A burglary and a departure

Dear Readers,

So Florence said to me, in that overdramatic way she has--you know, all Carmela Soprano after a bad manicure: "Get the f*** outta here, and pronto!" Or, perhaps like a cross between a miffed Mark Twain and an angry/drunk F. Scott Fitzgerald: "Take that pusillanimous Yankee derriere and those imperfect verb conjugating skills and be off with you! Back to the slimy green breast of the New World!"

On my penultimate night in the Bel Paese, I was robbed. The thieves entered my house while my family and I slept, spraying us with that nefarious narcotic aerosol that enables them to complete their villainous errand in undisturbed haste. They popped the living-room shutters and drilled a hole in the window casement, turned the handle and let themselves in (with great aplomb, I imagine), and ransacked the packed suitcases that were in our bedrooms. They took all my good jewelry which was conveniently nestled in my carry-on bag, including my impossibly lovely Torrini ring (given to me by Paolo when Gemma was born)--a great hunk of beautiful 18-carat gold with a glorious, domed citrine set into it like a blazing orb: the One Ring to Rule Them All. They took Paolo's handsome Longines watch--a gift from me--and even pried the wedding band off his finger.

They took our cash and Paolo's Ray-Bans, Gucci wallet and electric shaving kit (which leads me to believe that these thieves cut a rather bella figura). They left the credit cards and our passports and the vitally-important U.S. immigration documents. They helped themselves to a bottle of water from the fridge.

The shock of it was numbing, licking as it did at the heels of days of exhausting preparations for the big move. But there was little time to indulge the usual feelings of bitter regret, outrage and violation; we had a 20-foot container arriving in mere hours that we had to load with all our (remaining, less valuable) earthly belongings. Cut to the chase: we did the damn thing in punishing heat and the caustic glare of the sun, and uselessly--yet fittingly--spent our last evening in Florence filing a police report with a blue-eyed, raven-haired officer of the Carabinieri who was all sinew and bone and cold efficiency and who looked strangely like a sexy Sicilian version of Ichabod Crane.

So pretty, this den of thieves
photo by MarcusObal

The next morning, in that soft-edged early pink light, as we wended our way to the airport, Florence seemed like a sleeping infant--downy and peaceful as a pillow, sweet-smelling and cool. It was hard not to love her.

And like an infant in all its monstrous self-absorption, the city seemed callously indifferent to me as the taxi sped along the viali; indeed, why should it have been otherwise? Why should this centuries-old purveyor and repository of culture take notice of one puny human leaving, leaving with a capital L? No matter that I gave birth twice here, that I learned to speak its language (aspirated c's and all), that I navigated its ancient alleys and wrestled understanding out of its stubborn morays. No matter that I put up with with my fakakta in-laws for over 12 f***ing years.

Yeah, I got the cold Tuscan shoulder all right that morning. We sailed pass Piazza delle Cure where the market-sellers were setting up their stalls, stomping their feet to shake off the sleep that still hugged them like dew-drops on leaves. The first buses were careening freely through the traffic-less streets, hissing like beasts on the prowl in an all-but-empty savanna. A faint clinking of spoons on saucers danced on the air like a whisper of counter-melody as the coffee bars, their doors flung wide, served the first few customers: old-timers already on their second espresso and third cigarette; and that so-very-Italian smell of fresh coffee--deep, rich, all velvet and chocolate and pepper--filled my head and buzzed in my veins.

And it was all as soft and as rhythmic as a lightly-strummed guitar, and as graceful as an arc of water, and it flowed around me like the soft pink dawn-light that it was--a morning madrigal, a song of parting. The city was awakening and I was departing, and it seemed right, after all. That thing that is stolid and unyielding about Florence, that essence of the eternal, was soothing. Its impassive stones are my old friends and enemies, part of my foundation now, never to be hewn from me nor eroded into the mere silt of recollection. Though I no longer call it home, I carry Florence with me like blood.

But like the sea, Florence is a cruel mistress indeed. Like a thief.

Many moons to the day 
That I threw her love away 
Now every whale spouts "go to hell" 
As the wind laughs in my face 
I've grown harder on the eyes 
And salty to the taste 
My pride has gone with the wake 
As I wait a cold wet grave 
I rose to the smell 
Of a wet desert hell 
And I thought to myself 
How'd I wind up in this jail 
Till a voice called to me 
From deep within the sea 
Dry your eyes my dear fisherman 
Your ass belongs to me *

Semper fidelis,

Campobello

*lyrics above from "Cruel Mistress" by Flogging Molly

The not-quite-last post

Dear Readers,

As many of you know, very very soon I'm moving to Portland, OR. Time to begin a new chapter and all that.

I've been so busy this past month planning the move and packing (and purging--my God! the purging!) that I haven't had time for the blog. But I still have another several posts to spill forth from my frothing-over 12-years-in-Italy experience, once I settle a bit into my new Portlandia digs and discontinue the euphoric partying over the fact that I won't have to see my in-laws anymore. So if you haven't already, subscribe to this humble old blog by scrolling down the right side of the page, or at least join the Facebook page--that way you'll get the sparkling new posts/updates as soon as they hit the street, so to speak. Or just keep checking back and try not to curse me for not writing (keeping in mind I'm probably busy looking for a cute little bungalow to call home, learning to make my own beer, or training for the Naked Bike Ride).

And watch this space for my eventual new blogging incarnation, which is still in the embryonic stage.

Headquarters

Thanks for reading, friends.


Yours from the Tuscan trenches,

Campobello

I died and went to Naples

Dear Readers,

Naples is a whore with a heart of gold.

Frowsy and magnificent, enchanting and appalling, exuberant and guarded, demanding of attention and cautious of careful scrutiny--it's impossible not to be seduced by this sybaritic siren and let her enfold you in her good-natured, knowing embrace. She may rob you, she may leave you spent and much the worse for wear, but you won't care--you'll only be thinking of how soon fate and smiling fortune will let you come back to her again.

This glorious, flamboyant city is the real deal: the deep, dark heart of Italy. Italia verace; Italy DOC. It's the Auntie Mame of Italian capitals; a bohemian rhapsody set in the most gorgeous bay on earth, watched over by a killer volcano as inscrutable as a reclining Buddha.

Like any woman of the world worth her salt, Naples is bursting with stories to tell: tales of passion, greed, calumny, corruption, love, politics. The whole bawdy history of the world is contained within her; no wonder the locals can't bear even the thought of living anywhere else.

Naples is a drug that no promise of rehab will ever entice you into eschewing. You can lose yourself in its exotic vapors and croak here spectacularly--but reluctantly, unsatiated--and spend Eternity plumbing its depths, never reaching the bottom.

The food alone is worth any effort to get here. It just may be the best place to eat in Italy these days: genuine and affordable, true to its roots, honest.

Sausage and friarelli pizza at Starita

If Naples is a whore, then Florence is the Homecoming Queen. Rather a bit too smug in her overwhelming popularity, this Renaissance city--art treasures aside--is in danger of descending into mediocrity and a sad, market-driven genericness. Like a beautiful woman so sure of her charms that she neglects to be kind, Florence lacks the soul--and that refreshing, exhilarating dose of genuineness--that Naples possesses in abundance.

