I bought Lucianna and her daughter Sofia a gift for Christmas about a month ago, have seen her a couple of times since, but have either forgotten it when we’ve met, or didn’t have it with me when I’ve run into her. Finally, today between a meeting she had and needing to go down to Scalo for laptop repair (her report accompanied by gesture of gun in mouth) we were able to make plans for coffee and a gift delivery.
I went into town a little early to seek out a few items I needed. On the top of my list was cold medicine (just in case,) and flax oil capsules or “una scatola di perle di olio di seme di lino.” That sentence contains so many “di” that I always feel like I’m saying it wrong. (I might be, but no one has ever corrected me.) Also shaving cream.
And bread and pastry. I was proud of myself on that last. I’ve been stuck on tozzetti (we might call them biscotti) as my dolce of choice for at least a month now, but today I adventurously embraced apoline, lemon cream or chocolate filled, two of each. I can hardly wait for tomorrow’s breakfast. But really, I’ve already stuck my neck out this far, why feel compelled to wait?
On the way between the panificio and Blue Bar, I passed Gianluca’s used-book store. I first stopped on a whim about six weeks ago. I was looking for a grammar that the large bookstore in town, a Mondadori, didn’t have, and neither did they offer to order it. Gianluca said he would try to locate a copy. By the time I returned home, there was an email. He would have it the following afternoon. I’ve since been stopping by whenever possible. When he’s serving a customer, there isn’t really room for another, so I wave – when it doesn’t feel intrusive.
I had been wanting a book in Italian, something I could immerse myself in that would also be a learning tool. Claudia had given me a couple of possibilities, but both are too literary, and I have to stop frequently to check word meanings or puzzle grammar. Some of that is great, but too much and I’m not reading for enjoyment, anymore, or even for sense.
A few days back, I asked Gianluca about such a book, and we scouted around his shop. I read first paragraphs as a test. When I understood one, the book became a candidate. I asked him if he had a copy of Christ Stopped at Eboli, a favorite of mine I’d read a couple of times in English. He didn’t, but had another book by Carlo Levi. I understood the first paragraph pretty well, so I took it. As a gift, he also sent me away with a slim volume by Italo Svevo.
I settled down later that evening with both books. After the first paragraph, the Levi book gets way more difficult. While the Svevo stays at about the same level, it’s always a step or two ahead of me. True, Svevo is more direct in his language than is Levi, but with him two or three words I don’t know can scramble the sense of a whole paragraph. Levi, on the other hand, writes like there are not sufficient words in the language to satisfy his appetite for prose. Consequently, I can be ignorant of half the words in a paragraph by Levi and still get a sense of it. In the end, however, I returned (quite happily) to the weekly magazine, Sette. The language is breezy and similar to what you encounter in daily life, the articles range in topic, and I generally find them interesting.
Anyway, on my way past, I thanked Gianluca for his help and gave him a report. He told me that for Italians, Levi is like reading another language, and since it is another language for me, I may have been operating from a point of advantage.
I walked out of the house this morning in the direction of the cat (for more on that relationship, see the post Epifania.) She was catching some rays on the roof of a car, and we shared a few profoundly joyous moments together. Her son, as always, ran away.
Then I went into town, bought stuff, and met Lucianna. After our brief visit, I continued on to a store recommended for shaving cream (the kind you use with a brush.) The lady there directed me to two options on opposite ends of the shop. I looked at both. One, in green plastic, was utterly normal and just as unexciting. The other was luxurious. Just holding the elegantly designed jar made my hands tingle. My favorite brand is made in Firenze and costs about €25, a hefty price but it lasts a year. I figured this tingly stuff might cost something similar. I took it to the counter with the self-conscious disclaimer that I knew this was a little lux, but what the heck, gotta live life, right?
She described the cream’s superior qualities rather at length, then as casually as she could manage, said “Well, then, that’ll be €45,00.” Ah! Maybe a little too lux – for me – at the moment. How about that one in the boring green jar? “That’s €2,50.”
I finally did make it to Blue Bar. I was served by the lovely woman who has taken Romina’s place since she started teaching French at the public school. I took my dolce to the table, and was watching the world pass by the front window when Antonny swooped in. “Sorry! I was playing my guitar in the back room. It’s a chance to be alone, you know?” He played for me yesterday. He’s really quite good, and like his Italian and English (and commedia dell’arte, see the post The Bar Scene) he taught himself. “It’s harder that way, but you find your own style, and that’s better. I studied with a teacher for awhile. He said I’m good. But studying was like learning someone else’s style, so I quit. Now people come in, we jam, it’s fine.” He announced yesterday that come spring he’s gathering some music makers to play on the street in front of the bar at 7 pm weekdays. Reason enough to stay in town, as far as I’m concerned.
On my way home, I found that my lady cat and her normally frightened son had changed cars. I guess while I was shopping his mom convinced him that I’m okay, because for the first time, ever, the son asked me for attention. Mom was gracious, so long as I gave her a bit more time than I did to him.
As I approached the front gate, my ground floor neighbor was going in. “Shall I leave it open?” she asked? “If you like, thanks, I just have to go across the street and say good morning to the dogs.” She smiled and looked at me as if she had surely mistaken, as ever, what I had meant to say, and closed the gate. There are three dogs, of uncertain heritage, in the fenced yard across the street. At least two of them will always run up to say hello as I approach. They greet, I greet, all is well, and they go on with their day.
Why are dogs and cats so different in this culture? (I have no theories, and don’t believe I’ll be spending much time formulating any, but it’s an interesting question.) Cats here are either like my lady cat or like her son has been until this morning. They throw themselves at my feet or they run away. I have yet to meet an indifferent feline in Orvieto. Dogs, on the other hand, are almost always indifferent. Most are not unfriendly, but they do not ask for attention, even when I offer it. The least indifferent canines I have met are the ones across the street, but we have a relationship that has to be factored in. Even they, however, run up to the gate tails a-wagging, greet, then go away. No hanging about for more, not even for a scratch behind the ears. It’s disorienting at first, these two earth-shattering reversals. But then, what isn’t?
I bought the cheap shaving cream in the green jar. I simply couldn’t justify the other. At some point I will actually leave town and go somewhere, and when I do, it may be to a town with a larger selection. In the meantime, I’m living so luxuriously in so many other ways, who cares about tingly?