One day in Atlanta, circa 2015
Lost diary entry
It feels a bit like grief, the first warnings of fall -- that sudden chill in the morning air when until yesterday, there was nothing but heavy, humid, hot air mugging every breath out of me.
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I visited as many bookstores as possible when I was in Italy, and had the joy finally of shopping at Il Libraccio (Milano branch), which I had heard about for a long time.
What I bought:
*A back issue of Granta Italia ("Sesso") that I'd wanted for a long time (and at a good price -- better than Amazon, of course; I can now take it out of my Amazon cart!)
*L'Arminuta by Donatella di Pietrantonio
*La Malora di Beppe Fenoglio (largely because I became obsessed with the word 'malora' while translating one of the Bruck short stories and spent hours in the Rose Main Reading Room at the New York Public Library poring over the big Italian-Italian dictionaries with extensive, historic entries on all of the major literary iterations of the word)
I spent a lot of time at the Mondadori store in the Prati neighborhood in Rome. I also spent lots of euros at Libreria Edison in Florence, kind of my "home" bookstore when I am in Florence.
But Il Libraccio is famous in a special indie kind of way.
Plus, because I bought two Einaudi books, they gave me a free backpack!
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Who were we? We were girls who stretched out, seatbelt-free, in the spacious trunk of our noisy green station wagon, reading, writing in our journals, sharing thoughts. Little girls who fell asleep together even when one of us begged for her own room (not me!). Kids whose headquarters were the swing set in our backyard, a blessed magnet for our neighborhood friends. Two out of a total of four girls with stock phrases like, "Let's not and say we did."
Today we are women headed to my parents' house to pore over artifacts such as this photo (taken by my Uncle Larry at my beloved grandmother's house at the lake in what we then considered Upstate but what was really simply Westchester).
And we -- I! -- will be forced to part with some of the evidence of a happy childhood, lest we build museums to ourselves (and man am I tempted to do just that).
There are many items at my parents' house that no one needs.
But this artifact? Nah, not going to part with it (which will surprise no one who has read my letter to Marie Kondo).
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Aug 14, 2020
Leo looks at the geese in the school field behind our house and says, “Geese are totally close to world domination.”
A few days later he asks me what
‘domination’ means.
Lost diary entry
I hear Mike chuckle as I grab my quilted LL Bean vest on my way out the door to walk the dog one morning last summer.
“You’re not going to need that. It’s already 80 degrees,” he sniggers.
Oh, I’ll need it, I think, as I slip my cell phone into one of the front pockets.
That's because often while walking our dog, I catch up on Italian news by tuning into RAI radio programs. Walking the dog, in other words, to the sound of Italian news streaming on my phone.
As I meander through the familiar streets of my neighborhood, I become embroiled in crises half a world away. I’m getting up to speed on the latest COVID precautions. I am hearing about the current crisis facing Mario Draghi or whoever has the misfortune of being Prime Minister. (The photo above is of Draghi as his administration was falling apart; he needed a quickie espresso right on the floor of Parliament to cope).
The usual, in other words.
Fact is, I’ve been embroiled (happily so!) in Italian news for more than two decades. Two decades of reluctant exile.
All because of a study abroad program in Siena, Italy, too many years ago to specify.
Once you've heard and understood Italians speaking their native language, I don't think you can go back to the English-only world. I couldn't.
(I often counsel friends who are about to embark on an Italian vacation to study some Italian -- honestly, nothing beats understanding what the barista is saying to a local at the counter of a caffe while he/she gets the coffee orders ready).
So while Caramel tugs at her leash, I'm enjoying the program "Prima Pagina." Or "Il Libro del Giorno," (The Book of the Day). One day, there was the radio documentary on Lucio Battisti, one of my favorite Italian singer-songwriters. (My favorite song, and the song that initiated me into the joys of Italian pop music, is "La Canzone del Sole" by Battisti).
I've written about "Prima Pagina" before because it's one of the ways I keep in touch with Italy, and the daily radio show is both novel and thoroughly novecentesco (something out of the 1900s). A different journalist each week comes into the studio to read the headlines and summaries of stories on the front pages of ALL the major Italian newspapers. But not only: minor papers, too! Weeklies!
He or she comments on the stories, compares the way the various publications play a particular news item and fills in back story in the event the reader may have forgotten (or her dog is tugging a bit too hard on the leash). Where he or she is a seasoned journalist -- it's like a guided tour of the Italian newsscape at any given moment, in the company of an expert.
I think it's brilliant! I am a committed newspaper-reader but I only read one newspaper whether I am in Italy or America, and yet sure, I wouldn't mind knowing how other newspapers tackled the big stories of the day. I also love that I can "read" the newspaper while walking the dog -- or doing the wash (hypothetical, that last one).