Who wants a Heaven peopled by angels of perfection and symmetry? A clean, sterile, quiet mansion of soft footfalls and hushed voices where there are no more bawdy tales to hear but only pious contemplation? Give me littered streets full of noise and life, catcalls and cacophonous voices raised in joy and blasphemy. Give me beauty and ugliness jostling one another in a crowded metro, and give me human folly in all its splendid madness.

Give me Naples. And do with the rest what you will.



Forgive the veritable Vesuvius of exuberant hyperbole;
it was unavoidable,

Campobello

Sophia Loren's got nothin' on my daughter

My son the aspiring pizzaiuolo gives Napoli
the big A-OK

Tight apron strings or tight economy?

scene from Fellini's Amarcord

Dear Readers,

According to a September 2012 article in the Guardian:

Nearly one third of adult Italians (31%) live with their parents

 

More than 60% of young adults (18-29 year-olds) live with their parents

 

Among 30-44 year-olds, over 25% live with their parents

 

Of those Italians who don't live with their parents, 54% said they lived within short walking distance of their parents

Culture, necessity--or a bit of both? Is la mamma a saviour or a sucker?

What do you think?


Campobello

This mortal coil: another tale from the 'hood

There have been times when this neighborhood of mine has frayed this old heart and brought me to the brink of an unfathomable well of sorrow, begging me to drink of its chill waters. I am talking about the stories: the sad stories of its inhabitants, the sad stories that are everywhere--not only here--but in all places should you care to listen, to perceive, to imagine what others carry inside, in those places deeper than marrow or bone.

I find the stories of the elderly especially poignant, for these are people of a generation upon which therapy, self-help books, talk shows, anti-depressants and such have no purchase. When they've opened the musty, dank, hidden chambers of their hearts to me I've felt a great swell of honor and awe wash through me like storm-tossed waves. And I've felt a grief so strong it nearly buckled my knees.

I have related or alluded to some of these stories before: the sadistic tale of Mr. Rabbit, for instance; the elfin lady known as Maria "La Sarda" whose husband used to beat her; the Medusa-haired lesbian whose lover died suddenly and tragically and who lost her mind afterwards. Another old signora of the neighborhood, Renata, once confided in me her bitter regret at having children: her husband was utterly cruel to her and, exhausted and depleted physically and emotionally, she would rock her newborn child in her arms and pace the house all night, praying her baby wouldn't cry and awaken the wrath of her husband.

Today, by chance, while on the way to the shops, I heard another story. Roberta is the daughter of a very close neighbor, Lisetta, who died a year ago at 70-something and whom everyone considered (usually good-naturedly but not always) an odd bird. She told me that her mother suffered from terrible depression, marked by severe insomnia, for more than 50 years. This poor woman--who used to sit in the garden in summertime, swathed from the top of her head to the tips of her fingers against the onslaught of mosquitos, and cluck banalities at my children--underwent a long period of debilitating electro-shock therapy from which, in the end, she was rendered unconscious. In her last years she took meds that wreaked havoc on her body, a body that was still harboring a secret which had clearly metastasized and was consuming her. After three sleepless, torturous nights, not long before her death, Lisetta confessed to her daughter that she and her sisters had been systematically abused by their older brother when they were young, and that as a child she was mortally afraid of falling asleep at night, lest her abuser insinuate himself into her bed. The shocking confession, spat out like poison in the shadowy hours of deep night, provided the poor woman but a mere sliver of deliverance, hacked as it was from the stake of a lifetime of expanding pain driven through her heart. It was, too--this sudden awareness of the source of her mother's suffering and the reason she couldn't be a fully functioning parent ("my father was my mother")--but cold comfort for Roberta.

Up to now Roberta and I have only ever exchanged superficial, neighborly pleasantries, but she told me all this--with wet eyes and hands trembling--after I had shared my own story (which I'd told her smack on via Faentina, in fulsome daylight, tears running down my cheeks and all--gone native in a big way), and after she had embraced me on the street and kissed me and invited me in for coffee. She told me over tiny flowered cups of hot, strong, sweet Italian coffee, in the snug dining room of her old house with its corner chimney spent and filled with cold, gray ash. I don't know what strange, alien impulse made me tell her my story, truth be told; it's not at all like me. And I don't know what made me accept her invitation; I had hesitated, feeling already small and spent. But I suspect that in spite of myself, and in spite of my being an inadvertent inhabitant of this neighborhood--or rather, because of it--this was one of the things that Italy was insisting I learn.

And it occurs to me that this swapping of stories, this laying bare of pain like taut tendons under the surgeon's knife, regardless of reserve or shame: this is the nature of empathy. The action of empathy. It cannot be a static thing, nor something abstract. You have to enter into it. Condividere. You have to let it cut you to the quick.

And yes, though I've listened to their tales and watched the denizens of my patch of Florence come and go, I have been guilty at times of reducing them to characters in a film starring me. I've held myself aloof and have been a reluctant player in the drama of their own lives. As I walked on from Roberta's, across the little bridge over the Mugnone and down along the path next to the low wall above the rushing water, the sun glowing warmly and the air on my face deliciously cool, I thought: it's not enough to merely acknowledge that each human being holds within her, like a hidden spring, an astounding, wondrous, fearsome and forbidding potential for joy and suffering alike, nor is it enough to merely write about it.

You have to go inside her house and sit for a spell.

Bring it on, Stendhal

Dear Readers,

Thank you for your continued readership, in these the waning days of Letters from Florence. My mind orbits around U.S. immigration documents and the wrapping up of the Italian phase of four peripatetic humans much like the earth turns around the sun: imperceptibly yet ploddingly relentless. It also, inevitably, circles around memories good and not-so-good, and--apparently unlike the grim majority of Italian politicians--looks to the future.

How does one wrap up 12 years of a life abroad, uprooting children to boot? One just rolls up one's sleeves and does it, I imagine.

I am sad to say that the Bürgermeister will get my house, even though he already has a largish home, another rental property, access to a beach house and two other dismal nuggets of real estate here on this benighted patch of my in-laws' earth. No, I am not happy about this. I wanted one of my young nephews to buy our cozy little casa--perhaps Daniele, who's nearly 30, with a fiancée and a decent job, who still sleeps in the upper bunk in the cramped room he shares with his younger brother and sister. But none of the younger generation stepped forward, nor did their parents for them. As often seems to happen in Italy, the incumbent old dude with the wheelbarrow full of money and his fingers in all kinds of crostata holds sway and youth is elbowed aside, forced to sleep precariously on the narrow twin bed of opportunity.

I'm also thinking about my next blogging enterprise, other writing projects, and the ways in which I might continue my own dogged brand of cultural contemplation in the land of my birth, with these rather bemused Midwestern eyes that have for a time gazed upon the enchanting and confounding Italian landscape.

My room with a view
 

Speaking of landscapes and gazing, my bedroom overlooks a nun's convent (their cells, actually), a fact which has proven absolutely worthless in terms of inspiring me to anything resembling saintly behavior. My kitchen window, on the other hand, overlooks that part of the FIL's garden which he apparently regards as his plein air pissoir. Now that I've always found very inspiring--it's why I write this blog, after all.

But I wonder: to what heights of repulsion and wonder will America inspire me?

