Truth in t-shirts

I miss American t-shirts. They're the kind of t-shirts that tell you something about the people wearing them.  Sometimes, anyway.  Good ol' t-shirts showing your support for a school or a beach town you visited or a marathon you ran aren't very popular in Italy.  There are occasional jerseys for national soccer teams, but rarely anything local.  Italian high schools don't have teams with colors and mascots because they're too busy teaching Philosophy and History of Art.  And Italian universities are just what the Oxford Dictionary says universities are:  High level institutions in which students study for degrees and academic research is done.  It says nothing about football games and fraternities and tailgates and t-shirts.

My father-in-law used to say you shouldn't wear a t-shirt if it didn't represent you.  In his opinion it was false advertising.  "Truth in t-shirts," he used to say.  In those days I liked my coat with the Chris Craft logo, but I didn't have a Chris Craft.  And I wore a Northwestern University sweatshirt for the color purple, even though I was a green MSU graduate.  Then at some point I adopted Bob's truth in t-shirts philosophy and I stopped wearing them.  It really did feel like false advertising.  The t-shirts said nothing about me.  

In Italy things are different.  Most of the people donning t-shirts with English emblazoned on their breasts (or boobs, in the following two examples) have no idea what they say.  That's about as far from truth in t-shirts as you can get.  Take Gemma, my 75-year old neighbor with her sparkly Touch Me t-shirt.  When I told her what it meant she just laughed.  And you can't do anything but love 85-year old Malvina in her t-shirt with the 3-inch rhinestone letters that read Love Me.  

When a handsome 50-year old student showed up with a tiny Delta Chi embroidered on his polo I had to ask.  And as I'd imagined, he had no idea what it was.   A year later I saw an old woman selling chestnuts on the side of the road with the same polo.  I'm sure neither of them have ever heard of the Animal House.

When I asked the wearer of a Morgan Freeman sweatshirt if she knew who Morgan Freeman was she said no.  The shirt said, I Wish Morgan Freeman Narrated My Life.  If it had said, "I wish J.P. Morgan financed my life" she wouldn't have known the difference.  And my 16-year old student wearing a t-shirt with a Jim Morrison quote didn't know who he was either.  It's a miracle that I did.  When he left I googled The Doors, just in case I was wrong. Even though my high school didn't offer History of Art, I'm happy to say that I learned something from the graffiti in the school parking lot.

The next week the same kid showed up in a black t-shirt with a big, white JESUS printed on the front.  I asked him if he knew who Jesus was.  (In Italian it should've said Gesu'.)  He said, "Yeah.  He's a really good Spanish soccer player."   Ole'!  

The fact that these t-shirts are written in English, and few folks in my small Italian town know what they mean, makes me think they must be meant for me.  This has given truth in t-shirts a new significance.  If they're meant for me, I have to find the truth in them.  I find myself searching for t-shirts as I walk through the piazza.  If I see someone coming but can't read their whole shirt, I circle around for another glimpse to get it all.  They become my words to live by for the day.

I may not have learned anything about philosophy in high school in America, but it seems I'm getting a daily dose in t-shirts in Italy.  Things like You are What you Think and Impossible Doesn't Exist provoke a bit more thought than Go Blue.  

Old-fashioned San Francisco 1965 was an unpleasant reminder that something from 1965 is actually considered old-fashioned.  And it's sad to say, but  there was nothing to learn from Today I Choose Myself.  I'm already pretty good at that one.  

Several months ago at the market in Bassano when I couldn't decide if I should buy the Boyfriend Season is Here t-shirt for Gemma or Malvina, I found the real truth on a t-shirt.  There was no need to jot it down on a wrinkled receipt in the bottom of my bag. I knew this was one I wouldn't forget.

Don't put your key to happiness in someone else's pocket.  

Truth in t-shirts.
Period.
 

Che bello!

Is half of the reason so many of us think Italy is so beautiful because the Italians are constantly reminding us just how beautiful it is?  Che bello this and che bello that!  At the market, on the playground, at the secondhand store and in the car next to you at a stoplight.  Wherever you are, something seems to merit a che bello.  Are things really that beautiful (wonderful, great, nice, handsome, cool.....all translations of bello)?  Or is it just the way the Italians have of looking at things?

The other day during an English lesson in the piazza I heard a little girl begging her grandpa to go in the opposite direction.  She was pulling his arm and whining, "Dai, Nonno.  Da qua e' piu bella!  Da qua e' molto piu bella!!!!!"  If a 4-year old American girl was having a hard time getting her way she would have been saying, "No.  I want to go this way," with emphasis on I and this.  Or simply, "No.  You come here," with equal emphasis on all four words and a foot stomp.  Or maybe even just a long, drawn-out, "Nooooooooo.....!"  But the little Italian girl was insisting in a little Italian girl way, "Come on, Grandpa.  It's more beautiful this way.  It's much more beautiful this way," with the emphasis on much.

After the lesson I hopped on my bike to go home.  I started to leave the piazza in the same direction I always leave.  Then I remembered the little girl and decided to go her way to see what it was that made it more beautiful, MUCH more beautiful.  The cobblestone street didn't seem to be any more beautiful her way than mine.  The centuries-old marble sidewalk with random shell fossils was beautiful here, just like on the other street.  The clock tower was visible from both streets and you could hear the church bells from both.  The lampposts cast the same curlicue shadows.  Old ladies chatted from their windows and old men chatted in the piazza no matter which street you took.  There was no shortage of rusty bikes with baskets resting under peely-painted windows and there were plenty of petunias hanging from baskets on balconies.  Small candles in oversized lanterns invited shoppers into boutiques and mountains of billowing gelato in spotless glass cases invited the rest of us into gelaterias.

At the end of my detour I wasn't convinced that the little girl's way was any more beautiful than her grandpa's, but I was convinced (having taken the time to look) that they both deserved a thousand che bellos.  Maybe it's not that Italians look at things in a different way, but just that they look at things.  They're seldom in a hurry, but IF they are, for most it's okay to be late.   I, on the other hand, am always in a hurry and refuse to be late.  This means less time to smell the roses.  Less time to "che bello."  

We're often reminded to look at things as half full instead of half empty.  But first, some of us need a reminder to just look.   You don't have to be on your bike in a medieval town in Italy to find something bello under your nose.  The sun sets everywhere.  Pigtailed, well-pressed  kindergartners walk to their first day of school in every small town.  Burning candles give off the same glow no matter where they're burning.  (Unburned ones don't deserve a che bello.)  Koolaid stands might not be selling Koolaid all over the world, but they're often selling something like toys made from tin cans in Mali, butterflies made from film in Burma and bracelets made from rings of plastic bottles, melted a bit to soften the edges then striped and polka-dotted with fingernail polish in Barcelona.  Che belli, che belle and che belli.  

Don't forget.  Water reflects, bells toll and fat ladies sing all over the world, not just in Bella Italia.

Wild Boar Run

I've never  really searched for a wild boar run, but I know they exist.  There's a Wild Boar Half Marathon in California and a Wild Boar Challenge in Iowa.  And now, even though I'm the only one that knows about it, there's a Wild Boar Run in San Zenone degli Ezzelini, Italy.