As a (part-time) journalist, I have the vague notion that it reinforces the value of journalism and of newspapers, even if I can also imagine many Italians might skip buying the paper after listening to the day's episode.
(It also reminds me that knowing a foreign language is the key to a secret world. Yes, I am walking my dog in the prosaic streets of suburban Connecticut but my mind has flown, is flying, is in ecstasy).
Perhaps what's wonderful about it all is that it has a value and provides a service even if the return on the investment is dubious. That describes a lot of Italian life -- a service exists, a flourish is provided, the extra mile extended, whether it "pays off" in the near-term or not. Because in the long term, that bit of extra always pays dividends.
(I am thinking of the work done especially by those bariste in Italy -- the personal touch extended to each patron with a nary a tip in sight such that the Italian coffee bar remains a beloved fixture in cities, big towns, small towns, train stations, shabby neighborhoods on the outskirts and anywhere else an Italian might need un caffe).
In my case, that extra bit takes the form of a giratina through my neighborhood, listening to a seasoned journalist in a RAI studio in Italy explaining at great length the news of the day to me while Caramel sniffs around (then sniffs again) without my spending a dime for it.
So yes, I'll take that quilted vest because it holds my cell phone, which helps transport me far, far away to Italian news land where all my various selves converge.
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How did it start? Why would you do it? Who can say? But as far back as when I lived in Allentown (at least), I've been gathering all the wonderful items I collected during my trips to Italy and snapping a photo of them.
A group photo of my souvenirs.
I even wrote about it for Catapult!
So here's this trip's memento group photo. There's not much that I do that's unique -- there are even other hair-twirlers in the world. There are certainly other pushy, petite broads around (to the Franciscan brother who tried to tell my mother that I was refreshingly outspoken when I arrived at St. Anthony's, my mother said, "She's very pushy!").
But so far I haven't met anyone else who ritually poses her purchases for a group photo after trips abroad.
(I did it when we visited Montreal, too. So foreign souvenirs occupy a special spot in my psyche).
It may stem from a habit I have that's connected with Christmas: I leave the gifts under the tree for as long as possible. That's what we did, growing up. God Bless Pat: she was not one of those mothers who was snatching the wrapping paper from your hands and socking it into a trash bag as you were still unspooling it from the gift. Nope! You got to revel in opening the gifts and also gaze lovingly at them, day after day during your school holiday.
Similarly, I leave the Memento Shrine (TM) intact for as long as possible. It's an unusual ode to conspicuous consumption for me, not because I am virtuous but simply because I am not a shopper. I still have the lacy jacket-like shirt that I bought in a London thrift store in 1995 as well as the black-and-white scarf my sister, Denise, gave me in high school, because to replace them, I'd have to enter a shop. And not one that sells cutesy Italian paraphernalia. Which brings me back to my point.
Items of interest this trip:
*New Bialetti Moka AND coffee AND mug; I guess the Bialetti company figured they should begin roasting coffee to go with their signature stove-top coffee makers
*Spaghetti definition place mat (it says spaghetti is something you must never go without in your pantry)
*Tins of Callipo tuna
*A picture frame swathed in traditional Florentine paper (and various journals, pencils and notecards -- singlehandedly keeping the Florentine paper industry in business)
*Books, of course, including a back back back issue of Granta Italia, which I had been searching for since on Amazon it costs a zillion dollars
*And the edition of the Corriere della Sera with the headline, "Addio al governo Draghi," which I wrote about already.
I linger over these items because the time in Italy is so precious. And so different. Another Jeanne emerges when I step off the plane. Indeed, all of these purchases reflect the habits of this other person -- going about on foot, making acquisti, collecting mementos (this time: packets of sugar from the coffee bars I visited --- shhh! Don't tell Mike. For some reason, he thinks the house is full of clutter). Oh and also moments. Collecting lots of moments.
It helps that I never have to step inside a big box store. It helps that I don't have to traverse a parking lot to examine the Spaghetti place mat or obsess over the gorgeous paper goods.
Also, that when I am done, I can repair to a bench in a piazza to revel in what I've bought. La dolce vita, in a nut shell.
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Quante volte avrò sentito questa domanda? Comunque sia il conteggio, non basta, ora che non abito più a Firenze.
Quando arrivai a Siena tanti anni fa per studiare -- la prima volta che venni in Italia -- l'accento toscano mi era difficile. Entrando nei negozi, facevo confusione subito, e mi chiedevo, 'Come mai non riesco a capire quello che dice il proprietario (o la commessa)?'
Ora so che la gente che incontravo nei negozi e i ristoranti e i bar di Siena parlava con un accento forte forte. Per una ragazza americana che stava in Italia per imparare la lingua, parlare con i Senesi a volte mi faceva sentire come se qualcuno mi avesse preso in giro, visto che avevo sempre sentito che in italiano si pronunciava ogni lettera a contrasto della mia madrelingua (inglese).