Will I be afflicted by a kind of reverse Stendhal syndrome, where instead of swooning over Botticelli's nymphs I'll faint dead away at seeing the People of Walmart in the--ahem--flesh?


Well, it being America and all, there's probably a pill for that.

Campobello

At home in the world

That particular knowledge, that particulate sensation born from the intimate knowing of many cities, was metered out to me in the rhythm of my footfalls on the hoary cobblestones of Florence. The late-afternoon winter sun tilted feebly at stalwart old facades, burnishing their mellow ocher into deep gold; they glowed softly, with a radiating warmth, were hushed and serene.

Florence is a city of sinuous alleys and brooding buildings, adorned with somber stone rustications and cornices that stare aloofly down upon us souls who are merely passing through this earthly life. They have stories to tell, but rarely tell them. In the way of the old cities of this world, they withhold their true histories: the cries of infants swaddled within their walls; the feverishness of inflamed insurgents gathered round marred wooden tables; the tenebrous dealings of merchant men trading in wool and silk and the softer vices; the heavy clink of gold florins and the arcane utterances of 16th-century Tuscan. They do not deign to tell--why? Is it because we, too, are passing, will pass, and be no more, and that, as we canter blithely toward our inevitable end, they will eventually absorb us, too, and hold us just as dearly within the unyielding bosom of history--those cold, marble halls wherein the concerns of men are rendered moot?

Detroit, East Lansing, Paris, London, Dublin, Boston, San Francisco, New York, Sonoma, Pittsburgh. Geographies navigated through childhood, youth, my roaring twenties and beyond. Geographies in which I loved, let go, raged, and pondered this existence that seems as thin as vellum at times. Places in which I was tempered, challenged, chastened, enraptured, and even shriven. Places where I walked--oh, how much I've walked!--lived, and became.

And Florence, perhaps most of all. Florence has given me the lion's share: a heavy tapestry woven with the baroque pattern of human experience, a table laden with the things that would nourish me as much as they would have me poisoned--in short, an arc of such cosmic sweep that would see me catapulted into the heavens to regale the stars with tales of human achievement and folly.

This is what I know: that one can have many homes, that one's feet can walk many a street, in strange or familiar or far-off lands. And one's soul can be sheathed in casings of different stripes. But to feel at home in the world--that is true freedom. That is the place in which it soars.



Wishing all you dear Readers a wonderful New Year.

Lo and behold! A Christmas Metaphor

Dear Readers,

After some 12 years of Italian living, I've learned not to expect much from the Italian postal service (I want to add a snarky "bwahahahaha!" but shall refrain). So you can imagine my surprise when we received a mysterious envelope, addressed to my daughter, from the Poste Italiane in the mail yesterday.

I can only surmise that the postal service lifted her name and address off the letterina to Babbo Natale--wherein she detailed her preferences (anything having to do with dogs) and demands (along the lines of "I know darn well I've been good so bring me all this stuff no later than 6:00 am Dec. 25 or you'll be sorry, kiss kiss ciao ciao heart heart Gemma")--that she shoved into the little red mailbox down the street about a week ago. In this large blue envelope was a letter from Santa in which he tells how he lost his warm berretto and the elves, out of deep affection for their boss, bought him a straw hat with which to replace it, and that even though it wasn't really appropriate (given the temperatures at the North Pole during winter of course), he loved it because it was a gift from the heart. He admonishes, "You know, my dear children, that which makes us truly happy is not what we want, but rather that which we receive from the people who love us." (Nothing like a preemptive strike in case the little tykes don't get what's on their list). Then the letter says that Reindeer Matilda will help him find his old hat (because he still would really rather have that one, see, thus rendering moot his earlier magnanimity) with her glowing purple nose--you just have to build her, discover the internet address, and then go look up the webpage where you can experience all manner of fun hunting for Santa's hat on the internets.

Huh. Those knaves! Who do they take me for? Like I don't know that this isn't merely a diverting Christmas activity for a child. It's a metaphor, a metaphor for life in Italy. Naturally.

Italians love children, they really really do. To the extent that even the inept, malingering Poste Italiane will incur considerable expense at sending these little packets around. Of course, this also means they're apparently too busy to deliver the package I've been waiting three weeks for.

Italians are impossibly long-winded in print. Gemma took one look at the long-ass letter from Santa and tossed it aside, couldn't be bothered. I myself react similarly to the emails I get from the PTA--by comparison they make most Wikipedia entries look like something you'd find in a fortune cookie.

Italians need their parents for everything. The complexity of Matilda the Purple-Nosed Reindeer's construction is mind-boggling. Not only do you need a parent to build it for you, you need a parent with an engineering degree and a good dose of Mother Teresa's DNA.

Italians take a simple idea or solution and make it impossibly convoluted and unnecessarily complex. Matilda the Purple-Nosed Reindeer has some 20 small parts made of flimsy paper, requires legs and neck to be folded accordion-style with obsessive-compulsive precision, and needs all the minute intractable flaps to be glued together (and apparently handled with tiny surgical instruments)--at 9:30 pm on a school night with your daughter insisting adamantly that she won't go to bed until it's finished and you regretting that third glass of wine that shot your fine motor skills to hell. Then you're supposed to hop online, pray your crappy DSL connection holds out, and surf your way to holiday fun-time while Matilda's scrofulous, rickety legs start falling apart and her antlers go awry. Frack you, fracking Matilda the Purple-Nosed Reindeer!

Do not question life on this immutable peninsula, just accept things as they are. Why does Matilda have a purple nose? Why is she called Matilda? (Was Matilda the name of some tricked-out, nun-garbed floozy at one of Berlusca's bunga bunga parties, and is thus a kind of twisted yuletide homage to a pancake-faced man who sleeps in pickling liquid?) What diabolical nincompoop designed Matilda? And why does the postal service have all kinds of time on their hands? These and all such equally rational inquiries fall on the stone-deaf ears of the cold, indifferent Italian universe.

I cannot help but think, dear Readers, that it probably would have been better if Matilda the Purple-Nosed Reindeer had never entered my life, never clomped into my living room on her insouciant brown paper hoofs, as it were. But she did, and I--as usual--have to try and glue all the little pieces together and make some merry sense of it all.


Ho Ho and all that,

Campobello

Impressions: ripples in a pond, and some thoughts on raising children in Italy

Dear Readers,

I've been uncharacteristically silent a long while, I know. Change is in the air, and I suppose I've been on mental (as well as physical) vacation from Italy and the expat rat-race. I still have plenty of stories about life on this cockamamie peninsula, but whether or not they will all get told within the space of this blog--whose days, I fear, are numbered--remains to be seen.

I had the good fortune to spend another summer in Portland, Oregon--three whole months this time. Goodness, how that place grows on you! We've decided to make it our next port of call, and plan on moving away from Florence and the in-laws (very important) as soon as this school year finishes. A brand-spanking new chapter in our lives yaws before us like a genial, benign blue whale--and we can't wait to let it swallow us whole.

***

His cardboard sign read "Free: smiles, kind words, listening, hugs. Just ask!" The scruffy, blissed-out young man sitting cross-legged on the pavement on Hawthorne Ave regarded us passers-by with unmitigated good will.

