L' ultimo Giorno/The Last Day

"You've been gone a long time!"
So posted one of my Facebook friends.
3 months. At first it does seem long. 3 months. A quarter of a year. 3 months away from my dear husband. 3 months of being unable to communicate with neighbors in the instantaneously mind-to-mouth rapid-fire manner of my New Jersey roots. 3 months of living with strangers just beyond the kitchen door. 3 months of being at least 6,000 miles away from any possible hugs from my children. In this context, it DOES seem like a long time.
But here I sit on my last afternoon in Casa da Carmine, drinking a wonderfully wicked strong espresso and gazing across the Fino Valley. The sky is baby blanket blue, the light clear and crisp. The town of Montefino sits at the highest spot, silhouetted against the sky like a miniature in a museum display. Its stillness and perfect detail are simultaneously tranquil and imposing. I watch as rows of sheep undulate across a green field. Another to their left flows yellow. Several softly rounded hills further up are striated shades of brown, beige, ochre, and gold. In the clear air,the squeaky rattle of an old tractor navigating an astonishing steep path can be heard for several kilometers. Church bells ring. 12:45. 15 minutes until the start of pranzo - the mid-day meal. I smell simmering pasta sauce and sausages beginning to brown.
These are the things I cannot take home. These are the things that  make 3 months seem like a very short time. That make 6 months, a year, 10 years, a lifetime seem like they will never be enough. Not to satiate my love and yearning for all these things and more.
This summer was superb. I climbed mountains -even led friends up one. I kayaked an exquisitely
beautiful stretch of Adriatic coast. I indulged in my new-found love of SUP boarding. I ate with abandon - arrosticini, porchetta, crunchy, fresh "fritte miste di pesce (mixed fried fish)", and too
many different kinds of antipasti to describe. I ate ricotta made fresh that morning at the place from which I purchased it and used olive oil about which I not only knew the country of origin, but could point to the very trees from which the fruit came. I dance myself silly at Mario's restaurant. With friends and unknown men and women who whirled, twirled, stomped, and clapped us around to the ceaselessly energized music of "lu bott" - the miniatures accordions typical of Abruzzese music.
Casa da Carmine filled my life with guests who perhaps began as strangers behind a door, but quickly became a part of my revolving family here. There was the adventurous Norwegian woman who allowed me to lead her up a mountain trail in winds that nearly blew us off of it. She held my arm to keep us both anchored. There was the German family whose 7 and 11 year old boys exalted in
launching from ropes into fresh lake water.
"The water here is not as cold as in Germany!" They said.
There were dear friends from way, way back who gathered here for a family reunion of sorts. I was blessed to be able to watch the love pour out and between them as they laughed together, cooked
together, sang together, and relished every second of this togetherness with a joy so contagious it left the house ringing for days after their departure. That this place - not just this house, but the whole area -  can allow this to happen and that I am able to be witness to it all - how do you get enough of that?

The Gran Sasso Mountains

Sun setting on San Lorenzo Winery

Alla prossima estate!
To next summer!

I went to mass today. I haven't been a practicing Catholic in decades. But on this, my last day here, I felt drawn to go. I struggled to follow the readings and sermon in Italian. But, oh, the sound! Of spoken and sung words! The sound echoed deep inside and plucked familiar, resonant strings, some
long silent. At communion I observed the faces and walks of everyone returning from taking the sacrament. In them I saw aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors from my childhood. I felt swaddled in the kind of complete love and security I have known in only two places - at my grandmother's kitchen table and here.
When, at the end of mass, each person grasped another's hand to bestow them with "pace", I felt involuntary tears arise. From profound and often elusive joy and peace. All this is what I want to
offer my guests. The almost unbearably beautiful capacity for perfect harmony in our bodies, minds, and spirits. Although not all, and perhaps very few, have the connection to this culture that I do, this place still works magic. Its magic manages to permeate to the core. I want to share all of this with you. For as long as possible.
Alla prossima! To next year!