E invece no!
Spesso a Siena (e Firenze e Pisa e ...) non si pronuncia la C! Viene aspirata dopo l'A, per esempio, come tutti gli italiani sanno. E ci sono altre lettere che subiscono una modifica, tipo la Q e la T.
Difficile quanto, che so, cinese? No -- ma quando arrivi in Italia per la prima volta dall'America con una conoscenza molto limitata della lingua, e nessuno ti dice, 'O guarda questi qui a Siena fanno un macello con la C!' ... qualche difficoltà si pone.
Ormai ci sono abituata -- infatti aspiro la C anch'io! Come affetto per la regione che mi ha accolto. E quando leggo uno scritto come quello che ho inserito quassù, mi sento quasi coccolata perché posso ben immaginare una persona mentre dice, 'Indo ttuvai?' Con una voce che mi fa ricordare tanti amici fiorentini che parlono cosi.
Elena Ferrante scrisse, "Le lingue per me hanno un veleno secreto."
Nel mio caso, non si tratta proprio di veleno ma invece forse una specie di droga.
Se mi capita di dover pensare della mia vita, concludo che il periodo trascorso a Siena in cui sono diventata bilingue -- cioè, una persona che sa esprimersi non solamente in una lingua ma bensi due -- ha cambiato tutto. Il momento in cui la vita si divide in due -- prima, parlavo solamente inglese, e dopo invece ho capito che parlare solamente in inglese non mi avrebbe più bastato.
Chiudo con questa guida geniale al parlato fiorentino:
https://www.girovagandoioete.it/dialetto-fiorentino/
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I often worry that Italy is no longer Italy (like maybe they need the Italian equivalent of 'Keep Austin Weird' bumper stickers everywhere).
This is for many reasons, including globalization of industries and companies, but tourism, especially from America, is also one culprit, even as it bolsters the Italian economy.
Signs Italy isn't Italy to me: English is everywhere in Italy, often for no good reason. In other words, what at first was used to accommodate tourists has now spread to content/slogans/informational texts that should be in Italian alone.
(As I blogged earlier this year, Paul Auster wrote of his father's visit to Holland where he was disappointed to find everyone spoke English and hence "were denied their Dutchness." Arguably, that's a different situation, of course, because the Dutch were/are using English to communicate with Anglophone people whereas English in Italy is often used, as I said, to communicate with Italians!)
There are also alarming messages everywhere that give you an idea of what some brazen tourist has already tried and what Italian authorities have had to now attempt to rein in (we were visiting one monument where we saw a sign on a high railing in English only: "No climbing.").
I also know the American schedule (and perhaps the English schedule or Japanese schedule) has made its mark. My old friends at the factory where I taught English ( and which is owned by Americans) don't seem to have the choice anymore whether they work to live or live to work.
Not to mention, it's odd to see foreign tourists zooming around on the same kind of scooter we bought Leo for his birthday or in modified golf carts. This wasn't available when I first came to study. Theoretically, it could be progress.
But I always look for a bit of an anthropological strain to my Italian studies -- I want to see how Italians do and say things naturally, without any outside influence.
And they don't zoom around Dante's city in a golf cart.
I saw similar signs on the doors of other establishments -- in some cases, they had been posted in late July and the businesses wouldn't reopen until sometime in September. That's an Italian-style vacation. Hard to imagine any business in America, save a purely seasonal operation or a family-run ag coop, closing for more than two weeks IF AT ALL.
Maybe Italy is still Italy.
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While I have my cappuccino at the tiny bancone that sits on the street, the radio is on, and it’s perfection.
Another woman arrives at Il Chiosco and the barista says, “Ciao Lorena.” It's like I'm gatecrashing a party where everyone else knows each other, but no one minds I am there.
I eye the oranges that are used for smoothies – tempting. Meanwhile someone calls out, “Buon di!” Then the garbage truck arrives – and the sanitation workers get out of the truck to have their coffees, too.
I am observing. And when I am done observing while standing still, I say my goodbyes to the barista and begin walking again to observe some more. I feel like I could walk all day and only then would I be sated, happy, fully on vacation.
Vacation for Jeanne = walking in Italy (while someone speaks behind me, next to me, near me in Italian -- and yes, Heather D-R from St. Anthony's, also when someone speaks Italian directly to me, but I didn't want to get greedy. Those first few days, I am almost struck speechless by how thorough the change of scenery is from America to Italy).
Now I am walking through a stone gate that’s part of the old walls of the city – next to the fancy shopping street Via della Spiga – and the sidewalk ducks under a portico (do we have porticos in America? We should).