"How ya doin', Sister?" smiled the young guy holding a can of beer, sitting on his steps with the sun on his face. "You have a good one now." Okay, he was probably drunk off his ass, but how could a smile not overtake my mouth?

The cashier at the supermarket said to me after taking my money, "Have a great day. Thanks for shopping with us!"

The 15 Belmont bus driver, all smiles, catapulted out of his little cubicle to help the young mother struggling with newborn, gargantuan diaper bag and chariot-sized stroller off the bus, while I struggled to scrape my lower jaw off the floor.

Small-talk. Casual pleasantries with strangers. A kind word here and there. Gracious bus drivers. Polite postal workers. Everyday people paying it forward in countless small ways. It all made me realize how much I've gotten used to casual indifference, systematic abuse, stony faces and disdainful scowls at the hands of petty Italian functionaries, cashiers, receptionists, shop-workers and the like. Really, at times living in Florence feels like being an unwilling participant in a Mean Contest, with each Italian contestant trying to outdo one another in churlishness. In the face of such daily--and, I would add, altogether unfathomable and unnecessary--unpleasantness one gets to feel utterly beaten down. It just makes everything so exhausting, and it all seems so utterly pointless, though I suppose so many Italians in positions of "power" act like jackals with PMS because it makes them feel good about themselves in some way. Or they're all sadists. In any case, that mantle of negativity is tough to shake off. In Portlandia--admittedly famous for the preternatural friendliness of its locals--I was often rendered nigh speechless by the unwarranted kindness and good-naturedness of strangers. It made me feel good. Put a spring in my step (turns out a smile IS contagious!). And more importantly, it made me feel human--whereas endless interactions with surly Italians makes me feel like something that ought to be scraped off the bottom of their shoes. 

If our actions are like ripples in a pond, then kindness and friendliness make the pond worth diving into. Don't you think?

ancient buddha, photo by David Smeaton

I was once told that the reason a rather sizable Buddhist community exists in and around Florence (my hairdresser's a Buddhist, for example) is because it's such a center of negative energy--as if it bubbles up here from some malign source deep in the earth's magma--and that the Buddhist prayers and presence are necessary for offsetting it. Buddhist ripples in the old, stagnant Florentine pond.

Which led me to think about the omphalos. An earthly navel, as it were, according to the Greeks. The center of the world, a godly orifice, a portal. If Florence is a kind of omphalos of negativity--a bizarro navel crouching in its Apennine-encircled conca--then Portland sure feels like its opposite: the center of positive vibes and creative energy.

***

I look around me in Florence these days and I see so very many old people. So very, very many. Nothing against 'em, of course, but it makes for a fusty country that resists change and modernity with all the tenacity of a moth-ball-ridden old biddy clutching her support hose, glycerin suppositories, and tessera sanitaria. It makes for a country that, though it wrote such a splendid history for itself, is unable to outline a future because who cares, it'll soon be dead anyway. It makes for a country that feels more and more like a giant, albeit artful casket that needs to be buried posthaste before its contents begin to smell. Italy is a country that recklessly squanders its most precious natural resource: its young people. They are its most wasted potential. But, compared to the old folks who doggedly run the show and refuse to give up the ghost, there are relatively few young people to make Italy's history anew, even if they were equipped or inclined to do so.

The low birth-rate here is no secret. And I wonder about the reasons for it. While there are doubtless many factors--economic considerations being perhaps primary--I think the "Great Italian Bambino Paradox" is at the heart of it. On the one hand, Italians adore children--they are petted and fussed-over and cherished--enthroned is a better word--and encouraged to live at home for most of their adult lives. But on the other, very little is done for children and young people by the various governing bodies to enrich their lives and give them opportunities for growth and experimentation. Schools are bare-bones basic--with education varying in quality, just like anywhere--offering almost nothing by way of art, music, computer sciences, or sports (the concept of "extra-curricular" does not exist; hell, my kids don't even have toilet paper in their school). Nothing much to set the imagination aflame. It surprises me that in a country with such a rich artistic and musical heritage, little is done to foster this kind of creativity in children. In summer, kids' brains are left to lie fallow; cities do not offer activity programs, the centri estivi being an expensive, limited-term day-care option only. But it goes deeper than that. There is no overarching gestalt that puts a high value on the renewable energy that is the youthful outlook, the natural eagerness to see and do, the drive and fresh perspective that each age of humankind calls for. No wonder people don't feel like having babies.

Perhaps because of this decided lack of appeal to their imaginations, there seems to be some sort of malaise that afflicts many Italian schoolchildren at some stage in their academic life. And doubtless because of this, relatively few are motivated to go on to achieve college degrees. Of course, perhaps they think why go to college? Jobs are won not by merit but by who you (i.e. your family) know, and career success/recognition/advancement doesn't depend on individual achievement but again, on those many-tentacled familial connections. (The national motto really ought to be "Nepotism, Protectionism, and Cronyism--Evviva!"). The stagnant economy, corrupt politics, overburdened social security system (which treats old-timers like sultans and newcomers like buggered whores) and the decrepit machinery that is Italian labor law doesn't help matters, of course. With all these obstacles, it's easy to understand how apathy can take root, and I think it's safe to say that a kind of collective weltschmerz (see how cool-sounding German words roll off my virtual tongue today?) has overtaken the majority of Italian youth, whether they realize it fully or not. In fact, a point has been reached where intelligent, educated and energetic young Italians are leaving the country in droves to seek their fortunes elsewhere--Godspeed, I say. Meanwhile, the graying of the piazzas continues apace, and there's that electric-charged hush in the air as if before some kind of cataclysmic tempest or götterdämmerung (sorry).

Italy is not a place in which to be young.

A fresh perspective: Portland, omphalos of the Pacific Northwest

Portland feels so invigorating by comparison. Young people are everywhere, young parents toting their two, three and four children about, hipsters young and old crowding the outdoor tables of beer gardens and eateries, everyone seemingly so up on the latest technology and freshest ideas in everything. The place hums with creative energy, a vibe that can only be described as "happening," and an exuberant physicality typically exemplified by the enthusiastic and ubiquitous adoption of the bicycle as the preferred mode of travel. I could not help but fall under the spell of this evergreen Shangri-la. I realize that I have perhaps painted Italy in shades of rather stark black and white, and of course nothing in the world is either--subtle gradations are everywhere, good and bad make strange bedfellows but bedfellows they are, and exceptions take exception to being forced to abide by the rules. But in the end I decided that I don't want my children living in a place where they're so powerless to shape their future (two strikes against Gemma because she's female), where they're not encouraged to think outside the box and experiment because, for one thing, nothing could ever possibly come of it*, where enrichment opportunities are are so scarce, and where their precious youth counts for so little. So we're going.

Change is good. Change is needed. We need it; I need it. Time to splash around in this stagnant old pond and seek new shores upon which to stake our claim to happiness. There are risks, there are unknowns. Che sarà and all that. But to paraphrase the Bard: bless us, bless us indeed--we're about to be translated.


My best regards,

Campobello

* I read a very thought-provoking piece in an Italian newspaper a while back detailing the reasons why Italy could never grow its own Steve Jobs. Essentially it said that any potential innovator must overcome the twin evils of a pervasive defeatist mentality and a ponderous, ham-fisted bureaucracy. Double-barreled death to entrepreneurialism assured. Plus broadband here sucks.