L' ultimo Giorno/The Last Day

"You've been gone a long time!"
So posted one of my Facebook friends.
3 months. At first it does seem long. 3 months. A quarter of a year. 3 months away from my dear husband. 3 months of being unable to communicate with neighbors in the instantaneously mind-to-mouth rapid-fire manner of my New Jersey roots. 3 months of living with strangers just beyond the kitchen door. 3 months of being at least 6,000 miles away from any possible hugs from my children. In this context, it DOES seem like a long time.
But here I sit on my last afternoon in Casa da Carmine, drinking a wonderfully wicked strong espresso and gazing across the Fino Valley. The sky is baby blanket blue, the light clear and crisp. The town of Montefino sits at the highest spot, silhouetted against the sky like a miniature in a museum display. Its stillness and perfect detail are simultaneously tranquil and imposing. I watch as rows of sheep undulate across a green field. Another to their left flows yellow. Several softly rounded hills further up are striated shades of brown, beige, ochre, and gold. In the clear air,the squeaky rattle of an old tractor navigating an astonishing steep path can be heard for several kilometers. Church bells ring. 12:45. 15 minutes until the start of pranzo - the mid-day meal. I smell simmering pasta sauce and sausages beginning to brown.
These are the things I cannot take home. These are the things that  make 3 months seem like a very short time. That make 6 months, a year, 10 years, a lifetime seem like they will never be enough. Not to satiate my love and yearning for all these things and more.
This summer was superb. I climbed mountains -even led friends up one. I kayaked an exquisitely
beautiful stretch of Adriatic coast. I indulged in my new-found love of SUP boarding. I ate with abandon - arrosticini, porchetta, crunchy, fresh "fritte miste di pesce (mixed fried fish)", and too
many different kinds of antipasti to describe. I ate ricotta made fresh that morning at the place from which I purchased it and used olive oil about which I not only knew the country of origin, but could point to the very trees from which the fruit came. I dance myself silly at Mario's restaurant. With friends and unknown men and women who whirled, twirled, stomped, and clapped us around to the ceaselessly energized music of "lu bott" - the miniatures accordions typical of Abruzzese music.
Casa da Carmine filled my life with guests who perhaps began as strangers behind a door, but quickly became a part of my revolving family here. There was the adventurous Norwegian woman who allowed me to lead her up a mountain trail in winds that nearly blew us off of it. She held my arm to keep us both anchored. There was the German family whose 7 and 11 year old boys exalted in
launching from ropes into fresh lake water.
"The water here is not as cold as in Germany!" They said.
There were dear friends from way, way back who gathered here for a family reunion of sorts. I was blessed to be able to watch the love pour out and between them as they laughed together, cooked
together, sang together, and relished every second of this togetherness with a joy so contagious it left the house ringing for days after their departure. That this place - not just this house, but the whole area -  can allow this to happen and that I am able to be witness to it all - how do you get enough of that?

The Gran Sasso Mountains

Sun setting on San Lorenzo Winery

Alla prossima estate!
To next summer!

I went to mass today. I haven't been a practicing Catholic in decades. But on this, my last day here, I felt drawn to go. I struggled to follow the readings and sermon in Italian. But, oh, the sound! Of spoken and sung words! The sound echoed deep inside and plucked familiar, resonant strings, some
long silent. At communion I observed the faces and walks of everyone returning from taking the sacrament. In them I saw aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors from my childhood. I felt swaddled in the kind of complete love and security I have known in only two places - at my grandmother's kitchen table and here.
When, at the end of mass, each person grasped another's hand to bestow them with "pace", I felt involuntary tears arise. From profound and often elusive joy and peace. All this is what I want to
offer my guests. The almost unbearably beautiful capacity for perfect harmony in our bodies, minds, and spirits. Although not all, and perhaps very few, have the connection to this culture that I do, this place still works magic. Its magic manages to permeate to the core. I want to share all of this with you. For as long as possible.
Alla prossima! To next year!

Where do All the Old Men Go?

Yesterday, while waiting at the parruchiera of the brilliant Manola for color to overpower my ever more powerful grey hairs, I read an article in "Il Fino" a slim magazine devoted to life in the communities of the Fino valley. The Fino valley is the name given to the group of towns surrounding the Fino River. It's not much of a river, really. More like a stony gash in the lowest part of the hills surrounding it through which water sometimes flows. Apparently, water flowed abundantly enough in the last several hundred years to enable the existence of Arsita, Bisenti, Castellenti, Montefino, amd our own little village of Castiglione Messer Raimondo.
The article on which I alighted in order to give my brain an Italian language workout was entitled "Chiude l'Ultimo Barbiere di Castiglione".  It was about the closing of the barber shop of Belfino. He has operated his shop in the same location - a tiny, cave-like space carved in the tufa stone underneath the church steps - for 48 years, since 1968. He turned 83 in March and has said, "Basta!" He cannot keep up with the times. He regrets having to close. It has been a place to which men have come not only for a haircut, but because, in his own words,
"I was a bit psychologist, a bit friend, and a bit confidant. The old men chose my shop and are sad it is closing. Times change. But not habits. These men still want to have their hair cut as they did at one time - slowly, and in a familiar environment."
My grandfather, Carlo, was a barber, too. He closed his shop in Plainfield, NJ, when he, also could not keep up with the changes. People then were asking for Beatle cuts and 'Fro's and Carnaby Street chic. These were beyond his ken. So he, too, acquiesced to a shifting tide and moored his boat.
I wonder where the men who sat around his shop chatting, reading the local paper, or arguing went to? Where will the old men who frequent Belfino's shop go now? Not only for the haircuts that are ingrained into their identities, but for the company, the camaraderie, the comfort of familiar tradition?
Abruzzo is a region that hews to tradition more closely than any other area of Italy to which I have been. The rituals of life, the celebrations, the food, the music, all spring from the same deep, old, sturdy taproot from which their grandparents, great grandparents, great-great grandparents, and n
beyond have received life and around which they built their lives.