Internal courtyards abound in Milan and the portoni (front doors/main entrances of buildings) to them reveal oases of greenery and sometimes sculpture.
I’ve struggled to find an open giornalaio in Milan – even the concierge at our hotel shrugged his shoulders. Victims of the pandemic, which is heartbreaking because newsstands are Italian mom-and-pop stores that double as mini-piazzas. A place for an exchange. (They also sell Pokemon cards! Ask me how I know!)
But Mike manages to buy for me at Milano Centrale:
-La Settimana Enigmistica (weekly puzzle magazine)
-Bell’Italia (most beautiful travel magazine you've ever seen)
-La Cucina Italiana (food mag)
Doing the frontpage crossword in the puzzle mag ('Settimana Enigmistica' -- you can see the word 'enigma' in there), I learn, or re-learn, that 'musicare' is a verb (clue: “Musicò Tosca.”)
I am collecting information about 1,000 tiny moments, 1,000 tiny encounters between myself and Italy. Later in Rome, I trip over myself to snap a photo of the perfect graffiti spotted as we entered the Villa Borghese from Piazza del Popolo: ‘Sei bella come Roma’ = You're as beautiful as Rome. Not sure there is a way to top that, other than -- maybe -- you're as beautiful as the Taj Mahal or a hologram of your face should be beamed permanently from the sky.
Everything that has words draws my attention (as I may have, ahem, mentioned). I walk the streets each morning silently repeating phrases from ads, billboards, shop windows ("Idraulico, giorno e notte" = Plumber available all hours; "Traslochi/sgomberi" = relocations, junk removal; "Saldi" = sales). I am shopping a lot but mainly my kind of acquisti, like anything sold at the giornalaio (newsstand). Yesterday I bought La Gazzetta dello Sport just so Leo could see Italy’s pink sports newspaper (he marveled that there seemed to be 35 pages about soccer and 1 page about car racing and maybe 1 page about volleyball and that’s it). I told him that anywhere in Italy, when you see someone across the bar or piazza holding a pink newspaper, you know at a glance he or she (OR HE!) is reading the national sports newspaper.
What I bought so far:
*Il Corriere della Sera (2X)
*L’Espresso
*Panorama
*A new red Moka coffee pot from Bialetti (yes I now have probably 10 Mokas of various sizes)
*La Gazzetta dello Sport (see above)
*A lightweight plastic basketball for Leo (dal giornalaio!)
*A kitchen towel
*A place mat with the “definition” of Spaghetti
*A bare midriff shirt (ma sei matta? Am shopping around now for a new lifestyle so I can actually wear it)
*A green wool sweater from Benetton like the brown one I've had for more years than I care to admit
*10 or so books (including two by Edith Bruck; when Leo saw another copy of Andremo in Città, he said, ‘Mommy, you have that one already!’ I suppose seeing it around the house for a few years will do that.)
We are taking trams in Milan and some of them are “antiques.” The #1 tram line that we took to Castello Sforzesco is just such a model. Wooden bench seats line the walls of the tram. There’s a shimmy and shake to its accelerations. Like a mobile museum that allows a step back in time in addition to a method of transportation.
One of the major streets in Milan is Via Alessandro Manzoni and that tickles me for some reason. Like, where in New York is the F. Scott Fitzgerald Boulevard?!
Italy is basically just one big Tickle-me Elmo doll. Every damn thing -- good or bad -- intrigues me.
That's all for now from Il Belpaese.
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We did go to the Coliseum while we were in Italy, I will have you know, since the boy wanted to go there, and we also showed him St. Peter's; while in Milan, we visited the Castello Sforzesco, which I had somehow missed multiple times on previous visits to the city.
But I was in Italy for the ciambelline.
You know that!
(Also there for the overheard chatter at caffe counters and in the street, as you also know).
And wow they were good.
OK, no I wasn't able to share with Leo a massive ciambellina fresh out of the oven as I did last visit to Italy on the final morning of the trip when we stumbled out of the hotel and across the street of tiny Fiumicino (it's also a town) into a nondescript coffee bar shortly before our flight home. But that's possibly a once-in-a-life-time ciambellina event, as ciambelline aficionados know (ahem!). (It was nearly the size of a dinner plate and did you hear me? Fresh out of the oven!)
So yes, I had lots of good ciambelline during our trip this summer to Italy, including the one above in Rome. Actually, this time around I had some ciambelle (what I would call ciambelline) and some ciambelline (li'l baby-sized numbers), if I follow the nomenclature of the bariste.
I also had some cornetti, including some fresh out of the oven (thanks to Caffe Portofino on Via Cola di Rienzo in Rome). (Cornetti caldi makes me think of the Jovanotti song "Gente della Notte," in which he sings about staying out all night and having breakfast at the crack of dawn feasting on cornetti caldi, hot croissant-like pastries).