The Easter toenail

Dear Readers,

We decided to take to the road on Easter Sunday, picnic basket in tow, and head out to one of those picturesque, ancient Etruscan outposts that punctuate the Tuscan earth like somber stone carbuncles set into silvery-green filigrees of cypress, olive and macchia--that strong-willed, cliff-hugging Mediterranean shrub.

A bit of rain notwithstanding, it was a lovely day, with breezes off the sea washing over our city-dusted bodies and through our thirsty lungs in invigorating, salty blasts. We ate our lunch and cavorted on the beach at the Gulf of Baratti, under the watchful eye of Populonia's old, baleful tower.

Later, in the car, on the way to find some much-needed gelato, Gemma piped up:

"Mommy, you know yesterday when I went to Nonna's? Do you know what she told me?"

I inwardly cringed, imagining something along the lines of Tales of the Illustrious Exploits of Jesus, You're Growing Up a Heathen, or Why a 2-Pound Chocolate Egg is Good for You.

"No, what?" I said.

"She told me that her toenail fell off because it turned all brown and was marcia [rotten, putrid, decayed]."

"Thanks for sharing that, dear."

Of tides and toenails

One would hope the MIL spread the message of the Resurrected Christ with similar enthusiasm.


Yours from the Tuscan trenches,

Campobello

The Nonni Economy

Dear Readers,

It's common knowledge that Italy's economy and the policies governing it is a dinosaur that must either evolve or face extinction. Its infamous bureaucracy and age-old professional guilds have more in common with the Middle Ages than the Cyber Age. Its creaking political machinery is overseen by a bloated battalion of decrepit mercenary toads--whose median age is something like 105. Italy has almost zero population growth. On top of this, educated, energetic, and ambitious young people--faced with such dim prospects for the future--are fleeing the country in droves. As a result, living in Italy sometimes feels like living in a gigantic old folks' home--a Renaissance Retirement Village, if you will. Seems you can't throw a cannellini bean here without hitting a smug, sturdy-soled pensioner making her way to the pharmacy--in short, the atmosphere in this confoundingly beautiful country is so fusty, so entrenched in a mildewed past, I sometimes get the feeling that the whole peninsula is but wiping its feet on Death's doormat. If Italy was a patient in the hospital, the prognosis for survival would be grim: in a coma, hooked up on life support, facing a chronic vegetative state. I don't mean to go all Thomas Mann on you, but, along with the heavenly smell of dark-roasted coffee wafting from the bars, the stale reek of an imminent demise is in the air unless something changes drastically.

And yet, if you were to stroll around town and have a look--out there on the streets and in the piazzas--things wouldn't seem all that bad. Plenty of Italians wear expensive, stylish clothes; their children are garbed like midget runway models and have all the latest game systems; they drive late-model cars, an increasing number of which are of the luxury variety or benzina-guzzling SUV's; they are able to throw elaborate birthday parties for their children when the cost of one Fisher Price toy runs something like €40 ($52); they take costly vacations to the beach or to the mountains; many eat out at ever-more-pricey trattorias and pizzerias; they smoke--a lot (and cigs cost between $5-6 a pack). Strolling around thus, you might be tempted to think that surely matters can't be very dire at all. You might even be tempted to believe what Berlusconi--that pancake-faced charlatan--was insisting all along, that everything's swell and Italy's economy is as strong, solid, and vigorous as a blowhard politico pumped-up on Viagra.

So what lies behind these disparities, then? I call it the Nonni Economy.

Nonni are a silent, quasi-mythic force
here in Italy; they're the unglamorous, varicose-veined legs on which the entire country stands. They're the grandparents who stuffed their wool mattresses with money for decades, who lived like closefisted clerics, who scrimped and hoarded all they could and avoided debt of any kind. They bought property back when it was relatively cheap--usually crappy ancient apartments with sporadic plumbing or crumbling case coloniche. They darned their socks and knitted their own sweaters. They worked two jobs or more and took care of scores of children and invalid relatives all living under the same leaky roof. Thanks to them, most Italians (that is, those who aren't still living at home with their parents) now have homes--restored, of course--for which they never had to pay (I read somehwere that something like 85% of Italians neither pay rent nor have a mortgage, which is why there was never a real estate bubble to burst). That means extra money to spend on la dolce vita, of course. As a rule Italians still eschew debt, particularly personal debt--but this may have more to do with the national sport of tax evasion and the penurious character of banks than any inbred distaste for owing money. (Leaving a paper trail for the tax man is, for many Italians, like leaving a trail of pork loins for a rapacious wolf).

Some cold, hard facts

Consider that the average Italian monthly net income for a full-time job is about €1300 (or $1700). Consider that pay raises in Italy happen only when Saturn is in the fourth moon of Jupiter's house, when Hell turns to hazelnut gelato, or when pigs get their pilot license. Consider that the cost of living in Italy keeps rising alarmingly--with prices on utilities, gas, over-the-counter drugs and staple foodstuffs such as bread, pasta, coffee and milk experiencing dispiriting jumps. Consider that the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Florence (should you be one of the unlucky few without nonni to gift you property)--outside the historic center, of course--is €1000-1200. My husband and I are unfortunately among that small percentage who pay a mortgage, and it's a fairly modest one at around €1000 a month. Consider that an elementary-school child's mensa, or school lunch, bill is a good €98 (or $130) per month, unless you qualify for low-income reductions. Consider that the average monthly grocery bill for a family of four is about €375. Consider utilities, including garbage removal, which are all much, much higher than their American, bargain-basement-priced counterparts. Consider that gas costs about €1.80 per liter or the equivalent of about $8 per gallon. Consider that a monthly bus pass costs €35 ($45). There is universal healthcare but consider that the co-payments (or i ticket, as they're called) required for many visits, exams, and analyses can cost up to €38 (or about $50) a pop.

If, in considering these figures, you're beginning to wonder how an average family can get by much less demonstrate all the seductive trappings of Italian life on display in the piazzas, you're not alone--I've always wondered the same thing. (And it seems the new PM Mario Monti is wondering, too). For instance, my husband and I really struggle, and I know others in the same boat. We've seen our income dramatically dwindle in purchasing power over the last ten years (granted, we've since had two children, but even given that, we're worse off now than before*). This year we had to forego after-school activities for our kids. We both commute and run most errands by bicycle to avoid the costs of gas and bus fares (anyway, it's healthier and better for the environment, right?). We have one basic PC, two cell phones of the decidedly unsmart variety, a car that is 20 years old (and was recently awarded "antique" status--thereby qualifying us for cheaper registration rates, amen). We took out a small loan to pay for our last summer vacation. We rarely go out to eat or spend on trifles. The lining in my winter coat is being held in place by a safety pin and I haven't seen the inside of a salon in a year. I'm not complaining--it's just the way things are.

But it just doesn't add up, does it? Which means that...

La dolce vita is clearly not about doing the math

Italians tend to perceive well-being in different terms than, say, Americans. Not having much personal debt is part of it, but I think that the biggest thing contributing to Italian complacency is the family--and specifically, all the boons bestowed upon the current crop of citizens by their nonni or other elderly, hard-working relatives.