I learned about cinghiali (wild boars) a few years ago on a walk with my 68-year old neighbor Virgilio, one of the few men I've met in Italy that doesn't treat a woman like a woman.  We were talking about the woods and he said that I still had to learn my way around and it would be a good idea to take a walk together someday.  Apparently, in Italian "someday"  means "two-hours-later-on-the-same-day" because that's when Virgilio showed up at my door in his shorts, hiking boots and knee socks.  So I quickly changed into my hiking gear (a mini-skirt, tank top and running shoes sans knee socks) and off we went.  Ten minutes from home the temperature dropped, the wind picked up and I learned that his walking stick conveniently turned into an umbrella which meant there was no turning back.

The main goal of our expedition was to learn how to get to the pizzeria through the woods instead of on the road.  But after about a thousand, "If you go this way you end up in Asolo and if you go that way you'll find another little trail that will take you to top of the hill with the two cherry trees and there's the road Napoleon took with his carriage and that's the long path and there's the shortcut, but first we'll go to the big field where the hunters come out at night to shoot the wild pigs and then we'll come back and get you where you want to go," I was sure I was never going to remember how to get there (to the pizzeria in case you've forgotten).

So I just listened and plunged on with a certain astonishment that at that moment there was nothing feminine about me.   My legs were bleeding from the brush and thorns we'd walked through on what didn't really seem like trails.  I had to pay attention to keep from getting hit in the face by the branches that swung back at me after he'd simply pushed them out of his way and kept on walking.  I was freezing in my wet tank top because he'd decided that it would be better to walk without the umbrella.  (Which seems like something an Italian man might plan, but I can guarantee you, with Virgilio, it was unintentional.)

The reason my lack of femininity came as such a surprise was because I was used to meeting a man for an English lesson at the bottom of a hill and he insisted that he push my bike to the top.  And once, while walking in a very light snowfall with my crutches after having the cast removed from my broken knee, a man with an umbrella came and asked if I wanted to share it to keep me dry.  And every time I'm eating dinner with 80-year old Piero he notices that I don't have a napkin (because it's in my lap instead of on the table like all the rest) so he gets up and brings me another.  Then I feel obligated to let him see that I'm using the new one when all I really want to do is show him the one in my lap so he doesn't think I'm an ill-mannered American pig.

But let's get back to the Italian pigs.  When Virgilio stopped to take a breath I asked, "Can you remind me where the wild pigs live, please?"  He said they didn't really live in any one place but travelled throughout the woods.  At dusk they like to go to the open spaces and then it's easier for hunters to spot them. Unfortunately, I don't usually run at dusk or in the open spaces which makes it more difficult for unarmed runners to spot them.  I asked if they were dangerous.  He said that if I surprised a mother that had babies nearby, she would be aggressive.  I wasn't exactly sure how I could ever run in the woods and come upon a cinghiale without it being a surprise so it seemed to me they would always be dangerous.

Three years have passed since that walk with Virgilio.  The first several weeks after learning about the pigs my runs were far from relaxing.  One day I saw a sign on a secondary trail that said, "Do not enter.  Cinghiale crossing."  I didn't enter, but I did panic.  Then little by little I calmed down again.  That's not to say that I run through the woods with no fear.  I'm easily frightened by snakes sleeping on the path, pheasants hiding in the low brush along the edge, one-eyed dogs (see http://10leaves.blogspot.it/2013/10/face-your-fears-with-one-eye-closed-if.html), crying goats that I mistake for humans moaning for help, sheep and donkeys grazing freely with an unleashed dog nearby to reherd them, chickens (yes, sometimes they scare me), and lepri (wild hares) as big as small dogs and as fast as Carl Lewis.

And, as if that list weren't long enough to keep me alert, I can now officially add wild boars to it.  Last week I was running on a trail in the woods and instead of surprising the mother, it was the three little pigs crossing the trail that surprised me.  As far as I'm concerned, they're as scary as the big bad wolf.  Fortunately,  I didn't have to pass the point they'd crossed because I was at a fork in the trail and could head away from them.  What I didn't know is that they had their own trail in the woods which once again crossed my running path.  This time they weren't crossing, but the rustling in the woods was a sure sign that I'd surprised the mother.  It didn't take much to run faster than a lepre.

The next day as I was entering the woods I saw an old man.  I told him about the day before and asked if he thought it was safe to keep running there.  He said he's been walking in those woods for 50 years with hopes of seeing a wild boar but never has.  He said they usually avoid places that have signs of human life, so if they saw me, I'd scared them away.  I never thought I'd be the one doing the scaring.  How many other false perceptions do I have of myself?  It's time to change the way I think.  Instead of calling it the Wild Boar Run I'm going to call it the Run of the Big Bad Wolf.  

No Time to Waste

I've wasted a lot of time in my life just sitting here thinking that I'm wasting a lot of time.  I've spent hours worrying about what I'm not doing and wondering about what I should be doing.  Sometimes I try to convince myself that it's okay because at least I'm thinking about it and not just letting life pass without even noticing.  But that's really not okay.  Noticing is a step in the right direction.   But thinking about it instead of doing something about it can hardly be applauded.

I've never really been able to explain how I feel about my idleness.  And I'm sure no one has ever really been able to understand. When I complain, their usual response is, "You do more than anyone I know."   This makes me think the people they know must be real losers.  I've dug a lot of students out of their holes.  Sometimes all it takes is the Nike slogan.  When I'm in my encouraging mode I often feel strong and think, "I'm ready.  I have to listen to myself.  I can do it, too."  But in the end, the students are the only ones that make the changes.  They send me thank you notes and they start living.  I'm proud of myself for having helped, but disappointed that I'm still stuck.

When I went to Paris a couple of months ago, a friend invited me to Auvers for the day to visit the house and town where van Gogh spent the last 70 days of his life.  I was never a big van Gogh fan, but I seldom turn down an invitation.  (Remember?  I do more than anyone you know.)  There's no reason to miss an opportunity to learn more about an important artist, see a new town and speak bad French and bad English with an old friend all day.

Van Gogh lived in a small room above a cafe.  It's since been turned into a museum which consists of a restaurant, the original staircase to get up to his small, empty room, another empty room with a short video presentation, and an unoriginal staircase to get back down to the large gift shop.  

Although I appreciate receiving my Monet umbrella, Gauguin pencil and Prendergast bookmark, I've never been much of a gift shop shopper myself.  Fortunately, Olivier is.  As we were leaving, he bought me a book called Van Gogh's Letters, the Mind of the Artist in Paintings, Drawings, and Words, 1875-1890.

On the night train back to Italy I started reading my souvenier and found the perfect words to describe what I've only ever been able to call "wasting time."

July 1880
I would be very pleased if you could see me as something other than a kind of idler.  

Because there are quite different kinds of idler.  There is the man who is idle from laziness and lack of character, from the baseness of his nature.  You can, if you like, take me for one of those.

Then there is the other kind of idler, who is idle despite himself, who is consumed inwardly by a great desire for action, but who does nothing, because it is impossible to do anything, because it is as if he were imprisoned in some way, because he lacks what he needs to be productive, because inevitable circumstances have reduced him to this.  Such a man does not always know himself what he could do, but he feels instinctly:  nevertheless I am good at something, I can sense a reason for my existence!  I know that I could  be quite a different man!  How could I be useful, what could I do?  There is something within me, but what is it?

