Month: September 2016

Yes, Orvieto is beautiful, historic, perfectly sited, graced with wonderful civic amenities, home to a twice weekly market and dozens of mercatini throughout the year, and overflowing with cultural opportunities. So what? What keeps my motor going are daily encounters with people. I tell folks here that this is the closest I can come right now to moving back to New York. They laugh. I’m serious. I can’t afford New York any more. But living in Orvieto reminds me of a really great Manhattan neighborhood – or at least as they used to be. And that is fine with me.

Just now, my stomach told me without any equivocation that it was time for dinner. I have stuff I could have fixed, but it felt better (and quicker) to exit my garden, turn right down Via delle Pertiche, right again on Corso Cavour, and ten meters further into the pizza shop owned by a man whose name I don’t know and his son, whose name I also don’t know.

I figured out long ago that they are not of Italian ancestry. That the father (the smaller of the two) talks to me in a melange of languages ranging from Arabic to French to English, is a pretty good hint. But I think his son was raised here. He is tall and forever smiling, an infectious, welcoming smile. The kind of smile that makes a person feel that life is worth the risk. They make wonderful pizza; perfect crust, succulent, fabulously flavorful. They also offer felafel wraps and sandwiches, some of the best I’ve ever had, New York City included. They’re open from early morning to midnight, and are an open challenge to every minute I’ve ever even wanted to indulge in grumpiness or self-pity.

As I approached their shop, the father was out front munching on some of their own product and chatting with a man of about my age, who I of course immediately interpreted as being much older. The father waved his hand across the threshold when he saw me and said something about sand. I didn’t quite get it, but I suspected a traditional Arab greeting, there being a lot of sand in Arabia, or so I’ve concluded from my many formative years scanning National Geographic Magazines.

Behind the counter, the son pointed his knife at the various flavors on offer this evening, and identified each, briefly noting his favorites. I picked one with tomatoes. He gave me another slice of the same size, also with tomatoes, but a better edition according to him. I complimented him on their pizza. He replied that they sample everything. If it’s not perfect, they throw it out. “A system that works well,” I said. He smiled even more broadly and threw in a couple of small pieces of the funghi slice for free.

The father joined us, saying something I didn’t understand. “Parla arabo?” the son asked. We went back and forth on that one a dozen or so times until I understood that he was asking if I spoke Arabic. “Not in this lifetime,” I offered. “I barely speak Italian, barely speak English.” His grin grew wider.

On the way to my pizza experience, I ran into Puni, my neighbor Patrizia’s mother and Renzo’s mother-in-law. We traded niceties, then she told me, in Italian, “You have to trim that plant,” referring to a point somewhere above my mailbox. There is a violet growing in the wall there, and it is, granted, getting rather large, so I wracked my brain for how politely to say that I understood her concern, but I kind of liked it that way. “No!” she laughed when I finally was able to identify the plant I thought she was referring to. “The big one.” Oh! The apricot tree. “Yes! It’s way too big, needs pruning.” I agreed. Except for what I could reach to give a person some headroom, no one has pruned it in years. “If you don’t prune it, the roots will grow into the house!”

I explained to Puni that my family had apricot orchards in California, and best I can recall, they are best pruned in February. “Yes, February,” But it’s a science. You have to allow for the buds to begin to show so it will bear fruit come summer. I didn’t actually say all that in words, mind you, but she figured it out. “Renzo knows everything about plants.” Please mention something to him. “Oh, I will!”

Renzo is, at heart, an artist. Best I can tell, he is the force behind the seasonal decorations on Via delle Pertiche Prima; the lights and poles and swags at Christmas, the pots of flowers all year long, the banners during the big festivals. He’s the organizer. He collects the funds from neighbors, buys what’s needed, brings people together to do the actual decorating. And when the plants suffer, he replaces them. And when they become dry, he’s on his stepladder after work giving them water. He knows what they are called, not just in general, but the specific varietal of each. Somewhere off towards the west (or maybe it’s north) he has a garden. He pointed, I followed his finger, and he explained in his Orvieto accent exactly where it lay. I nodded. That’s where the bag of tomatoes that lasted me three weeks came from when he appeared at my gate one day. This is a neighbor mightily worth his salt. As a living, Renzo drives a truck for a construction enterprise.

The other neighbor who has a balcony overlooking my yard is called Marianna. She has a daughter of about 12 or 13 and a son of about 8. I hear their lives at full volume whenever they are in the kitchen, which is much of the time after five in the afternoon. The daughter waves when we catch one another’s eye, and she strikes me as bright and charming. The son hasn’t noticed me yet.