The family unit has always been the building block of Italian society--we all know this. It is typically the source of all security, both economic and emotional, and it is the fruits of these nonni's and bisnonni's thrift which are being enjoyed by many of their descendants today. Though it's hard to quantify the effects of the Nonni Economy, it does create a sort of protective bubble around many Italian families that makes them feel and appear more prosperous than they might be if left to truly fend for themselves amidst the tempest of market forces. It encompasses certain antiquated practices as well, such as the predilection for trade or cash-only transactions and the rather, ahem, creative accounting that results.

                                                             
Italy's low birth-rate certainly contributes to the semblance of being better-off (if you don't have kids or have only one, obviously there's more money to spend on yourself or more to lavish on that figlio unico). But even many one-child households would be strapped if it weren't for the financial safety net provided by grandparents. The ever self-sacrifing elders of the Nonni Economy also provide less tangible benefits, the main one being unlimited free child care for their grandchildren. Put yourself on any street corner or in front of any elementary school and watch the endless to and fro of grandparents shepherding their young charges. They often function as full-time maids as well as babysitters, providing meals and even doing the laundry, ironing, and grocery shopping--a huge help to working parents. In addition, many provide gifts of cash or clothing--or even pay for cars or settimane bianche (ski vacations) for their grown children, and swim lessons and scuba gear for their grandchildren. Mind you, I am not talking about wealthy people--these nonni are ordinary folks who have managed to squirrel away significant savings, accrue zero debt, and have healthy pensions to live on. They have the lifelong habit of near-zero consumeristic consumption (why, merely turning on an electric light is considered an act of fiscal profligacy), which in turn enables them to lavish spending on their far more materialistic (and often more economically pinched) children and grandchildren.

To their credit, most Italians--whatever their economic status--find contentment in their little daily rituals of coffee and well-prepared meals; in socializing with the small circle of friends that they've known since childhood; in dolling themselves up in their best duds and strolling around town, stopping for an espresso or gelato or to gawk at shop windows. If these things remain unchanged, and if the overall health and well-being of the family is intact, then Italians generally feel themselves to be doing just fine.

How did they do it again?

As the recent rash of Monti raids has proved, tax evasion in Italy is rampant, pervasive, and often considered a kind of sacred duty--making it, and not Roman Catholicism, the real religion of the Italian people. For instance, it's common practice when inquiring about the cost of a service--say a teeth-cleaning--to be given two options: "85 euro with receipt, 60 euro without." (Now that the sober-faced Monti has put the fear of God into everyone, I'm curious to see if this will change).

So if today--with the albeit lackluster use of credit and debit cards, with computers and electronic banking--Italians are able to conjure financial smokescreens on such an epic scale, imagine what many cagey nonni were able to accomplish in their day? (My FIL, for example, worked three jobs but only ever declared income on one). This is not to diminish at all their hard work and penny-pinching ways--but you have to wonder if, along with a lot of choice real estate, the current generation of Italians has inherited public coffers that were already suffering from acute anemia.

What does all this mean for Italy's future? Given the nature of this Nonni Economy--the fact that frugality seems to be a lost art, that these traditionally selfless nonni will eventually die out--and the zeal with which Mr Monti is pursuing scofflaws, is the current brand of Italian-style "sweet life" a tenable one for the times to come?

Or will Thomas Mann indeed have his day?


Yours,

Campobello

* check out this article on Italian earnings

Happy Anus to all!

Dear Readers,

When I first moved to Italy and was in the throes of learning the language, I made quite a few rookie mistakes (actually, I still make rookie mistakes, though--I like to think--with a certain amount of flair). One of which was in wishing those around me a 'Happy New Year.' Buon anno, as you can see, has an all-important double 'n' in the second word of the phrase. Italian is a lovely language, but one of slavish pronunciation--if you don't get it exactly right, you risk morphing the entire meaning.

To wit: you must absolutely and emphatically enunciate that double 'n' sound, or you are--in reality--saying "Happy Anus" (single 'n' = ano = you-know-what). So that first capo d'anno in the Bel Paese I went around wishing pretty much everyone's nether orifice well.

But, you know, after ten years here, my early malapropism seems strangely prescient. With the recent austerity measures ('austerity' being a euphemism for 'screw you'), many Italians feel they're being forced to, ahem, take it up the derrière. Nowadays, wishing someone a happy anus doesn't seem like such a bad idea after all.

Well, let's not dwell on the negative--best to face these things with a champagne flute filled with good cheer, no? So let's raise our virtual glasses and have a toast:

My very best wishes for a Happy New Year (she said)

Though it's likely we'll be buggered in the months ahead

Counting my blessings,

Campobello

From the pet peeve department

Dear Readers,

For eons, tourists have come to Italy and have giddily snapped photos: of Florence's Duomo and Rome's Pantheon, of the Amalfi Coast and the Umbrian countryside, of fountains and piazzas, of Fiat 500's and Vespas, of monuments and mouth-watering Carabinieri--and I get it. I get it.

But what I've never understood is why laundry hanging out to dry should warrant a place in the family photo album, or worse, in travel articles advocating the glories of a particular Italian location (I'm thinking specifically of a recent New York Times article on Naples, with its clichéd and apparently obligatory photo of Neapolitan-style biancheria*). I mean, it's laundry for Chrissake. Granted, Italian laundry--but those aren't exactly Missoni dishtowels or Valentino skivvies hanging up there. Hardly. Why is the sight of some old lady's pantyhose or a few faded bedsheets considered charming and so very Italian, merely because there are cobblestones below and a fiendish bureaucrat (doubtless) nearby? I have a theory--unproven--that familiar objects take on uncharacteristic appeal when they are superimposed on a foreign locale.

How adorable! Laundry all'italiano!

The fact is, Italians don't have clothes dryers--if they did, you probably wouldn't see so much laundry hanging around. So taking pictures of Italian laundry is like taking pictures of, say, my mother-in-law's dentures (if she had teeth, you wouldn't be taking pictures of her dentures)--it's just dumb.

As an experiment, I recently pretended I was an Italian tourist in Portland, Oregon and snapped a photo of the clothes-drying rack in my friends' apartment (of course, all Americans have dryers--though some may elect to let certain items air dry--which makes capturing an image of native laundry all the more difficult):

That rare and most elusive of commodities: American laundry

Now you tell me, dear Readers--what's the big effin' deal about laundry?!


My best regards,

Campobello

* I don't know about you, but the sight of indigenous underwear doesn't make me want to immediately jump on a plane in order to revel in Italian cultura.

The quirky shall inherit the earth

Dear Readers,

Shortly after returning to Florence in September, my neck seized up painfully, I began to shed hair like a Siberian Husky in spring, I fell victim to fever, flu, and a pernicious sinus infection, and the nervous eye-twitch that had left me after I quit my loathsome job last April began feathering about my brow again. While two months in the States did me a world of good, it had some unforeseen consequences. I felt happy and deeply relaxed in a way that I didn't realize I'd been missing here in Italy--until I got back and my body launched its rebellion. I feel like I'd been lounging around in soft, sheepskin slippers and then had to cram my feet back into stiletto heels; it's difficult to make that adjustment without some pain and suffering, I suppose.

