Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My. Gates and Shutters and Curtains, Mamma Mia.

14 kilometers, 4 gateless houses.  It's a miracle around here, so I've decided to tell you about it. 

Until today, I would've written "every house in northern Italy has a gate" but now I have to say "almost every house in northern Italy has a gate."  It's one after another after another.  There are gates in the countryside.  There are gates in the suburbs.   There are gates in the mountains.  And when the door of a house isn't right on the edge of the cobblestone street in a medieval city, there are also gates in the cities.  

I'd started thinking of northern Italy as one giant gated-community.  And then I realized it's actually worse.  A gated-community still has a sense of community.  It's a small group of people with the same fears locked in one place together.  At least they're still together.   But around here, everyone locks everyone else out.  Togetherness doesn't exist.  Seeing a lady with her bike basket filled with vegetables and fresh flowers that has stopped to talk to her neighbor over the gate isn't as charming as it used to be.  Now I only see the gate.

And it doesn't stop with gates.  Houses are also equipped with shutters which are closed and locked every time you leave the house and often at a certain hour every evening even when you're in the house. (A student shared the story of her mother returning home on a beautiful spring day complaining that she'd wished she could have stayed out in the piazza just a bit longer.  When asked why she hadn't stayed out, the mom replied, "Because it's 5:00 and that's when I have to close the shutters.")  There's no reason that the shutters MUST be closed at 5:00pm.  That's just the time this mom likes to get the house closed up.  No need to enjoy a lovely spring evening when there are shutters to be closed. 

And inside the locked shutters, of course, are the locked windows.  Fortunately Italians aren't completely mad, and in the summer the windows are often left open.  But are they wide open to let in light and catch a glimpse of the great outdoors?  Heavens no.  After the gates and shutters and windows come the curtains.  If I'm lucky enough to pass the first three levels of security and make it inside a house (after asking for "permesso" even with my host at the door inviting me in......the strangest custom of all, really.  It needs explaining.  You don't enter without permission.  It makes sense if someone's in the backyard or deep in the house and doesn't know you're there. You shout out a little, "Hello???  Can I come in?"  But here, the host is standing on the stoop greeting me as I get off my bike.  We've exchanged "hellos" and "che bellos" and while standing on the threshold I still have to say, "Can I come in?")

Anyway, once I make it in, I'm usually ready to leave again as soon as possible.  A most fabulous, sunny, breezy, blue I'm-happy-to-be-alive-kind of day turns into a dark, gloomy I-have-the-flu-and-I-have-to-stay-inside-kind of day.  The curtains are closed. 

Why?  I ask.  To keep people from seeing inside.  I agree. I don't really want people to see me curling my eyelashes in the bathroom or changing my clothes a thousand times in the bedroom.  But I have no problem if they see me eating dinner or washing the dishes or reading a book.   Those aren't the types of activites that I feel the need to hide. 

One friend said that his elderly neighbors sit outside and just watch the world go by.  He thinks it looks like they have nothing better to do.  They probably don't.  So why not sit outside, breathe the fresh country air and watch the world go by?  Instead, this guy stays inside and closes his curtains because he doesn't want them to see him on his sofa watching TV.  What's worse?  Old people on the sidewalk living a little and saying hi to the neighbors, or a 40-year-old guy in a dark house making friends with his TV?  And when I asked his wife if she cared if they saw her doing the dishes, she said that wasn't the problem.  She thinks that if they see her at the window they won't know she's washing dishes but will just think she's looking out at them like a nosy neighbor.

Another response to the question of closed curtains?  A 45-year-old woman said, "I don't know.  I've never really thought about it.  My grandma always had the curtains closed.  My mom always had the curtains closed.  So now I always have the curtains closed."  She was at least intrigued by the idea that she'd never really thought about it.   Whether or not she's since opened her curtains, I may never know.  In an effort to gather information on these unusual Italian behaviors from a broader pool, I'm expanding my research beyond my  students and small circle of friends.  This woman was the friend of a student's mom.  I feel a little embarrassed asking this student if her mom's friend has opened her curtains yet.

Back to the 4 gateless houses.  They were all in the same little area.  An area where there's nothing but a light brown  dusty road underfoot and ahead, 9-foot-high-by-the-4th-of-July deep green cornstalks on each side, a blue sky above and a few Italian farmhouses with no gates.  It seems to me these folks might have good reason to fear lions and tigers and bears out there in the middle of nowhere, yet their houses are gateless. 

My first thought was that the people in these houses were just the kind of Italians I'd been looking for.  Open Italians.   Italians that are willing to answer the real door instead of respond to the buzzer at the gate at the end of the driveway.  Italians that are unafraid of Jehovah's Witnesses and Moroccan guys on bikes selling brooms and mops.  I thought I'd found a new gateless community that might be willing to share ideas and feelings instead of just vegetables.  Then I told a friend about my discovery and she laughed and replied, "They're probably not Italian."