Marianna is almost unreasonably pretty, and when we converse between her balcony and my steps, has a sweet, melodious, flute-like voice. When she is speaking to her son, however, she’s all mamma; she makes her point, she doesn’t hold back, and sounds more oboe than flute. A concert oboe, a loud oboe. She has no choice. The son’s default tone is, as with many Italian boys his age, something between a sustained shout and a whine. Maybe because I can’t understand but a word here and there, it’s all music to me, and not only do I not mind, I rather enjoy it. As I climbed the outside steps after supper, mamma and son were both on the balcony painting the divan she’s cleverly designed from delivery pallets. He was murmuring something, she was cooing back, the crisis of a few minutes before having passed into love.

Earlier this evening I went to the “supermercato” – in quotes because it’s the size of a medium-large New York bodega. Perhaps because it remains open during the afternoon risposa and offers cleaning products, it’s granted a more exalted position in the hierarchy of Italian retail. It is run by a bunch of guys in their twenties. They work like demons, and are open twelve hours straight, every day, maybe even Sunday. (I never go in on Sunday because even if they don’t take their Sunday, I want to give it to them.)

The guys are always helpful, friendly, and courteous, each with a quality so distinct and memorable that going in is a little like a visit to an Umbrian Lake Woebegone. I have a feeling many people, especially foreign people, don’t try to make conversation. But I like these guys so much that I try always to ask them how they are, comment on something, inquire about a product I can’t find even if I don’t really need it. I can’t always elicit a response, but when I can it’s like childhood all over again.

Today I asked the fellow with the beard how he was doing. He explained that the change in weather was giving him some respiratory problems. I told him I seemed to be fighting a cold, as well. A simple exchange, but I, for one, felt as if something major had been achieved in international relations. When any of them pass in their Ape (two syllables, a little three-wheeled vehicle widely used for deliveries) we always wave and smile. The guy with the glasses who strides about town like a Renaissance prince in his red grocer’s smock, bows and gestures with a sweeping hand whenever we meet.

In consideration of space and your valuable time, I’m leaving out many others who are equally dear to me, but who I didn’t happen to see this evening. I honestly enjoy these people so much, and our simple relationships, that I sometimes hide at home for fear of coming off like a starstruck fool. Who needs the movies?

I think his name is Fabrizio. On his receipt the business is registered under Fabrizio Something – though it proves nothing, that could be his grandfather’s uncle. But it’s a good hunch, so let’s call him that for now. Although I’ve come to him whenever I was here over the years for dried fruits and nuts, and regularly since I’ve been living here, we never arrived at an exchange of names.

Because he’s kind, simpatico, and happy at what he does, all those I know who have visited Orvieto have specifically commented on Fabrizio and how he’s treated them with the most courtesy of anyone here. He deserves the stellar reputation.

During my last extended stay, I discovered that eating dried fruit has a marvelous effect on the regularity of eliminative functions, so I visited Fabrizio at least once a week for una manciata o due of dried apricots, strawberries (delicious!) kiwi, pineapple, and papaya. Those are my favorites. But it wasn’t just the dried fruit. Fabrizio likes doing things with a flourish. So, the plastic glove goes on with a snap, the handful of fruit is placed in the plastic bag with a twist of the wrist, and the bag is tied up with a few more rotations of the fingers than is physically necessary to do the job. Numbers on his cash register are punched with the sort of spritely rebound I imagine Franz Liszt may have cultivated for the piano.

Great entertainment coupled with genuine kindness is rare and worthy of praise.

Fabrizio has had Competition. Another vendor of pretty much the same stuff occupied a stall right around the corner. But while Fabrizio’s stall was vast and protected by a canopy that folded out from his blue van, The Competition had a folding table crowded with plastic tubs and a beach umbrella. I shopped The Competition once when, as he later told me, Fabrizio thought it was going to storm and didn’t show. The Competition pointedly mentioned that his own fruit had no added sugar. As far as I knew, neither did Fabrizio’s. That business tactic rubbed me the wrong way, so afterwards if Fabrizio was ill or afraid of bad weather, I got along on what fruit I had.

Now to be sure, The Competition is very nice, the product was as good as – and in the case of the apricots that particular week, a little better than – Fabrizio’s, but the flair was not present, the conversation was conventional, and there was, even though it was Saturday, no “buona domenica” upon conclusion of business. I’m being picky, maybe even unfair, but that’s what insane loyalty does to a person.

Last spring as I readied to leave, I put the leftover dried fruit – my previous purchase from Fabrizio – in a sealed container and hoped for the best. When I returned three months later, it was still plump and soft, moist and delicious. So, I had no reason to visit Fabrizio until a couple of weeks ago. Besides, my first week here was the last week of the Folk Festival in Piazza del Popolo where the market is traditionally held, so all the stalls had been moved down to Piazza Cahen without anyone having informed me. (A shocking oversight.) A week later, the market returned to its customary piazza and I found my way back to purchase dried fruit and nuts, but I was cautious about stocking too much food with the house in chaos, so took only two handfuls of apricots and strawberries. Fabrizio seemed pleased to see me, we shook hands, he transacted business as usual, but – as I noted even then – with a little less flair and verve than is his custom.