Thinking along these lines led me to a conclusion: living in Italy is like wearing impossibly high heels--it's lovely at times, even sexy, but completely impractical. And I don't mean it's impossible to live here--just impractical. It takes the mettle of a Joan of Arc to slash your way into the fabric of life in the Bel Paese.

***

What Italy offers--lavishly, deliciously--is culture, of course. Art litters the landscape like weeds. History oozes from every brick. The cult of the table has been well-noted by the gobbling hordes, and though mediocrity is fast becoming the norm in tourist meccas like Florence, in most of the country you can still get a stupendous meal wherever you happen to flop. And meals have a lovely way of unfolding here that feels very civilized, indeed. 

But for me, one of the hallmarks of a civilized society is the dignity allowed humans in the performing of life's most basic functions (i.e. paying bills, peeing, grocery shopping, strolling about town--granted, an eclectic litmus, but nevertheless indicative)--and here, my friends, is where Italy fails miserably. Ever try to find--your bladder bursting from that last macchiato or half-liter of water guzzled in the punishing heat of July--a public restroom in Florence???? Well, look what Portland, Oregon offers its denizens in need:

Spotlessly clean, complete with TP and hand sanitizer--bless you, Portland.

Indeed.

I'll further illustrate my point with the example of a recent trip to the supermarket:

My approach to storming an Italian supermarket may be likened to that of General Patton mounting a military campaign. First, I prepare my list with an eye toward a systematic and ruthless advance through the trenches, with a firm resolve to take no prisoners. When the moment of battle arrives, I hurl myself into the breach--that is, into the Produce section--a roiling mass of grasping humanity, carts akimbo like land mines to be dodged, and fight my way through in furious hand-to-hand combat, rushing to bag and weigh my veggies while sustaining the least amount of bodily injury. Once through the melee, I must then run the gauntlet of the Cheese/Cold Cuts section, where carts line up in a near-solid bank of defense--like an arrogant line of cavalry--their owners immovable dragoons to be thrust aside in brief skirmishes so that I may plunder the mortadella and mozzarella.

I soldier on--through Dairy, Meat, Baking Supplies, Pasta, Coffee, Cookies, Wine, Bread--piloting my cart like a kamikaze, fending off attackers in the form of old ladies smelling of moth balls, powdered rose and decay, taking hits (bayonet-like jabs to the ribs, cart wheels ramming ankles, stomped-upon tootsies--with nary a "pardon me," of course--after all, this is war) but refusing to be brought down, all the while pushing forward--the vision of my empty fridge at home spurring me on towards victory. Only in Frozen Foods do I get a brief respite (Italians aren't big on the stuff), where I can regroup before the final assault on the check-out lanes.

But, unlike Patton in any war he ever waged, awaiting me there is the most evil and fearsome enemy known to fighting men and women the world over--the Italian cashier. With cold, calculating precision, I loaded my groceries onto the belt, heavy things first, knowing I'll have to bag them up at the end. I tried to conserve the little energy I had left, quenching myself--for the moment--on pure adrenalin. My shopping totes were cocked and ready, and once my time came, I leapt to the end of the belt with a cry of "Geronimo!" and started bagging as fast as I could. The enemy was hurtling fragile foodstuffs at me with the vicious accuracy of a sniper raining bullets or lobbing hand grenades--wine bottles, eggs, cartons of yogurt. The sound of clanking bottles and squelching plastic was sickening. Then the she-devil reached the point where no more stuff could be fired down the belt at me unless I cleared some space--even though I was fighting with frantic desperation--and said, with withering scorn, "Madam, you need to get these bottles and things out of the way!" Patton, of course, would have shot her--but I, facing sure defeat, just pressed my lips together, wished I could morph into a spitting cobra, and labored on. She continued to regard me with boredom and contempt, alternately examining her cuticles with interest and chomping her gum, while I heaved the last of my groceries into my cart. Thus reduced to a stressed-out, sweaty mess, there was nothing for me to do but surrender--and shell out €160 for the pleasure--and slink off with my tail between my legs. No smile or thank you was forthcoming from this unscrupulous opponent, naturally--unless you counted the slight, satisfied curl of the lip that indicated another human being had been successfully humiliated at her hands, and that she had managed to perform her duties once again without the slightest bit of enthusiasm or warmth.

***

I realize that when one is on vacation, one tends to see things through rose-colored Ray Bans. But it was hard for me not to view Portland as a kind of Pacific Northwest Shangri-La--a land where outrageous courtesy reigns, a realm of quirky locals content to amble about on bicycles, drive (if they absolutely must) as if they have all the time in the world to arrive at their destination, and drop everything in order to meet over an ale or two. It's like Tolkien's Shire--a bit removed from the rest of the world, gloriously green, and with many a rowdy tavern--and the Portlanders are peaceful, friendly Hobbits (the fact that many are to be seen gamboling about the city barefoot, wearing rustic garments, further enhances the allusion). It seemed the exact opposite of Florence.

In Portland, people politely ask if they may sit in the empty seat next to you on the bus. They volley a cheery "thank you!" to the driver when they get off. They stop their cars and let you cross the street whether or not you are in a crosswalk. Everyone I met--from grocery clerks to postal workers to shopkeepers--was astonishingly courteous, engaging in cheerful small talk like morning birds chirping away in trees, and helpful to a fault. (Really, it amazed me. I spent the entire time with my mouth agape and tearfully hugging random strangers for being nice to me). It seemed they did this out of genuine niceness, and as if being cheerful and kind to others made their day go by easier, more pleasantly--it sure did mine. Once, when the bus was delayed at a stop because of something beyond the driver's control, people started grumbling, and the driver then began joking--over the loudspeaker--engaging the passengers who then responded with sallies of their own. We continued this way--everybody laughing and having a good time--for the rest of my journey. On another occasion, I overheard a mother in the park asking all the other people nearby if they'd seen her stray cell phone around anywhere--she'd misplaced it. Another woman offered to call the number for her so she could track it down by its ringtone. Wow. This all may sound like small patate, but I was floored, over and over again, by such good will toward men.

I often get the feeling that, in Italy, the milk of human kindness has curdled.

Living here these past ten years, I have slowly grown accustomed to systematic abuse in the form of sour expressions, doors slammed in my face, pushing and shoving, cutting in line, universal curt treatment at public offices, in shops, and over the phone (there's a general customer service ethic in Italy that Gaddafi would have approved of), and other generally rude behavior. I consider myself lucky if I encounter mere indifference. But would it kill people to smile? To show a little courtesy? To treat me like the multi-celled organism I am? Perhaps it's because of the oppressive weight of all that history and tradition, but I think Italians take themselves far too seriously. They're unable to see how a little levity, pleasantness, or simple courtesy toward strangers adds a ripple to the pond of humanity.