Sometimes I bought them "da portare via" and we would eat them back at the apartment we were renting, or the hotel in Milan. But when I could, I lingered at the bar to watch the busy bariste at their craft. Or I saved mine for a scenic spot.
I often had to hunt around for ciambelline, going street to street and bar to bar, since the pastry cases aren't packed with them -- which is odd, because I believe they are gobbled up first since if I arrived too late there were sometimes none or only a few left (not a scientific claim, however, since I have never witnessed an Italian ordering a ciambellina but I have seen them order cornetti and other pastries like bomboloni in droves).
Anyhoo ritual ciambellina photo & ritual ciambellina blog post now in the books!
Oh before I go, any favorite Italian pastries/favorite Italian pasticcerie anyone wants to mention? (Or other favorite dishes?) I tried to branch out a bit this trip -- though I will always be a ciambellina-lover.
Yours truly,
Miss Ciambellina
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Un mese fa ero appena arrivata in Italia per le ferie. Ma ora 3 settimane dopo il rientro in USA, è come se non ci fossi mai stata. Come se il viaggio l'avessi fatto l'anno scorso o anche tanti anni fa.
Sull'uscio di casa l'altro ieri, stavo a guardare le stelle, e mi dicevo, 'Poco tempo fa guardavi le stelle sopra Firenze,' come per convincermi invece di ricordare.
Quando viaggio in Italia, viaggio nel tempo -- ritorno ai bei giorni trascorsi soprattutto a Firenze come ex-pat. Ricorro ad un modo di vivere che quando sono rientrata in USA ho dovuto lasciare più o meno alle spalle: Le giornate spostandomi a piedi o in autobus. La colazione fatta al bar. Una serie di acquisti giornalieri -- quando mi fermavo al forno, e mi fermavo all'edicola, e poi mi fermavo al tabaccaio.
Mi ricordo che spesso quando studiavo in Italia, vari studenti italiani -- maschi, quasi sempre maschi -- mi chiedevano, 'Ma è vero che ci divertiamo di più qui in Italia?'
Non so come rispondevo allora ma ora posso dire senza dubbio, 'Si, si.'
La vita in Italia mi sembra più vivace, più movimentata, e va vissuta per la strada, all'aperto, in compagnia.
Da noi invece in USA, siamo tutti rinchiusi dentro casa, da soli, spesso con l'aria condizionata accesa a tutt'andare tal che poi siamo costretti ad indossare un maglione. Ci lamentiamo del caldo ma infatti nessuno di noi sa veramente quanto caldo fa perché non usciamo un granché! Passiamo da un ambiente con l'aria condizionata ad un altro.
Noi Americani non facciamo due passi in centro, non passiamo per la piazza, la giratina non va fatta -- perché spesso nei nostri paesi e nelle nostre città non c'è più un centro e certamente non c'è una piazza (gli eccezioni ci sono, certo, tipo la città di Savannah nel Georgia dove ci sono delle piazze bellissime ma Savannah è davvero eccezionale in tanti modi e non se ne parla di New York perché pure NY è eccezionale fra le città americane -- eccezionale nel senso unica, non tipica).
Forse è inutile perché la mania per l'America sembra ormai diffusa per l'Italia. Ma ogni tanto cerco di spargere la voce fra gli italiani che la bella vita si fa ancora in Italia.
In questi giorni, spostandomi in macchina, senza fermarmi al bar per un caffe o un aperitivo, senza un salto in piazza, in questi giorni quando nessuno mi convince di fare due passi, quando non mi fermo al mercato perché non ci sono mercati come si trovano a Piazza Santo Spirito a Firenze (per fare un esempio qualsiasi), quando immagino in Italia ci siano vetrine dappertutto dove c'è scritto "Chiuso per ferie," resto a bocca aperta che un mese fa ero li, in piazza, per la strada, a guardare le stelle e l'Arno.
Un abbraccio ai miei amici italiani, pure quelli che non ho ancora incontrato!
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A photo of one of the markers commemorating the heights the Arno River reached in 1966 when there was the terrible flood.
"Qui arrivò l'acqua dell'Arno. Il 4 Nov. 1966."
(The waters of the Arno reached this point. Nov. 4, 1966.")
The markers are everywhere in center city Florence and in some cases, you really marvel at how high the river surged -- markers at the level of the second or third story of a building, for example.
I was telling Leo about the markers while we walked around the city, and I said that people came from all over the world to help the Florentines recover, largely because the flood damaged countless works of art. To which he said, "Which ones?"
Yeah, Mommy, which ones?
Well, I didn't know but I've begun to research it a bit -- and there are many articles about the flood, especially since the 50th anniversary was in 2016. If you're curious, too, come along.