That is quite a different kind of idler.  You can, if you like, take me for one of those.

(And you can stop reading here, if you like, because that explains the way I feel.
But you can continue reading here, if you like, to find the solution.)

A bird in a cage in spring knows quite well that there is something he would be good at, he feels strongly that there is something to be done, but he can't do it.  What is it?  He can't quite remember, then he gets some vague ideas, and says to himself, "The others are building their nests and producing their young and raising their brood."  Then he bangs his head against the bars of the cage.  And the cage is still there, and he is mad with grief.

"There's a lazybones," says another bird who is passing.  "He's comfortably off."  However, the prisoner lives and does not die, nothing shows on the outside of what is going on inside him.  He is in good health, he is more or less cheerful while the sun shines.  Then the migration season comes, and a bout of melancholy.  "But," say the children who look after him in his cage, "he has everything he needs."  Yet for him it means looking out at the swollen, stormy skies and feeling the revolt against his fate within himself.  "I am in a cage, I am in a cage, and so I lack nothing, fools!  I have everything I need!  Oh, for pity's sake, give me freedom, to be a bird like other birds."

That idle fellow is like that idle bird.

You can't always say what it is that shuts you up, what walls you in, what seems to bury you alive, but you still feel some kind of bars, some kind of cage, some kind of walls.  

Is all this imagination, fantasy?  I don't think so; and then I ask myself:  My God, is it for long, is it forever, is it for eternity?

Do you know what makes the prison disappear?  It is every deep, genuine affection.  To be friends, brothers, to love, that opens the prison by its sovereign power, its powerful charm.  Someone who does not have that remains bereft of life.    
-Vincent van Gogh    

That leaves this 8th Grade Queen, this don't-go-to-bed-til-there's-nothing-else-to-do college girl, this smile- spreading-old-people's-home Social Director, this Halloween-Christmas-New Year's party thrower, this come-have-dinner-at-my-red-picnic-table hostess and this annual beach party organizer with no choice but to keep trying to break through the cages and break down the walls on her quest for some real Italian friends, because she's not the type to remain bereft of life.

Lions and Tigers and Jehovah's Witnesses

Take a long drive in Illinois and you'll find miles and miles of cornfields with a lone farmhouse dropped in the middle.  In Italy, it's kilometers and kilometers of vineyards and instead of a lone farmhouse you'll find a clump of four or five houses called a borgo.

Borgos were built to house different families that had land in the area.  They used the same well, split up the chores and borrowed each other's tools.  In the winter they even shared their animals' heat.  After dinner the families would head to the barn to sing and play games, benefiting from the extra warmth of the livestock.  Today, borgos are often inhabited by extended families who share babysitting services, WIFI and the remote control for the gate at the end of the driveway.  (see Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My. Gates and Shutters and Curtains, Mamma Mia.)

I live in a little borgo.  I wasn't surprised to learn that my borgo was built before they had running water and electricity.  The surprise came when I learned that in 1970 when I was on an airplane going to see my uncle's new electric car in Hollywood, some of my Italian neighbors were still using outhouses.  And in 1981, when I was riding my bike to town to see the first airings of MTV (cable hadn't come to my house yet) the Italian barrista was riding his bike out to the country to deliver messages to the people that still didn't have phones.

Most of my neighbors were born in the houses they live in now.  In America I heard days-gone-by-stories from my grandparents and great grandparents and they were referring to when they were very young.  In Italy, I hear these stories from my neighbors and they're referring to not-so-gone-by days. I can imagine Gemma going to the well to get the water because Gemma is still alive and the well still exists.  There's no need to go to a museum to learn the history of the area because I'm living with the history of the area.

Though I feel like I'm in the middle of nowhere, at least I'm in the middle of nowhere with a few nice neighbors.  I can hear Fabrizio calling for his cat, Paris, every evening.  I can watch Maurizio's dad trimming the hedge when there's a waning moon (if you trim when it's waxing you won't get good results).  I can listen to Emma and Bianca's melodious Italian and giggles in their inflatable pool.  And I can smell Virgilio's meat cooking on his homemade grill.  He burns wood in a little metal basket.  As it burns, the coals fall onto a tray below.  He spreads them out, lays a grate on top and cooks.  There's no button to turn the gas on and there's no charcoal or lighter fluid.  He goes to the woods, collects dead branches and cooks his Sunday meal.

From the kitchen window I can see a couple of the borgo's gated driveways.  Last week I happened to be looking out when I saw the Jehovah's Witnesses.  They rang  two neighbors' bells and were invited to approach the house and talked for a minute.  Then, unaware that I was watching, they came down my little road and stopped in front of the house.  With no gate at the end of the driveway there's no place to attach an intercom or buzzer.  To make yourself known where I live you have to come right up to the house and ring the doorbell. It's called a doorbell, not a "gate-at-the-end-of-the-driveway bell."

Perhaps it was the first time the Jehovah's Witnesses had called on a house with no gate.  I stood there waiting to see what they'd do, while they stood there wondering what to do.  In the end they moved on to the next gated driveway, rang the bell and were invited to approach the house.  It seems not having a gate in northern Italy is more threatening and provides more protection than having one.  Few houses have signs that say divieto d'accesso (keep out) or proprieta' privata (private property) but with a gate, who needs a sign?

For an American in Italy, a house with no gate says, "Welcome" without a welcome mat. It's too bad they're so hard to find around here.  

Weeping Willows and Crying Pines

I wouldn't say that I've gotten used to things in the three years that I've been living in Italy.  In fact, it seems like I'm finding it more and more difficult to accept the cultural differences and gracefully hold my tongue.  As they say, love is blind.  In the beginning, I'm sure I didn't even notice unusual things.  Then when I started to, they passed as different and funny.  But I used to mean funny in an odd, strange sort of way.  Now it seems that every time I say, "Hmmm...isn't that funny?"  it's because it really is funny and I find myself laughing at what seems like yet another strange Northern Italian behavior.

I live in an area filled with what I refer to as crying pines.  Yards and public spaces are often very well-landscaped and pine trees seem to be a decorative favorite.  Most of them are allowed to spread their wings and become well-rounded, but very few are given the chance to grow "up". Their tops are chopped.  There's no trimming or shaping or gentle pruning. They're simply chopped and left pointless.

The pines don't die, but they don't seem to be really living either.  They just exist.  They might still serve a purpose, like providing shade or blocking the view of a neighbor's ugly house, but they'll never make it to Rockefeller Center.  Hopes of reaching for the stars are dashed.  Someone decides the trees have grown enough and they put an end to it.  And what's left in life when you're done growing?

It's too bad the pines aren't chopped in December so we could use the tops as freshly cut Christmas trees.  Instead, In Italy, if you're weird and want a real tree, you buy one growing in a 7-gallon plastic pot.  Can you imagine what a tree skirt looks like on a 7-gallon pot.?  It actually looks like a skirt.  It's even weirder when you use the same live tree again the next year after it's been in your yard in a pot.  It doesn't take long to find the good side because it's the same good side as the year before.  You'll probably even remember which branches were the best for the heavy ornaments.