Candle Making

Antipasto at Ristorante Antica Loggia

The Church of San Donato, decorated for
The Festival of Its Namesake

The men still parade the statues of the Virgin Mary and Holy Infant on their shoulders, through narrow streets lit with candles, while the faithful process, chant, and pray in a delicate blend of Catholicism and paganism. The women still sit in front of doorways, knees wide to make a fabric bowl of their aprons as they shell fava beans and chitter away in the dialect I have yet to understand. People still debate, passionately, which maceleria has the best meat for arrosticini - the mutton grilled on skewers that is the pride of every Abruzzese holiday, group celebration, soccer day, or picnic. There are still shepherds in Campo Imperatore who graze herds through its vast, pristine fields to provide the source for this meat. People still communicate from balcony to street, perhaps before even thinking to text. Children run in the square with friends while teenagers flirt and laugh too loudly in their awkwardness and, yes, check their smart phones regularly. A woman will still take another woman's arm when passing her in the street inviting her to her house for un caffe'. Even if she is l'Americana or l'Americana's foreign guest. Men able to the railing at the far end of the bellevedere to gaze out over the Fino Valley, perhaps to ponder where all the water went.

 
                                        Musicians at Val Fino al Canto, the annual music festival in Arsita

These are all done with un-self conscious grace. There are no displays for tourists exhorting crowds following a raised umbrella and continuously adjusting their " whispers" to step up and buy goods. Organized tourism is finding its way into Abruzzo. I am grateful for that. This is an Italy that needs to be shared. It is an Italy that continually keeps its promise of being Italian, to offer what many visitors seek when they come here. It is an endangered Italy.
Belfino has said that he hopes someone younger will take over the shop. If  they do, he will give them all the equipment in the shop for free. I am hoping this happens. I am hoping the torch is passed. Otherwise, where will all the old men go?

Memoria da Carmine per Memorial Day

The last night my father, Carmine, whose first name graces this guesthouse and last name graces my Italian passport, spent on this earth, he bolted up ramrod straight in his wheelchair and blurted,

"You know what today is?"

It startled me. Bolting was no mean feat for someone in the final stages of mesothelioma. The energy and speed of his movement upended my concentration on the episode of "Judge Judy" we were watching, an activity we did so often it somnamulized me. All I could do was bark a clipped

"No, what?" 

"It's sixty years ago today I was shot."

Although I had seen the crater of scar tissue on the inside of my father's knee, he had never spoken about it. 

"You mean, when you were wounded in the army?"

"Yeah. In the Pacific. A sniper."

"Did it hurt?" was the first follow up that came to mind.

Carmine looked at me as though my marbles were spilling out of my head and rolling under the couch. 

"Did it hurt? It hurt like a sonofabitch!" 

I decided to ask something a little less reminiscent of a kindergarten show and tell.

"How did it happen?"

For the first time in the 55 years I'd known him, he told me.

He was on night patrol. On a Pacific Island - Sampei is the name I remember although I could be making that up because it sounds like something he said which I don't remember. He liked it there. It was tropical - warm. He liked warm weather, the warmer the better, a trait he passed on to me. He 

always wanted to go back when there was no war. After a turn-around to enable him to make another 

pass on his patrol path, he heard a shot, felt a sting "like a bad bee sting" in his leg, and fell to the 

ground.

"I screamed like hell. Two of my buddies ran out and dragged me back to cover."

"Then what?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Then I went home." 

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, 

"I was lucky. I don't know why he missed hitting me where he'd kill me. Too much sake, maybe. Got my buddy the night before. He died in my arms."

That was it. He went back to Judge Judy. 

The next day he was gone. The sniper - his disease - got him in the night.

  

This is my sixth Memorial Day in Italy. It is strange to be in a country in which it is a weekend like any other weekend. Especially a country which, for the better part of my father's army career, was on the opposite side of his army. I wonder how my grandfather felt sending four boys off to fight against the country of his birth? I wonder what my Italian friends and neighbors would think about my 
celebrating my dad's service ? I know that among Italians there are mixed feelings

about American activity in World War II. One of my Italian friends, from Pisa, has grandparents on opposite sides of the fence. Her grandfather resented the Americans because they bombed his neighborhood. Her grandmother, who lived close to Campo dei Miracoli and the Leaning Tower, where bombing was off limits, loved having Americans in her neighborhood. They gave her chocolate.