Take a look at this Art and Antiques piece about a Vasari work that has finally been completely restored.
Or this article from The Florentine about the damage the flood inflicted on the famed Ghiberti doors on the Baptistery in Piazza Duomo -- five of the ten panels were "ripped from their doors by the flood waters."
That was all before my time, of course. But the history of Florence, perhaps especially the modern history, which doesn't seem as remote as say the Medici era, ensnares me a bit like the personal histories of my parents. What shaped these monoliths in my life?
Good thing the kid is so curious -- I've learned all kinds of interesting things! I've also learned not to speak idly -- if I say works of art were destroyed, Leo is going to ask for specifics about which works of art I mean.
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Tea Vela, an English setter, is missing! And some tricky commenters have weighed in on whether Tea Vela is alive (I cut out of the frame the rather pessimistic guy who doesn't think the dog is alive).
Spotted in Rome, in the Prati neighborhood. Reward? A whopping 1,500 euros! That's some kind of reward. Must be some very sad, worried pet owners behind this flyer.
Also missing: Turbo the Cat.
Couldn't resist snapping a photo!
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I go to Italy to reconnect with the old Jeanne, the one who wasn't able to resist the siren call of il Bel Paese after her college graduation. The Jeanne who hadn't yet become a newspaper reporter or an NPR station producer or a contract editor for CNN.
But as much as I am retracing my ex-pat steps, during this most recent trip I was still the journalist I had become post-Italy. And I swooned when I saw this headline: "Addio al governo Draghi."
While I slept, the Italian government had fallen (the headline can be translated as: Goodbye to the Draghi administration). As often happens, the coalition of political parties that make up the administration could not hold.
It wasn't totally unexpected, except that when I went to bed the night before, it appeared a deal had been reached to keep the current administration/coalition in power. (Plus, the prime minister in question is a serious economist named Mario Draghi who's the country's only hope at navigating the post-pandemic financial woes.)
When I went to the newsstand the next morning, I immediately realized that deal had failed.
It's not like the time that Mike went to Italy and the Pope died (!) but still, a government collapse is pretty darn big news, and for a journo like me, it quickens the pulse.
I also love this photo:
Not all that often is an American president shown (i.e. photographed) downing a quickie coffee as the world unravels around him.
There are headlines that you will never forget. I happen to have another Italian headline that I will always recall -- tied to my semester abroad in Siena: 'L'Italia è desta.' Show of hands who remembers that one! But it's a story for another day. For now, I am merely mulling over the political fortunes of my adopted country.
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Odd to think I didn’t see it coming. But I try not to be greedy and I thought, in the case of Florence, a week sounded like plenty of time. Now I see it’s plenty of time to become situated, settled -- and receptive to a longer stay.
People are without work, some children go to bed hungry, Covid has been raging and the political systems of so many democratic countries seem frighteningly fraught. So the notion that soon I will be heartsick over leaving this small Italian city that I called home years ago is a notion that should cause no one any harm. Not even me. And yet.
This is the second to the last full day in Florence, and I’ve come to Leo’s room in our flat on Borgo Ognissanti so I can write with a view of green shutters and red tile rooves.
I do not want to leave.
I want instead to begin some research grant like I had at the New York Public Library (maybe on 'nostalgia tourism'?! I wrote about it for CNN after a trip to Turin -- just joking or magari! as the Italians would say). I want instead to enroll Leo in Italian lessons at the British Institute (which is also quite good for foreigners who want to learn Italian) or some other school as I had planned. I want instead to go back to Siena, seeing as we came close the other day with Mike’s friend, Dante, during our hike near Arezzo.
Last night I went to meet Jacqui for a drink at one of the most delightful places I have ever seen – an outdoor bar in Oltrarno between two medieval gates to the city (one leads to Via Pisana, where the large supermarket is). While we spoke, I glanced up at one of the stone archways – rare that the backdrop for a drink is gorgeous, historic, monumental. (The alt title for this post was 'In Florence, picking up where I left off' -- gloriously true with Jacqui!).
Yesterday morning I must have walked five miles. I was out for two hours while the other two slept. I went along the Lungarno to San Niccolò (and through the old city gate, I gazed up at the steep, narrow road I once took to Forte Belvedere on previous monumental walks) and then across my other old bridge (by Santa Croce) then through the old Etruscan streets, to Piazza della Signoria (which was delightful, half-empty) where I realized maybe I could try to get tickets at the Accademia to see the David (the real David) (alas, no).
What I bought yesterday:
Una ciambellina (of course)
Friday’s edition of La Repubblica (which comes with the
Venerdi mag)
3 packs of (Italian) Pokemon cards
What I bought the day before
Florentine paper goods -- including, of course, a journal
A book by Tabucchi that I wanted (Si sta facendo sempre più tardi)
Yesterday: the Boboli gardens. Yesterday: the new museum about the Italian language in Santa Maria Novella (only two rooms so far – one day it will be a proper museum – lots of mentions of Pietro Bembo -- too late to read his treatise on language?)
