Tiny moments of exquisite beauty in Italy

The apartment in Florence where we stayed this month during our trip to Italy had a top-floor terrace that stares directly at the Torre di Arnolfo, which defines the Palazzo Vecchio and is arguably the symbol of Florence. In the early morning hours as Leo and Mike (and the rest of the city) slept, I had my coffee while staring back at it. One morning, the silence surrounding me was so profound that the flapping of a bird's wing overhead was singularly audible. 

(Fun fact: the apartment is on the top floor -- 75 steps up!)

Each trip contains certain touchstones -- I revisit my old apartments, I retrace my steps along treasured walking routes, I prowl beloved bookstores and newsstands for all of the written material that I feel as though I need to live.

I observe the small moments of exquisite beauty, something I believe my mother would have done (a habit she almost certainly instilled in me by modeling it). And while I do so at home, too, there are so many more small moments of beauty, of joy, of Italian quirkiness. 

But each trip is also different, and engenders a specific set of preoccupations. 

At one point during our travels, I developed an obsession with the Roma-Viterbo train line, which is separate from Trenitalia. It's not entirely odd: our apartment in Rome overlooked one of the stations on the line. And when I am in Italy, I am immersed in "my beat," which I define as the ordinary aspects of Italian life, the parts of Italian life that an average Italian contends with. 

It reminded me of the PATH trains that link lower Manhattan to New Jersey inasmuch as it's both local and separate. They are like an alt subway line, which is slightly odd. If you were a traveler to NYC, you could mistake them for the actual subway system, no?  

When I poked my head inside the station I could see from the window, it was as old-school as it comes. The tracks were visible from the entranceway (the long train tunnel simply deadends into the lobby of the station) and on them sat old tram-like trains. There was a bustling coffee bar attached, of course, and I had my breakfast there one day, knowing that while it appeared scruffy, the volume and the people who frequented it (real Italians) guaranteed a fine cappuccino and a light, fluffy ciambellina. Yet still, I am both irked by this random, standalone train line and by my obsession with it!

More from the Rome Journal: You can buy calendars where each month is a photo of a young Italian priest. Yes, I, too, am wondering how on Earth I left Rome without one of those calendars! I mean, dai, per l'amor di Dio ... you cannot top that. I tried to explain it to Leo by saying it was driven by the dearth of vocations and that the notion of a slew of new young priests would give older Catholics such joy....

There’s an article in the current L’Espresso that is so funny: Italian politicians who years after they’ve left office continue to enjoy la scorta (police escort/secret service-level protection), which is to say they still jump the line (in traffic, at the airport, etc) when it’s convenient. The article cites a two-century-old line of poetry:

Io so’ io

E voi non siete un cazzo

Not a poem I've ever read. (From Wikipedia: La celebre frase che il Marchese rivolge a un gruppo di popolani («Mi dispiace, ma io so' io e voi non siete un cazzo!») è ripresa dal sonetto Li soprani der Monno vecchio di Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, che comincia così: «C'era una vorta un Re cche ddar palazzo / mannò ffora a li popoli st'editto: / "Io sò io, e vvoi nun zete un cazzo"».)

ENGLISH SUMMARY: The gist of the line of poetry, spoken by a nobleman to commoners, is roughly: I'm important (or I'm someone) and you're a nobody (said more colorfully in the Italian: 'You're not jack squat,' or, 'You're a fuckin' nobody.')

I was walking through Piazza della Signoria one evening only to find a concert in the loggia behind the Uffizi – a gorgeous soprano and a small ensemble. Leo didn’t want to linger but luckily the singer’s voice instead did linger, following me out of the piazza (I walked extra slow).

New 'addresses' emerge on each trip. I stopped at Caffe Le Logge by the post office one morning for a cappuccino. When I returned later to buy some pastries (which were quite good), the barman said, "Ri-buongiorno." I believe that's the first time I've ever had someone say that to me. Good morning -- again. (Not that you would care if you weren't obsessed with Italian and why should you be?!)