When my teenage niece and nephew from America came to visit we took a walk around the top of the medieval wall of Cittadella.  It was market day in the square below.  The streets were packed and from above we smelled the fish stalls, saw the tops of the food trucks stained with soot from their stoves and photographed the overhead view of the fresh flower vendors.  But the thing that really struck us from the top of the wall (which probably doesn't strike the Italian visitors) were the butchered tops of the crying pines.

During their visit we were guests in an English class at an Italian high school.  The Italian students had questions about America.  They wanted to learn things about school, sports, fast food and vacation.  They couldn't believe there's no school on Saturday and they were surprised that not all Americans eat McDonald's every day.  Then it was our turn and we wanted to know why they chopped the tops of their pine trees.  The teacher quickly came to the rescue and said it's too dangerous to let them grow, which left us wondering why Italian pine trees are dangerous and American ones aren't.

When I was a kid my dad planted two pine trees in our front yard.  The purpose was to watch them grow.  We were supposed to remember that in the year he planted them they were as tall as he was.  I remember the "as tall as he was" part, but I've forgotten the year they were planted.  It doesn't really matter.  I know they were planted long before GoogleMaps was created and as far as I can tell they're 50-feet tall now and they both have points.  Lucky for them, my dad's not Italian.

Maybe the reason I can't help noticing every crying pine I pass is because they're calling out to me. They're a constant reminder that I've stopped growing.  Or maybe I never really started. The difference is, my lack of growth is my own fault.  I'm merely existing, with no point.  I can't be afraid of a few growing pains.

Watch out Rockefeller Center.

The Last Time

The last time I threw-up was in my tiny apartment in Paris.  Before that, it was in Chicago when I was watching Dances with Wolves.  The last time I drove a scooter was in Cozumel.  And the last time I made a snowman was on the running path along Lake Michigan.  But I have no idea when I last heard Donny Osmond sing Puppy Love.  I'd love to know who I was talking to the last time I stretched the curly phone cord straight and slid it under the door to talk in private at the top of the basement steps at my parents' house.  And it'd sure be nice if I could remember the last time someone called me "miss" instead of "ma'am."

I started thinking about "last times" on my run yesterday.  (Hopefully it wasn't my last.)  I usually run the first half mile uphill.  Then I think I deserve to stop to stretch on the weathered wooden fence at the top of the vineyard.  But yesterday, when I was just about to die (where the uphill road bends and I'm in a little cavern of cornfields) some bikers came up from behind.  "Ciao Bionda!"  "Che bella!"  "Guarda che passo!"  "Che brava!"  (Hey Blondie!  You're beautiful!  Look at your pace!  You're great!)  It was such a pleasant surprise that I forgot I was dying and in need of a break.  A little encouragment goes a long way.  An extra two miles to be exact.  I just kept running past the fence and started believing that I really did have a decent pace and I was great.  As for being blond and beautiful?  The blond part's true (in a certain sense), but I'm not so sure about the beautiful part.  Bella is a part of every Italian man's vocabulary.  In fact, I'm almost positive I heard a 2-year old boy say "Ciao Bella" as I ran past the other day. That one went on the list of firsts.

So, the bikers passed and I kept running and thinking about "last times".  I realized that one day I won't hear "Ciao bella" anymore.  I'll just notice that I haven't heard it for a while, but I won't be able to remember when the last time was.  We're seldom aware when things are happening that they might be happening for the last time.  Major events, yes.  They often come with fanfare and photos and friends and we're aware of the finale.  But the little things that are part of everyday life just slip away unnoticed.  Like the last time I ate SpaghettiOs, the last time I locked my bike on the stop sign in front of my old house or the last time I wore the wool MSU band coat that I bought at The Salvation Army in 1987.

I finished the run thinking there are some things that I really have done for the last time and it made me sad.  But when I got teary about the last time I'd played my piano and my last game of beach volleyball and the last time I drove a convertible under the full moon with the heat on high I realized that those are on the last time list only because I've let them be.  I just have to do them again, and then I won't have to wonder when the last time was.  

As for the last "Ciao Bella", I'm not so worried anymore.  I'd forgotten that I live in Italy now where there will never be a shortage of "Ciao Bellas."   You don't have to be young and beautiful to hear that one.  And fortunately ciao means hello and goodbye in Italian, so if I'm lucky maybe it'll be the last thing I ever hear.
  


The only time you mustn't fail is the last time you try.  Charles Kettering.

The Importance of Being (Dis)Connected

My first mass text came at 12:02a.m. on New Year's Eve about ten years ago.  I remember feeling special for having been thought of by an old friend at such an intimate hour.  Moments later I learned about the feature on phones (that only my grandma and I hadn't known about)  allowing one message to be sent to the whole address book.  The feeling of joy for having been remembered had passed before the last line of Auld Lang Syne was sung.
 
I never got another mass text in the US, but with all of Italy's extra holidays, it's a regular occurance here and it bothers me more and more with each beep-beep.

I'm not sure why someone would think it would make me feel good to get the same generic message they've sent to the rest of their address book.  There's absolutely nothing about ME inside their wish for a Happy New Year or Happy Easter or other happy Italian holiday.  They didn't write "Send Tenley a text" on their  To Do List, they wrote "Send mass text."  They didn't have to search for my name in their phone and remind themselves if I was listed under my first name, last name, nickname, teacher or l'americana.  They weren't thinking of me when they added the little smiley icon, because had they really been thinking of ME they'd have known that my phone is so old it prints those little faces as squares.  There's absolutely nothing in a group text that makes me feel special.  Instead of giving me a modicum of merriment for having been wished a happy holiday, it really just makes me mad. (And I think it would've made Andy Rooney mad, too.)

Italian teens keep track of how many messages they receive on holidays.  It's kind of like being liked on Facebook.  Italian adults interrupt conversations to read these texts.  And if they haven't already sent their own mass text, they respond individually to the ones they receive.

Sometimes senders forget to sign their names.  If the number isn't memorized in your phone and the message comes unsigned you don't even know who's (NOT) thinking of you.  What do I do if this happens?  I ignore it.  What do my Italian friends do?  They send an equally generic reply to avoid being rude by not responding (even if they have no idea who they're be being rude to).  I don't consider this connecting.

I was once wished well in a mass text by the secretary of a school that had called me a year earlier looking for a teacher.  She had apparently saved my number (even though I'm sure she'd had no idea who I was) and I had saved hers (in case I needed a job some day). I'm sure she didn't intend to send holiday greetings to someone whose number she'd found in the want ads.

Easter is an important day for mass........and mass texts.   This year I was with a friend when his phone rang.  He responded, as most Italians do (no matter what they're doing).  They answer their phones when they're at your house for dinner.  They answer their phones when you're at their house for dinner.  They answer their phones when they're swapping secrets in the bar, sharing tea in the kitchen and hiking in the mountains.

Eavesdropping on this Easter conversation, I realized that the caller hadn't intended to make the call. He'd just sent his mass Easter text and a technological glitch had saved the last number the message was sent to.  His phone was put back in his pocket and an accidental call was made to the last person in the address book.  He heard a voice and admitted that he didn't know who it was.   He awkwardly explained that he hadn't meant to make the call but had only intended to say Buona Pasqua (Happy Easter) in a mass text. The brief conversation was filled with,  "How are you?  Ok?  How's your family?  Is everything okay with your family?"  And then it was all repeated by the other.  It lasted 30 seconds.  Both parties were at a loss for spoken words.  I think they could use a lesson from Homer.  "Words as empty as the wind are best left unsaid."  