Also yesterday: realizing seriously the holiday is at a close. You will have to leave Italy, Jeanne Bonner (again). Last call.
In fact, I am not even going to write much more here because Italy beckons me – from the window of the second bedroom of the Borgo Ognissanti flat where Leo never did actually sleep. I have opened the shutters and the windows, as I mentioned, and the sounds of Italy as it wakes up are filling the room. They are loud and in some ways unforgiving – how urgent all the cars and trucks sound, roaring back from the sleepy Sunday chiusura -- but since I want to be out there with them, they sound just fine. Plus I hear the distinctive sound of the saracinesche -- the shutters -- loudly opening as business for the day gets underway.
Not to mention the purring of pigeons on the roof above me.
Even the sound of pigeons is lovely right now. God help me!
I see my life as divided in two: Before Italy and After Italy. As I wrote in my Bennington graduation lecture, "If my life were a novel, the central year dividing the action into 'the before' and 'the after' would be the year I left for Italy on a study abroad program."
Or perhaps you could phrase it this way: My life is divided into the period of monolingual me versus bilingual me, since once I discovered that I could think, speak and write in not one but two languages, there was no going back.
(You, of course, could also divide my life into Before Leo and During Leo, which may make you wonder, how would YOU divide your life?).
Earlier, I wrote that Jeanne on vacation is Jeanne walking while immersed in Italian. But I've speculated, what if all of a sudden Arkansas adopted Italian as its official state language? (Or South Jersey for that matter). Would it have the same ambience? Would it evoke the same gauzy invitation for swooning?
Let's stay on Terra Firma and have me strolling among Italians as they continue the work of Dante in their everyday conversations.
And especially among Florentines as they jabber away in their C-less Italian.
And yet it is also true that knowing Italians -- knowing them enough that they whisk you off into the country, up a mountain to a rustic restaurant or over to a hidden beach studded with caves -- is like having the secret key to the hidden door (or the hidden key to the secret door). It makes a magical place -- Italy -- truly sparkle.
We had several occasions to insert the secret key in the hidden door; for example at Serre Bistrot, an Oltrarno restaurant you'll find in a private garden (Il Giardino Torrigiani) that heretofore I'd only seen on a map of Florence, even though it's quite close to my old apartment, which I shared with my friend, Irene, who took us to Serre Bistrot. It's described as a secret garden in the heart of Florence, and that's more or less true (specifically near Piazza Torquato Tasso, which you may or may not consider the heart of Florence). You won't stumble over it -- you have to look carefully at the map and seek out what Irene called "an internal road" that leads to the entrance.
We also took a hike! Mike's friend, Dante, took us up into the Pratomagno mountain range near Arezzo so we – or really Leo – could have a break from the painful heat of the cities we had been visiting. And it was delightful. Classic Italian gita – drove two hours (not a half hour, not un’oretta, but a full two hours), had a wonderful lunch al bosco in this rustic little eatery where Mike and I ate half the menu (at lunch!) and Dante had a quartino of wine (at lunch!), and then proceeded to take a short hike in the wonderfully breezy environs of Pratomagno.
We hiked to a red, iron cross at the top of the crest of the mountain that had been built by ‘Francescani secolari’ in honor of St. Francis, who had spent a great deal of time nearby. The wind was truly delicious, the way Rahawa Haile described it in her essay about hiking, "Going It Alone."
And Leo ran up the mountain. Ran. Literally.
He was way out ahead and he kept saying to me, “There’s a good view over here.”
There was an organized group of school-age kids and when they reached the summit as we were descending, we could hear them celebrating with shouts of joy. I kept looking back at them as they encircled the cross, thinking, 'This is perfection.'
(When you reach the summit, there's a stamp and an ink pad, which we duly used on my travel journal. Why do I act as though the journal page with the stamps is like a manuscript of Shakespeare? I was careful not to write on the back to preserve it).
And then there's the Italian lesson, courtesy of Cristiano, which I wrote about earlier (maybe every Italian male would have begun the lesson with the word for cuckhold?!). Not to mention the evening we dined at the house of our friend Vicki (German by birth, Florentine by choice) and Leo had his first glass of Coca-cola (in Italy!) while I gazed out at the building's verdant courtyard, which I've described before as 'If 'Rear Window' were filmed in Italy.'
