the land of your most ancient dreams".  Yes! They are our most ancient dreams because they come from our most ancient foundations: Italy's past is the bedrock of modern western civilization. Civilization that goes back beyond its contribution of the Renaissance, that gave us the locations of the Odyssy and Persephone's island. Thousands of years later the winds that blew Odysseus back to the Aeolian islands are still producing whitecaps in the Straits of Messina.  A land that gave us mysteries and miracles and a real sense of the sacred:  the supposed sighting of Michael the Archangel on the Garfano promontory inspired a pilgrimage site that, upon entering, moved both myself and my Jewish friend to tears.  Italy gave us salt from Venice, the name "Vulcano" from the ancient island where the homonymous blackmith to the gods was based, and thousands of uses for olive oil. It gave us the arch, the dome, the stadium, the acquaduct, and the race track. It gave us the Commedia dell'arte and its characters and plots for Shakespeare's inspiration. How can a culture of "bunga bunga" supplant the preservation of thousands of years of cultural contributions for anyone connected with Italy? Is there no pride left?
My friend says the lack of appreciation for what we have in Italy, and where we come from stems from "egoismo".  More than "ego", the translation rolls the toxic combination of sefishness and arrogance into one concept.

 Piazza della Signoria Florence

 Grazing in a Vineyard, Loreto Aprutino, Abruzzo

 For a few days now, I've been in a funk trying to figure out how to counter such a mindset. If so many politicians still in office have the same attitude, what will become of the beloved country of my father and grandfather? What is the antidote to the toxin "egoismo"? Just now it occured to me: Love. Simple love. I'll play matchmaker. I'll  bring those who love and appreciate what Italy has to offer together with Italy itself. One visit at a time. One summer at a time. I've already seen what appreciation of their little town does to the hearts and souls of my friends and neighbors in Castiglione Messer Raimondo. It sends them soaring. There doesn't need to be big bang of immediate political and financial change. Just a steady glow of appreciation from admirers. I'd like to think that eventually it will sweep all the egotists away into Homer's dark, Mediterranean sea. To be replaced by those who will maintain Italy's history and dignity. Who will coninue to support the selfless people I've come to know in Abruzzo and elsewhere who will run out of their houses and hand a stranger a bottle of home-made wine as you stumble along a dusty hiking trail. A gesture, to again quote the travel book "that is a million years old, far beyond courtesy, rooted in ancient communion."

Guests  Jerry and Susan at Vineyard

Ancient Alleyway in Castiglione Messer Raimondo