So, if  "Contact Tenley" is on your To Do List, I certainly won't be insulted that I'm a To Do List item. Lots of people are busy and sometimes have to be reminded of important things to do.  But if I'm only a part of the "Send Mass Text" on your list of things to do, please don't include me.  It will only remind me that I'm not quite important enough.

Charles Dickens said, "Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true."   The face of someone, not the Facebook.  If this was his thought on "electric communication" in the 1800s, I'd like to hear his thoughts on mass text messaging.  I've never read one that was really written from the soul.  I think Dickens would agree with me and Mr. Rooney.  We could all use a little Auld Lang Syne (days gone by) every now and then.



The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.  -George Bernard Shaw

Ciao Mate

I went to Amadio's funeral a couple of days ago.  He was my 91-year old neighbor.  He lived alone and worked in his yard almost every day.  At 7pm every night he was picked up and taken to his son's house in town for dinner and a safe night's sleep.  At 7am every morning he was brought  back to his own house in the country ready to enjoy another day in the garden with his flowers and zucchini and American lettuce.

Amadio was born in a house that had a dirt floor about a quarter of a mile from here.  He grew up in a house that has since been demolished and a new one was built on the old foundation.  That's the house I live in now.  The last time things weren't going so well in Italy, he moved to Australia.  Then he came back and built a house next door to his childhood house.  That's the house he lived in next to me.  Other than his stint in Australia, he lived his whole life within a quarter-mile radius.

Since I've been living here there hasn't been much action at Amadio's house.  The movement consists of  Amadio in the garden, his son's quotidian arrivals and departures and the biweekly visit from the beverage delivery truck.  It honked in front of his house and I watched the kid unload a couple of yellow plastic crates of San Pelligrino and reload a couple of green crates of empty bottles.  He occasionally talked over his gate at the end of his driveway with my other neighbor, 71-year old Virgilio.  And sometimes, through the chain link fence that separated our yards, he spoke a little broken Englsih with me.  He didn't remember much, but I was always patient.  I never gave him the word that I knew he was looking for.  He'd tell me what he wanted to say in Italian, but I'd pretend I couldn't understand his dialect (which I often didn't have to pretend) and I'd keep waiting for the English.  I know crossword puzzles are good for old people because it forces them to dig.  I considered myself Amadio's human word game.    

Other than the aforementioned list, no one came to visit Amadio.  That's why I have to ask myself who the other 77 people at his funeral were.   I'd never seen most of them before.  There were the immediate neighbors that I recognized, of course.  But I didn't see the beverage guy.  I'd like to think he was really there and that I just didn't recognize him without his striped uniform.

I feel sad that I'm not going to hear his shy Australian-Italian-accented hello anymore.  I'm going to miss our broken chats. I wonder what everyone else is going to miss.  I think Virgilio will miss talking over the gate at the end of the driveway.  Virgilio was born in the house he lives in now.  They'd been neighbors for 71 years.  I have a feeling I'll be getting a few more visits from Virgilio.  And I don't have a gate.  He can come right in my yard and continue telling me everything he knows about Al Capone (pronounced ca-po-nay in Italian)  And I'll continue listening.

Amadio's funeral was far from personal.  In fact, I've been to other Italian funerals that don't seem to say much, if anything, about the missing person.  They seem more like a religious send-off and ceremony.  They do everything they're supposed to do and say everything they're supposed to say, but as far as I can tell one size fits all.

I don't know where I'll die but if it's in Italy I'm not sure anyone will grant me my wishes because they seem to be far from Italian protocol.   Several years ago I wrote something about how I'd like the event to go and I've decided to reprint it here in case you missed it.  If Amadio could come I'm sure he'd wear his tattered Australian baseball cap and bring wildflowers from his garden.

THE PERFECT ENDING FOR A NUT LIKE ME

If you come to my funeral

please bring one flower 

and put it in the giant vase at the front of the room.

It will be the best arrangement ever.

Wear bright colors. 

Stripes. Plaid. Polka dots.  Mix them altogether, if you want.

If I've interrupted your day at the beach, wear your flipflops.

Bow ties, optional.

Ride your bike, if you can.

Maybe even decorate it like the 4th of July.

You'll get a special parking place.

Imagine a funeral home with lots of bikes out front.

Run, if you want.

It's okay if you stink. 

The giant bouquet of flowers will help.

If you have a convertible, come with the top down.

Even if I die in January. 

Wear your winter coat and hat and put the heat in the red.

Just this once.

If you have kids, they're welcome.

If they cry, let them.

If they laugh, don't shush them.

There will be a big bowl of cool paper scraps to make a paper chain.

Write down one thing that you liked about me,

and one thing that you didn't (or two or three or four).

Come hungry.

They'll have cheese, ice cream, pasta, bread, french fries

and chocolate chip cookies, of course.

If you come to my funeral

learn to say goodbye in a different language

and say it out loud as you leave

my last party. 

Happy Birthday to Me

It's just another birthday, right?  No one ever said that the day should be all about me and that I should get to do whatever I want to do.  Or did they?  Was I raised thinking that I was extra special on my birthday?  I think I was.  And I think millions of other Americans were raised that way, too.  It might be okay if you spend the rest of your life in America.  But it's an eye-opening day when you wake up in another country on your birthday and suddenly realize it's just like any other day and the only celebrating that's going to happen is ONLY going to happen if it's planned by you.

I learned a bit about birthdays in other parts of the world when I was teaching English to refugees.  We were doing a lesson on how to fill out forms.  One of the blanks was for your birthday.  Walking around the back of the room I noticed that three Somali girls had all written January 1 as their birthdate.  I smiled thinking that they'd had no idea what they were filling out or they would have known better than to copy a birthdate.  As I worked my way to the front of the room I noticed a few more January 1 birthdays.   Knowing that the front row wasn't copying from the back row,  I decided to ask how many of them were born on January 1.  Three quarters of the students raised their hands.  That's when their lesson on filling out forms became my lesson on immigration.

The first time most of them had ever seen a form was at the immigration table in the refugee camp.  Many couldn't read or write which meant someone else had to fill out the forms for them.  And for many, it was the first time they'd ever been asked for their birthdate.  Most didn't know when they were born so the immigration officers simply wrote January 1. This was the first place their birthday had been officially recorded.  There were no other records.  Birthdays in small African villages weren't important.  Their 1st birthdays didn't start with $3 invitations to a fabulous birthday party at a bar serving beer and wine to their parents' friends.  And their 7th birthdays weren't $350 dollar events in a jumpy gym.  Their birthdays came and went with no one knowing.

That's the year I decided to spend my 39th birthday in Ethiopia.  I know I didn't have to go to Ethiopia to wake up in a place where no one knew it was my birthday.  I could have done that in Tennessee.  But in Ethiopia it wouldn't be easy to connect to the internet to check for emails, I wouldn't know if my mailbox (the kind attached to the house) would be full or empty and I wouldn't be able to check my cell phone for messages.  I thought it would be a good place to try celebrating my birthday alone.  In addition, I was 7 years younger in Ethiopia.  Their calendar is 7 years earlier than ours.  In 2004 it was only 1997.  I was 32 years old again.  All signs seemed to say that Ethiopia would be the perfect place to spend my first expectation-free birthday. So, off I went.