Another clear sign of an advanced civilization--to me, at least--is taking pains to bring a smile to another's face, in order to ease the tensions of daily life. In Portland, this typically takes the form of eccentric behaviors and unusual objects found in surprising places: plastic toy horses tied to old hitching rings all over the city, outlandish getups, juggling unicyclists (wearing outlandish getups), a plump plastic chicken being photographed in all the neighborhood bars and cafés, an inflatable sex doll in the back seat of an old Mazda (with her seat belt prudently buckled), a go-cart race with contestants riding their mock-up hot dog dressed as ketchup and mustard (i.e. wearing red swirly hats and flowing gold lamé capes)--I could go on. Art is so often imprisoned in museums, isn't it--reserved for the elite--but the kind of quirkiness I experienced in Portland may be enjoyed by all, anywhere, anytime; it is truly democratic. And if you ask me, of the two, it is quirkiness that best imitates life. At least, the kind of life I want to live.

Quirkinius squalus portlandis, or Portland Tree Shark

If I'm being unfair or overly cranky in this post, please forgive me, dear Readers. My feet are killing me.

Yours,

Campobello

The Angel of Death wears a wet Speedo

Dear Readers,

It is with immense joy I announce that Summer 2011 for yours truly shall entail total avoidance of Italian beaches. (I've written about my particular aversion to the peculiarly Italian style of fun-in-the-sun here and here). In a way, eschewing the oven-baked, seething stretches of Tuscan sand--bordered by traffic-choked streets, ugly apartment blocks, video arcades and tawdry Luna Parks--has become something of a point of pride for me. I much prefer Italy's mountains--my beloved Dolomites--for a getaway that gives me everything I crave: the wonder of nature, luxurious amounts of sweet fresh air, space to breathe in, pleasantly arduous physical activity, great food and wine, and relief from the heat.

To further tickle the repulsion centers of your brains, I shall relate to you a vignette or two from beach vacations past....

The scene: Elba, June 2001. My brother- and sister-in law--otherwise known as the Bürgermeister and Frau Weiner--and their two young, catatonically-compliant daughters crashed our vacation. My husband and I had been living with his parents in Florence (this was a folly for which I'd gladly render my kneecaps in order to completely erase from memory), I was in the early months of my first pregnancy, and we had come to a shady hillside above Cavoli to relax, escape family and enjoy some much-needed Couple Time. My mother-in-law--curse her black, meddling, pantyhose-constricted soul--saw fit to reveal our secret location in a rented house to the Bürgermeister, who then showed up on our doorstep and summarily dumped his bags.

What was perhaps even more disturbing to me than this total disregard for our privacy was the revelation that the Bürgermeister and brood go to the beach and then spend most of the time there actually shunning the water.

Because water--like ice cubes or air conditioning--will kill you, of course. Therefore it is to be avoided--regardless if it's 105 degrees out, and the hot sand shears off an onion-thin layer of your feet each time you step on it. This is Italy, after all, where the feathery tendrils of tepid breezes on even the most scorching days bring on raging pneumonia, where drinking cold beverages freezes your digestion and proceeds to decimate your internal organs with pernicious stomach acids, and where getting wet--either from bathing, swimming, water-pistol fights, or rain--carries the risk of slow and torturous total bronchial annihilation.

They're a strange breed, these Italians. I mean, to them, shampooing your hair and letting it air-dry, or riding a public bus with the windows open (in summer) is considered a come-hither to the Grim Reaper--while running red lights with impunity, driving the wrong way down one-way streets, or passing on a curve at 100 miles-an-hour is regarded as completely innocuous, if not downright wholesome.

I digress. At the small local beach, Frau Weiner smothered a chaise with her rear end and remained there under the umbrella, as languorous as a corpulent Salome, the entire day--all the while shouting dire warnings at the girls who were forbidden to wade past ankle-deep in the mild surf. Me being American, young(er) and blunt, asked, "Why don't you go in the water?"

"Oh, I don't like the water! I never go in," she replied.

"Then why do you come to the beach?"

She volleyed me a look that said "you impossible fool, one goes to the beach because everybody goes to the beach," and busied herself arranging the elaborate, black, see-through, sequined cover-up over her plump thighs.

Meanwhile, the Bürgermeister refused to join us under the umbrella; he stood--stood, mind you--on his hind legs for hours under a tree back near the road, in a white tee-shirt and swim trunks, watching the girls at play with fixed and vigilant eyes, like some prissy, neurotic lifeguard. This was when I tried in vain to come up with the Italian translation of "Jeez, but that guy's got a big stick up his ass" for my husband.

Frau Weiner's aversion to water is inbred, I found out. Her parents have a beach house in Viareggio, mere steps from the boardwalk, and religiously rent a front-row spot in one of the more expensive bagni every summer--but they, too, never deign to enter the water. In fact, even though they pay through the nose for the privilege of having their chaises and umbrella available for the three-month duration, they've stopped going to the beach at all, abandoning their precious patch of sand to visiting grandchildren. "It's too hot," they complain.

That's why there's the water.

One summer, we accepted an invitation by the Bürgermeister clan to join them in Viareggio, and watched the Fear-of-Water-Hurly-Burly-Show play out daily. As usual, Frau Weiner was ensconced on her chaise like Jabba the Hutt on a plinth, each day sporting a different fashionable swimsuit with gauzy, coordinating cover-up and sparkly infraditi. This time the Bürgermeister managed to actually sit for periods--albeit bolt upright--in a canvas director's chair, craning his neck to watch every life-threatening splash the girls made. An oversized canvas beach bag sat next to Frau Weiner, and every time the girls would tire of their games and come out of the water--to play in the sand perhaps, or get a drink of water or a snack--she would pluck two fresh bathing-suits out of the bag and immediately change them, towelling them off frantically, lest they catch a chill. Every time. I was as riveted by this ritual as if she were Houdini performing the handkerchief trick out of a top hat--bathing suit after bathing suit kept coming out of the bag, in seemingly endless supply. Once again I couldn't resist:

"Why do you change them every time they come out of the water [you psychotic, Lycra-encased sausage]?"

"Because they'll get bronchite if they sit around in wet suits [you hopelessly stupid, foolhardy Yank]."

"Oh." I squinted up at the molten, orange orb in the sky and at the waves of heat shimmering along the shoreline, while sweat pooled in-between my toes. "Well, we wouldn't want that."

If the poor girls had even so much as one bite of focaccia, or a cracker, or a piece of fruit, the Bürgermeister would command from his director's chair, "NO GOING IN THE WATER NOW FOR AT LEAST TWO HOURS, OR YOU'LL GET A CRAMP AND DROWN!" Apparently that was his sole function and purpose for being on the beach at all--since nary a stiff, punctilious toe of his ever even dipped in the water.

***

So if I shan't be spending summer in this Hell--a Hell that could kill me quicker than if I were to be smeared in Spam and left for bear bait--where will I be spending the dog days, you may ask? Why, in Heaven, of course. I shall be enjoying nearly two glorious months in the majestic Pacific Northwest. What's more, I plan on wantonly indulging in all the things that would kill an ordinary Italian: basking in air-conditioned environments until I get goose-flesh, swilling iced tea that is chock full of ice cubes, eating spicy ethnic food, getting soaked at water parks and letting myself air dry--and did I mention eating spicy ethnic food?

Here's wishing a wonderful summer full of similar risks, dangers and pitfalls to all of you, my dear Readers. I may post while abroad, or I may not--we'll see. But rest assured that I'll be back in September--if the Sasquatch doesn't get me, of course. Or the water.


Yours, ever recklessly,

Campobello