But while we're on the topic ... The trip was especially fruitful in one delicious way: I ate some of the best ciambelle I've ever had (none would qualify as a ciambellina, where -ina indicates little). Soft, doughy, enormous, and of course covered in sugar.

My routine checks, part 10: mornings by the Arno, I watched as scullers crossed under the Ponte alla Carraia or retrieved their boats from the boathouse underneath the Uffizi. Perhaps it's the last redoubt where tourists haven't infiltrated? I don't even know how you reach the boathouse -- there must be some secret door in the grove of tiny alleys between the Uffizi and the river. I was once a coxswain -- next trip?

At the corner of Via Serragli and Ponte alla Carraia, there's a photo booth for tourists (three blocks from my old apartment).

Not far away, there's also an open storefront filled with vending machines. That's new.

Oh and dare I say it? There's a Starbucks in Florence. And not on some side street or like the McDonald's by the train station, in an area already a bit compromised, but rather on Via del Corso, a vital pedestrian thoroughfare in the heart of the historic and shopping districts. 

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Lost mountain interlude diary entry (from our time near Onda, a town in the mountains east of Florence): "The silence is so complete it is loud!"

(And it should be -- 800 meters above sea level!)

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One of the joys of traveling back to a foreign country where you once resided is finding places off the beaten path, typically in my case because an Italian friend brings me there. This trip: Mike's friend, Dante, arranged for us to go to Scarperia, a tiny but exquisite town in the hills east of Florence where the central downtown tower (Palazzo dei Vicari) contains a clock made by Brunelleschi. Yes, that Brunelleschi.

We saw a lot of friends, which was wonderful. One chatfest after another, and they all wanted to know what we thought about Trump. Also: they all wanted to tell us what they thought about Trump. 

Did I mention I swam in the Mediterranean? It was as glorious as it sounds, perhaps in part because it wasn't some fancy seaside resort but rather a small, unassuming town near the Fiumicino airport that we like if for no other reason than it allows us to stretch the gloriousness of our Italian vacation to the outermost limit -- the night before the plane back to the States, and we're at the beach, reveling in the good fortune that is ours to consider Italy an extension of our home, rather than stuck at an airport hotel (note, it's a 40 Euro taxi from the airport to this town, which gave me pause so lest I make it sound like paradise, there was a steep carfare cost to factor in).

(The hotel in question is a lovely, whitewashed affair with a rooftop deck and a central courtyard whose centerpiece is a grand, old fig tree).

Oh and I also biked on the ancient Appian Way in Rome. You know, if, in the game where you try to find places where George Washington slept, the role of Washington were played by Julius Caesar.

What else? From my journal, before we left: "I am so happy to be in Florence but also feel somewhat insane by how much I want to do, see and buy – all in Italian. Which is to say, not with "Leonardo," or with him if being a mute bystander all of a sudden becomes his thing. I am seized a bit by a mania – this urge to reinserirmi into my old Italian life, while my American life recedes, which leaves Leo stranded. Indeed, I feel a bit evil but also so desperate to drink fully from the cup of Italian life I see just outside my grasp."

I should note: Leo didn't enjoy the hours he was forced to sit as his parents jabbered away in Italian to friends (but thanks to Giovanni, Irene, Chiara, Cristiano, Dante, Vicki and Angelo for speaking to him in English). He loved our first two trips to Italy but he's 13 now and has a mind of his own. The last trip, he was still a child.

He insists he preferred our trip to Ireland last year, which should provide some comfort, I guess, since it's "the land of my ancestors," as my friend Floriano put it.

But Italy is the country I fell in love with. Ireland is the "old country" whose identity was there for the taking from my first breaths (and a wonderful place, to be clear).

Italy is where I became Jeanne. Italy is the land I conquered, at least linguistically. Italy ignites my curiosity.

To return once more to Robert Frost as he stood before the two roads that diverged in a wood, I, too, am "sorry I could not travel both/And be one traveler."

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