I'd passed the week leading up to my birthday with no fanfare.  At home, the week before my birthday (three weeks before, really) I'd have already had several lunch dates and received gifts and birthday cards.  But in Ethiopia my birthday was approaching unnoticed.  

Then, on April 28 I met an English girl.  It was impossible to resist telling her that my birthday was the next day.  I'm American.  We talk about our birthdays.  The next morning I woke and found a lovely handwritten note and was invited for tea and a torte in the afternoon.  So much for going solo.  Thanks to my big mouth and the English girl, I'd ruined my chance of seeing how it felt to have a birthday that was just like any other day.

Until moving to Italy, that is. I remember the first time a friend said he had to go to the store to buy stuff to take to his office for his birthday.  I said, "YOU have to buy stuff for YOUR birthday?"  And he explained that in Italy, it's the birthday person that does the offering.  In my opinion that's kind of like saying COME CELEBRATE ME.  And then if no one comes to eat your store-bought cookies or drink your Fanta how do you feel?  I guess that's how we did it in grade school in America, but there was no alternative.  The teacher couldn't do it for 30 students, so it really was the birthday kid's responsibility.  At least it was the moms that did the shopping and made the cakes.  There was still some element of being taken care.

Being responsible for your own good time on your birthday in Italy reminds me of one of my worst birthdays in Chicago.  I was the Social Director at a retirement home.  When a resident had a birthday, I wrote Happy Birthday with curly q's and flowers on the activity board..  When it was another employee's birthday, I bought a cake (and probably Fanta) and we all met in the front office after lunch and sang happy birthday.  It was supposed to be a surprise, but when it was your birthday you knew it was going to happen because it happened for all of the employees' birthdays.  That is, until it was the Social Director's birthday.  On my birthday, the lunch hour came and went.  In the afternoon someone came in my office and asked if we were having cake later.  I thought they were kidding.  I kept waiting and waiting for the dumb excuse that I had to go to the front office and then they'd all be there ready to surprise me and sing.  But it never happened.  No kidding.  At the end of the day the receptionist asked why I hadn't bought a cake for my birthday.  She was serious and I was shocked.  Who knows?  Maybe she thought I was from Italy, the land of do-it-yourself birthdays.

Well, I wasn't Italian then and I'm not Italian now.  I'm an American that wants to be celebrated on my birthday.  I don't need balloons and jumpy gyms.  But I'd sure love a frosted cake and some birthday candles.  And I'd appreciate not having to make the cake myself.  Unfortunately, I don't think Italy is going to be the place to make this wish come true.   But I've got a year to try to accept the fact that if I want to whoop it up, I'm the one that will have to do the whooping.  And just in case the day is drawing near and I'm finding it hard to swallow the orange Fanta and come-celebrate-me-festa, I've decided to begin my search for an English girl in Italy.  At least then I'll be sure to have a torte and tea on my next birthday.

Toto, I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore

I'm afraid I've become one of the people that I never wanted to be.  I'm a foreigner that can't stop talking about how much better everything was back at home.  I knew people like me in Chicago and they always bothered me.  I told people like me to go back home if everything was so much better in their country.  But maybe the real problem is that I never really understood those people. It's not always easy to put yourself in someone else's shoes (and I suppose I never really wanted to because I like MY shoes).   But now that I'm wearing my Italian shoes in Italy instead of Chicago, I have a different perspective.

The differences my foreign friends in Chicago used to point out were just that......differences.  Even if they didn't say something was better in their country, the fact that they'd pointed out the difference made me assume they were unhappy in their new home.  And I have a feeling I'm sending the same signal here.  The truth is, I think a lot of things really were better at home.  But not everything.  I'm sure there's a silver lining in almost all of these things.  

In a small town in northern Italy....
--rush hour is at noon.  The rush is to get home to eat lunch with moms and grandmas.
--waiters ignore you instead of continuing to ask if everything's okay or if you want something else.
--bank hours are even worse than banker's hours.  (8:20am-12:45pm.  And if you're lucky maybe again from 2:35pm to 4:35pm).
--you say "buon giorno" and "arriverderci" to the other customers upon entering and exiting the waiting room at the doctor's office (and the pharmacy and the bank and the bakery).
--drinks don't come with ice and when you ask for it, you only get two cubes.
--no one uses voicemail.  Your phone registers the missed call which indicates that it's your responsibility to call the person back to find out what they wanted.
--it's expected that 20% of the time the scheduled bus won't arrive.
--the salad dressing aisle isn't an aisle....it's half of one shelf with five bottles.
--no one ever says you shouldn't talk about politics, sex and religion.  It's mandatory.
--some married men still have their shirts ironed by their mammas.  Really.
--the only thing you can do on your lunch hour is eat lunch.  Nothing else is open.
--very few people know that the real reason you have helium balloons at a party is to breathe in the helium and talk funny.
--if you get carry-out pizza, sometimes you have to pay for the box.
--not everyone knows how to use the drive-thru at McDonald's.
--the only place Italians have seen a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is in the movies.  Therefore, lessons are required or they try to spread the peanut butter on top of the jelly.  Not easy.
--instead of, "Here's your receipt" (so you can balance your books)  it's "do you want a receipt?" (so they can balance theirs).
--Mexican food is expensive and chic and bad.
--an Italian pepperoni pizza is a pizza with peppers, not pepperoni.
--tall, dark and handsome 30-year old men blow their noses with cotton hankies.  Not just grandpas.
--you can't brag about how many miles you've run until you convert it to kilometers.
--few things are returnable.  Instead of  "you break it, you buy it" it's "you buy it, it's yours."
--your neighbor rushes out to tell you not to cut your hedge because you can only trim hedges when the moon is waxing, not waning.
--many public buildings don't turn on their lights during the day.
--there's an encore at every performance.  In fact, one time there wasn't much applause and the presenter still said, "I imagine you'd probably like an encore."
--moms buy their kids ice cream cones at 6pm.  Before dinner.
--it's okay for a 16-year old boy to call his teacher "dear".  Not as in "Dear Teacher" in a letter.  Just plain old "dear" like a waitress calls her customers in an old American diner.
--you don't see a Starbucks every three minutes.  Not even every three years.  They don't exist in Italy.

Those are just a few of the things I've noticed (or complained about).  It seems there's something new and surprising every day.  The next time this foreigner is ready to point out a difference about something that was better in her country, I'm just going to click the heels of my red Ferragamos (my favorite Italian shoes) and say, "There's no place like home.  But that's okay.  There's no place like this little town in Italy either."

'Tis the Season, 'Twas the Season, 'Twill be the Season

Fortunately another Italian specialty has come and gone and I've survived.   Fritelle season ended last week.  Fittingly, it ends on Fat Tuesday.  Isn't that when Lent starts? I'm not Catholic, but I guess I can finally say I'm giving something up for Lent, albeit much easier to give something up that no longer exists.  I think God must have planned it that way.  They're un-give-upable.