Plus, there are also always new adventures -- ways to stretch this relationship with Italy, because I feel at home in Italy, even when I am not with friends. So I was delighted to see we were staying near the French bookstore in Piazza Ognissanti, a place I'd never needed to patronize since I was plenty busy with Italian books when I lived in Florence. But now that I visit Montreal and in particular the neighborhood Petite Italie, I know that there are bilingual Italian-French books to be had and they are delightful (I have Erri De Luca's Non ora, non qui//Pas ici, pas maintenant in the bilingual edition, published under the Folio series by Gallimard).
Inside the darling little store, the proprietor juggled her infant while answering my questions about the bilingual editions and ringing me up (plus responding to the phone; at one point, I heard her say to an unseen caller, “Buongiorno, si, si ... ah Bonjour, oui nous l’avons….”).
She also patiently put up with the neighborhood lunatic who entered the store to harass her -- and judging by her cool-as-a-cucumber attitude, he comes in often. It reminded me of a Ligabue lyric that mentions "l'idiota del paese" -- the village idiot, whom everyone knew and everyone said hello to, even if he puzzled them.
You may not believe me, but I am leaving out 1,000 other tiny encounters and moments! But isn't that the way with Italy? Especially when you spend the first ~two hours of your day pounding the cobblestones, head up, eyes aglow (and not from the screen of your cellphone).
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At the approach from Piazza del Popolo to the Villa Borghese park, these two jump out, offering to confer official status on Leo.
If my name isn't gullible -- I actually thought they worked for the park! Yep, until part of their schtick involved some weird move by which they passed the (fake) swords near Leo's privates -- I began to suspect then. And of course when it was over, they begged (rather aggressively!) for a king's ransom. But what a photo!
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It's 8:40 a.m. and so far today I have:
*Written in my journal
*Jogged along the Arno
*Visited una pietra d’inciampo in Piazza Santo Spirito (stones that mark the homes of Jewish Italians deported by the Nazis during WWII)
*Had a cappuccino (at Caffe Ricchi on the piazza – old haunts)
*Watched rowers along the Arno
*Found a new place for ciambelline (Pasticceria Balletti on
Borgo Ognissanti)
*Took inventory of what’s new in my old old neighborhood (=Oltrarno/Santo
Spirito section. The restaurant Borgo Antico still there, also Trattoria Casalinga still there,
Residenza Sorelle Bandini where Daddy stayed in 1996 when he came to visit me,
gone – or in any event existing under a new name; morning market on, Caffe Cabiria
still there, I Raddi at the corner now has picnic tables outside; opposite my
old apartment on Via dei Serragli, the fiaschetteria is still there but now I
see they have a warehouse across the street where they store all the wine).
I see Ballerini, the tiny bakery on the street of our rental apartment, also has homemade cantuccini for dunking in vin santo – duly noted for later.
In other news: Half of Spain is visiting Italy!
From yesterday’s journal: I can now say I have seen Galileo’s finger! (at the Museo del Galileo in Florence, which is a science museum). Jealous yet?
This morning’s marathon walk took me from Borgo Ognissanti to:
Via del Melagrano – Lungarno Vespucci – Piazza Goldoni (at foot of my old bridge, Ponte alla Carraia; I used to pass the statue of Goldoni every morning as I hurried to get the bus just beyond Piazza Santa Maria Novella) – via della Vigna Nuova – via del Purgatorio – back to Via della Vigna Nuova – then via degli Strozzi – Piazza della Repubblica (where I visit the newsstand) – Via Orsanmichele -- Via Calzaiuoli – all culminating in Piazza della Signoria (Florence’s living room) where I swoon, turning the corner into the square and seeing the tower of Palazzo Vecchio (largely mine for the ogling at this hour).
From there, I make a stop on Via Georgofili, behind the Uffizi, for my ritual visit to the monuments marking where the Mafia detonated bombs in 1993 in an effort to deter criminal investigations and reassert its iron hand (oddly, I was in Sicily at the time it happened – and yes I am that old, but don’t tell Leo).
This morning, I see paddleboarders in addition to rowers on the Arno. I would say rowing on the Arno would be perfection.
(Writing in your journal while
gazing across the Arno to Chiesa di San Frediano in Cestello? Also perfection).
I stop in to pray at Chiesa Ognissanti on my way back and ethereal choral music fills the sanctuary, a perfect accompaniment to prayer & contemplation.
Later, when we all go back, Mike gives money to Leo to light a candle and I tell him to say a prayer for Grandma. At this rate, Pat has been prayed for in half the churches in Italy. I am mindful of their trips to Italy both to visit me and on their own, including the trip to Milan where Mommy left a message that began, "Buongiorno Jeanne!"
I have mentioned it before on this blog but I am not sure you -- I! -- could ever sufficiently savor my mother's heavy Brooklyn accent wrapping itself around 'good morning' in Italian. The intertwining, as it were, of my two lives, as if there weren't already overwhelming evidence of how very lucky I am.
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