Regardless, it seems there is little doubt that Americans were vital in bringing about an end to a difficult era for the Italian Republic.
A few years ago, I had the front of Casa da Carmine refinished and repainted. When I went to the
"geometra" - a combination surveyor/architect - to complete the paperwork, there was a photo of him with the American gangster Lucky Luciano on the wall. My eyes gaped at it.
"Oh, yes", the geometra said, "He used to visit this part of Italy. You know how he got to be a free man?"
I shook my head.
"His mafia connections. He used the ones he had in Sicily to clear the way for the Americans to land.
He helped turn the war around. So the American government let him go. No jail for his crimes."
I looked sideways at him and tilted my head. He opened his hands, palms out, arms spread and nodded.
"True!" He said.
I wonder what my father would say if he knew that an Italian-American gangster and the Mafia helped him win the war? I think he'd laugh.
Thank you for your service, Dad.
Grazie mille per il tuo servicio, babbo.

Carmine and Me

Putting the Pieces Together

The little blue Lancia Y I bought four years ago to help me get to know Abruzzo jostles down a mountain road. My body absorbs the bounce from potholes, rocks with the dizzying curves, rolls left or right in sync with the "Blue Dolphin" as I call it to avoid the "frana (rock slides), and comes to a slight pause with it before continuing ahead when the road narrows to a sliver of a lane with a sheer drop to one side. I smile. The rhythms are familiar and welcome. They let me know I'm really back.  Really most sincerely back. My customary frenetic, all-doing-all -the-time rhythm has automatically reset itself. To Abruzzo pace.
 I stop half a dozen times on the way to the grocery store - still referred to by the locals a "il forno (the oven)" because it started out as just a bakery. I stop to talk to the umteenth person who calls out to me "Ben tornata! (welcome back, but literally- well returned). I learn that Donatella , the owner of the fruit and vegetable shop just below the house, has had a baby! Maria Vittoria, now three months old. I stop for a cappuccino at La Lanterna bar and tease Emidio that it has to be his best since it is my first one since arriving last night. He loads it with an extra coating of powdered cocoa. I stop to watch one of the town's ubiquitous older men - retired now, but still dressing daily in crisply pressed trousers, an almost glowingly white dress shirt, dark tie, and dark blue sport jacket. His hair lies in two precisely shaped fluffs of blue-grey separated by a thin, straight part on the left side. His aftershave makes his walnut toned skin glisten. It reminds me of my father's face just after he shaved in the morning. My sense memory takes in the scent of his after shave. The man ambles down the quiet street, bis hands clasped behind him, eyes straight ahead, seeing with the ingrained knowledge of this place, but looking inward at some distant or unfamiliar landscape. He doesn't greet me and I let him go by, continuing undisturbed on his inward journey.
I arrive home to make soup for dinner. Home. It seems odd to refer to a somewhere in which you spend only 3 months a year as "home". Don't I already have a full time home? But more than coming home to a "where", I come home to a "who". To a me that exists only here. Try as I might to replicate the conditions in my other home that coaxes out that other being, I fail. There is a brittleness that sets in, a crusty over-baked shell that subtly closes me in. I never understand it. I never consciously
choose the different me's. I just know there is a difference. The pieces of me just fit together differently here.
Last night, no sooner had I walked inside the front door of my Casa da Carmine - smelly, fatigue-drunk, feet throbbing red pulps, back and legs screaming "I HATE YOU!!!", than my doorbell rang. When I opened it, my neighbor Manola wrapped me in a sturdy hug. Then she stood me at arms length and locked on my bleary eyes.
"Hai mangiato", she asked. (Have you eaten?)
"Si. Un pannino qalche ore fa." (Yes, a sandwich a few hours ago.)
Manola did that thing Italians do with their hands that looks like they're covering your BS with fresh dirt - waving them back and forth horizontally, palms up.
"No!" she said, then swept me into her house.
I sat in her kitchen for nearly two hours, mumbling, forgetting the simplest Italian words, at times staring blankly at Manola as she whipped up a dinner of pasta with oil, garlic, sautéed breadcrumbs
(she ground them fresh from a loaf on the table), and hot pepper flakes. She served it to me with
cheese, wine, and shelled fava beans, which her husband, Angelo, showed me how to peel with my
teeth. Dessert was waffles with powdered sugar. It was not what I'd envisioned eating after 24 hours of moving in cars, planes, busses, and on my own sorry feet, lugging a suitcase, a backpack and a messenger bag filled with electronic devices in/on/off all but the plane. I thought all I could ask my body to process were a few lettuce leaves. I thought my body couldn't do anything more strenuous. But Manola's meal, far from taxing me further, soothed me, settled me. Let me know I had arrived. The other "me" was homing in.