If I were Catholic I think I might go for one of the other options I've heard of recently.  Instead of giving something up, there are those that take on difficult challenges.   For example, wearing a burlap t-shirt under your clothes every day for 40 days and 40 nights (no, maybe that's Noah's Ark, not Lent.  But isn't it about 40 days?).  Anyway, it sounds easier than giving up fritelle.  

I'm sure real Italian food connoisseurs don't spend much time on fritelle.  It's the orecchiette con le cime di rapa (pasta shaped like little ears with broccoli rabe, whatever that is), cannelloni ripieni, and risotto alla milanese that usual make people's mouths water.  And the gelato, of course.  I'm sure my American friends are disappointed that I live in Italy and my world still consists of pizza, pasta pomodoro and parmesan.  But don't forget, it's the best pizza, pasta pomodoro and parmesan on the planet.

However, I'm happy to say I've increased my knowledge in the world of deep-fried delicacies.  That's why I can so confidently talk about fritelle.  They start showing up at the beginning of the year and they're usually around until the end of February.  I always feel a little guilty eating them right after Christmas because they're really a treat for Carnevale.  But the truth is, I can't wait until February so by the end of January I've usually already had a few of these little deep-fried balls of dough.  Which fortunately, aren't always so little.  After they're fried, they're injected (there must be a better foody-word for that which I don't know) with cream and topped with powdered sugar.  There are a few varieties.  For example, the dough might have raisins and the cream might have alcohol.  Or maybe they're filled with Nutella instead of cream.  Or heaven forbid (since we're talking about Lent I thought I could write that)......sometimes they're even vuoto (empty)!  Which reminds me, with Carnevale also come crostoli, another deep-fried dough treat that's empty.  They're just long crispy strips topped with powdered sugar, kind of like elephant ears at your local fair.

Everything about Carnevale is bigger and better in Venice and I thought the fritelle might be too. So I went a couple of weeks ago under the guise of taking a long walk.  I was really in search of fritelle and the long walk was to burn off the calories.  Is it possible to say that something deep-fried and filled with cream could melt in your mouth?  As it was melting, I decided I'd better try another.  I walked another 30 minutes, saw another pasticceria (bakery) and ate another fritelle.  That's when I learned they're not all created equal.  As impossible as it may seem, I was disappointed in fritelle number 2.  I simply ordered a fritelle the same way I'd ordered the first one.  But the second had raisins in the dough and was filled with the normal, yellowish, waxy-looking cream.  Not to say that the normal, yellowish, waxy-looking cream isn't heavenly, it's just not chantilly cream, which is what I later learned was the secret to fritelle number 1.  

I know the guy at the pasticceria in my town and he told me he can't wait until Carnevale ends so he can stop making fritelle.  He says he wears the same clothes in the kitchen for a month and on the last day, he celebrates and throws the clothes away.  But I was hopeful that for the sake of tourists, they might keep them around in Venice a bit longer, so I went back last week looking for one more.  This time when I ordered, the baker tilted her head, raised her eyebrows and laughed a little.  I gathered that meant she'd already thrown her clothes away.  I settled for a chantilly-filled barchetta.  That's a little pastry boat (barca) filled with cream.   Unfortunately, they don't deep fry their boats.  

So as we say arrivederci to fritelle it's benvenuto to the colomba, agnello, focaccia and giant, hollow chocolate eggs.  These are the Easter treats.  All I can remember about the first three is that they're cakey.  Colomba are baked in the shape of a bird.  Agnello, like sheep.  When I asked for help with the differences I was told that colomba are like panettone and focaccia are like pandoro (two Christmas treats I'll get to later) as though I'd know the difference.  Some have more butter and are denser and others more airy.  Some have candied fruit and others have almonds. And some you put in a plastic bag with powdered sugar and shake the bag until it coats the cake.  (Did Italians invent Shake'n' Bake?)  The sad thing is that none of these sheep or birds or cakes have frosting.  In Italian, "It was the frosting on the cake"  is "E' stata la ciliegina sulla torta" (it was the little cherry on the cake).  Who gets excited about a little cherry on a cake?  Being the type that always went for an edge piece, these frostingless cakey things in Italy aren't hard to resist.

As for the giant hollow eggs?   They differ in size, quality of chocolate and value of the prize inside.  They're wrapped loosely with cellophane and tied with a bow.  Kids bash the eggs on the table to break them open and get the prize.  Adults cut the cellophane and eat the chocolate shards.  This is a tradition I embrace.

After Easter comes asparagus which is about as high on my list as little cherries.  In the spring it's everywhere and in everything.  People even get excited about asparagus on their pizza.  I went to an asparagus festival for a special dinner once because that's what Italian country folks do.  What was I thinking?  It was 8 courses of asparagus.  They really thought of 8 different ways to serve it.  And none of them were deep-fried or frosted.

In the summer we go crazy for the porcini mushrooms.  We go crazy searching for them (see blog This is Some Good Weed) and we go crazy eating them.  As in we, I mean they, the Italians.  Fortunately, the mourning period at the end of porcini season doesn't last long because chiodini mushrooms show up in the fall.  Thus, we're blessed with not one, but two seasons in which risotto, tortellini, spaghetti and pizza are all messed up with mushrooms.
 
I don't want to give the impression that I'm "bah humbug" about all Italian food.   There are some things that I really love, like caldarroste (roasted chestnuts).  I always thought it was just the Cratchitts in The Christmas Carol and the guy on State Street in Chicago roasting chestnuts on an open fire.  Here we really do it.  And this time by we, I mean we.  Fall is filled with little towns roasting chestnuts and boiling vin brule' (mulled wine).  The piazzas are decked out with tents and picnic tables with checkered tablecloths covered with wine stains and chestnut skins.  I like roasted chestnuts so much I buy a few kilos, build a fire in my yard and pretend I'm on the beach roasting marshmallows.
   
In my region of northern Italy, winter is the season for radicchio.  I don't live far from Treviso, home of the famous Treviso Radicchio.  There's even a website called Radicchio di Treviso. And every winter the little chalkboards outside the pizzerias have sad little sketches of the red lettuce they're so proudly offering on their pizza.  I'm pretty sure Santa Claus didn't get fat on radicchio.  I have a feeling he preferred my diet.  

Christmas is the season for pandoro and panettone, the two things I described above as cakey.  In December, I'm sure every house in Italy has a couple of these boxed bread loaves in the backroom waiting for unexpected guests.  No lunch, dinner or coffee date is complete without a slice.

Two other Christmas and New Year's favorites that come in a box are cotechino and zampone.  I'm sure I'll slaughter the description a little, but I'll do my best.  They're both ground pig muscle and cartilage.  And maybe some other ground stuff, too.  Cotechino is the ground stuff stuffed into a pig intestine.  You don't eat the intestine, it's just the handy packaging.  Zampone is the same thing (I think) packed in a pig leg, hoof and all.  The intestine bag and the pig leg are then put in a large vacuum- packed pouch and boxed.  No refrigeration necessary.  That's why I sent 3 to the States for Christmas one year.  I thought my more adventurous family and friends would try them, but I have a feeling they all went uneaten.  There are even  instructions in English on the box.  You put the pouch in a pot of water and simmer it for 30 minutes.  Remove the pouch from the water, remove the leg and intestine from the pouch and serve it with lentils or cannellini.  There you have it.  Italian beans and weenies.            
         
That brings us to the end of the culinary calendar in Italy.  All I can do now is wait until next January to don my burlap t-shirt and catch the train to Venice.


Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold,
Her early leaf's a flower,
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day,
Nothing gold (or yellowish and waxy) can stay.   

---Robert FrostING

Chicago drifts, Venice floats

They had a snow day in Chicago the other day and I was jealous.  Snow's not a big part of my life anymore.  There was a light dusting on January 30th.  As in light, I mean you could still see the grass and most of the pavement.  I rode my bike 18 miles that day and everyone was shocked.  "Really?  In the snow?" they asked.  There was less than a centimeter.

Where does the sidewalk end
and the canal begin?

I was also pleasantly surprised with about an hour of big, wet flakes on December 26th in Berlin.  It was almost a white Christmas.

But before that?  The last time I saw real snow was on my birthday at the top of Monte Grappa. The end of April is supposed to bring May flowers not snow showers.  But for a girl that loves snow, a white birthday is even better than a white Christmas.  So I've decided Monte Grappa has to become a birthday tradition.

Anyway, I was jealous of my friends that got to spend the whole day (and then some) in the snow after the fifth largest blizzard on record in Chicago.  The snow never used to stop me from doing anything.  I still rode my bike, even if it meant pushing it a little on the side streets. I still ran.  In fact, I got out of bed earlier on snowy days, attached little rubber things with spikes to my running shoes and ran. And I always went out for dinner on blizzardy nights.  I'd walk five blocks just to spend a little more time in the snow and I never used an umbrella like my Italian friends so embarrassingly do.

When I heard about last week's blizzard in Chicago I was in Venice.  I didn't have any students until the evening so I decided to go take a long walk.  That's when I called a friend and found out that her family was home for a snow day.  Ahhhh....a snow day.

I remember going to bed on snowy nights as a kid hoping the next day would be a snow day.  When I woke up it would be dark outside and inside, but the kitchen radio would already be on.  I can still hear the announcer's voice as he read the list.  He put a dramatic pause between the names of schools to seemingly tease his young listeners.  If I heard a school in a town near mine I was hopeful.  And then there it was, "Lowell Area Schools, closed."  A snow day!  People around here don't even know what that means.

When I got home from Venice that day there was an email from my niece in Michigan.  Her school was also closed.  I'd written to tell her about my walk in Venice because she loves it there, too.  She replied saying she wished she'd been with me in Venice while the whole time I'd been wishing I was with her on her snow day.   "The grass is always greener," I thought.

It wasn't until bedtime, when I always reflect on my day to decide if I'm living life to the fullest (which I often think I'm not), that I realized I'd missed something special.  I'd really had my own kind of snow day in Venice, but it hadn't dawned on me until it was too late.  It was a day of  acqua alta, high water.  I took a photo years ago of the yellow tables and chairs in Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square) with their legs a couple of centimeters deep in water surrounded by soggy confetti from Carnevale.  I thought it was the perfect photo of acqua alta.  I've seen the temporary walkways in use a couple of times, transporting tourists from one sight to another.  I've never used them.  I just walked through the shallow puddles thinking the platforms were a bit excessive.  I used to think that acqua alta meant some areas might be impassable without getting your feet a little wet.  That was before I saw a real day of high water when there are no yellow tables and chairs in the piazza because they'd float away.  The walkways are definitely not excessive.  They're to keep you out of foot-deep water, not shallow puddles.  And the impassable areas aren't just places where you might get your feet wet.  They're places where you might fall into the canal because you can't tell where the sidewalk ends and the canal begins.

Mail and packages are still delivered

My original plan for my day in Venice had been to take the vaporetto to the island of Murano, but the route had been suspended.  I wasn't really sure why, but I assumed it meant the water on a particular canal was high and they didn't want the extra waves of the boats crashing on the already deteriorating walls.  I later learned the water was so high that the boats could no longer fit under some of the bridges.  

Instead of glass beads in Murano I decided to walk to a little glass store in Dorsoduro. I knew how to get there, but soon discovered that my regular route was underwater.  The only alternative was turning around and finding another.  I didn't want to buy a pair of rubber boots for 15 euros or a pair of neon plastic boot bags to slip on over my own leather boots for 8 euros.  I thought the rubber boots might give me blisters and I would've had to carry my own boots around all day, so that was out.  And I'd seen a number of people struggling to keep their neon boots in place, so they didn't seem like such a good idea either.  I thought my dad's old rubbers might come in handy.  He had the kind that went up to his calf and zipped up the front.  They were just black rubber like the tube for my bike tires.  He used to wear them over his 'good' shoes.  No blisters because you still have your shoes on.  And nothing to keep pulling up because the rubber of a bike tire tube in contact with leather isn't exactly slippery.  But then I realized that the zipper was sufficient to keep the snow and rain out, but not the acqua alta.  

Having given up on my beads, I decided a visit to Piazza San Marco with acqua alta was a must. It's not easy to get to there using back streets on a normal day in Venice.  A day like this was an even bigger challenge.  I'd be moving along feeling lucky and recognizing shops and bridges from previous walks and suddenly a small group of non-boot wearing tourists would be coming my way. I knew they'd reached an impassable point and had turned around.  So, I'd turn around too.  Fortunately I had all day and eventually I made it.

Three construction workers.  One carries the ladder.
The other carries the guy that forgot his rubber boots.

I don't know why it didn't strike me as extraordinary at the time.  I took a few pictures just because I always take a few pictures when I'm in Venice.  I was definitely struck by the high water this time more than I had been other times, but not as struck as I should've been.  It was my fascination (and grass-is-greener attitude) with the blizzard in Chicago that later gave me a different perspective on my day in Venice.  

The reason I liked snow days was because they were different.  I got to wear my snow boots.  In Venice they get to wear their high water boots.  Even though blizzards were a little inconvenient, I liked to walk down sidewalks where only a narrow path had been shoveled; just like walking on the temporary platforms in Venice.  When I was a kid there were no sidewalks where I lived and people drove snowmobiles down the main roads on snow days.  In Venice they drive boats down the main roads every day!  In both cases the mail still gets delivered by a probably even more disgruntled than usual postman.  And in both cases restaurants and shops are still open with either narrow paths in the snow or bridges to reach their front doors.  In Chicago the floors were a little slushy and sometimes covered with opened cardboard boxes to avoid slipping, but we still went out for dinner.  In Venice, there are restaurants and shops with six inches of water on the floor, but the boot-clad customers still dine and shop.  

I went to bed that night thinking about the fact that I've been living my life in a "grass-is-greener" mode for a long time.  It's always greener some place else. It's seldom greener where I am.  Italians say it like this, "L'erba del vicino e' sempre piu' verde."  The neighbor's grass is always greener.  Having forgotten the exact quote in English I googled it and found, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."  I also discovered a wonderful updated version for people like me.  "The grass is always greener where you water it."  That's when I realized I have to stop relying on blizzards and acqua alta to do the watering.  Maybe if I do a little watering myself, every day will have some of the excitement and curiousity of a snow day no matter which side of the fence I'm on.


Do what you can with what you have where you are.  --Theodore Roosevelt