I also noted that just one stall over was The Competition, now spread out in much the same manner and order as Fabrizio’s stall, with both a canopy and an equally lavish display. As I turned to leave, Fabrizio called me back. “I should tell you, I’m only here on Saturdays now, only on Saturday.” He seemed a bit stressed. There was no “buona domenica.”

I went back yesterday morning truly in need of several manciate of fruit. No blue van. The Competition was in, or very near, Fabrizio’s spot.

Now, this is the time of the feria. Everyone who can possibly manage it will take off work for up to a month sometime between mid-July and the end of October, and so may have Fabrizio. But because I am of the theatre, I prefer to imagine every possible variation of behind-the-scenes intrigue, just to be safe. Here’s one of my typical scenarios.

Licenses first granted to his family in the 15^th century were purloined by devious and malignant notaries who gather after midnight beneath Torre del Moro dressed in large-hooded cloaks to collect kick-backs from a vast fruit and nut syndicate that desires Fabrizio’s entrepreneurial demise for his having so openly enjoyed the vending of his product. All this anticipates resurgent family warfare, a bellicose remnant of medieval Orvieto when intramural struggles were the norm and clans built towers in order to protect their sundries from below and stone their enemies from above.  A desperate struggle ensues between the incomprehensible power of the corporate shill and the spunky little guy, followed by the defeat of our flourishing hero, and his wait – crouching bitter and glum in a protracted skulk beneath the steps of Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo – while he plots his terrible revenge.

That drama may not even distantly resemble reality, but who cares?  During this, the age of Facebook, reality proves increasingly difficult to pin down, anyhow.  To indulge, however, in a short fact-based(ish) speculation: none of the vendors is from Orvieto. They all have regular spots at markets all over the region. Fabrizio and The Competition may, in fact, have worked out some sort of trade; Thursdays in Orvieto for Mondays in Fabro. Fabrizio may be back at market in a week or two.

Or maybe he won’t. And what then?

That is why I find it most satisfying to picture myself seeking out Fabrizio’s home base to demonstrate my insane loyalty by renting a car for quarterly runs to purchase huge sacks of dried fruit that last three months in sealed containers. At a certain age, flourish and a hearty buona domenica is more than worth the trouble. In the meantime, and regards regular bowel movements, I will have to rely on fresh fruit and prayer, because damned if I’m going to shop The Competition until I know exactly what happened. Or such is my mood at the moment. As we know, even a short bout of constipation is capable of undermining the staunchest of resolves and the most fanatic of loyalties.

* * *

BREAKING NEWS: September 24, 2016

As I approached the mercato this morning, at about where Piazza Vivaria spills into Piazza del Popolo I caught a glimpse of the blue that distinguishes Fabrizio’s van. My heart (and my digestive tract) leapt in anticipation. And there he was, his goods spread out facing opposite from his usual direction and nose to nose with The Competition. The effect was similar, though not the same, as one of those aisles in an American supermarket where all the products are variations on a very slim theme, like potato chips.

He was doing a brisk business from others of his insanely loyal customers. When he glanced my way, there was a little jolt and smile of recognition. He served his product with the same joyous vitality and flair as ever. It was almost as good as reconnecting with a long lost cousin.

I was afraid you’d disappeared, I told him. “There was a little bit of trouble with my spot, but that’s all resolved. I’m here on Saturdays for sure.” The cloaked notaries sprung to mind, but I said nothing.  I got apricots, strawberries, papaya, and the good feeling of having a piece of my world slide back into place.

There is a young fellow here called Gianluca who owns a used-book store on Via Filippeschi. I pass his shop often. When he has no clients, he’s behind his computer diligently pursuing his livelihood. I have no idea what specifically he does there at his desk, but I admire him, his persistence, and his young man’s commitment to books in this age of digital texts. Sometimes I feel personally responsible for his store’s continued viability, that I need to buy books from him I’m not able to read just to help keep his shop open. (I’m finding out that I’m not the only one to feel that way.) Today as I passed his store – closed for riposa, the window gates open and a string of LED’s decorating his display of old books with dancing titles – it suddenly hit me what his position at the desk reminds me of.

I was playing with my friend Jimmy Galindo in his driveway when we found them. Boxes and boxes of paperback books that a neighbor was apparently throwing away. They were mostly classics from a high school reading list, books that the owner seemed not to have any interest in re-reading. “We could start a library,” Jimmy enthused. As a new state-of-the-art library had just opened halfway between our houses and no more than a block from either, the idea struck me as ludicrous. At first. But as we talked, together we glorified the notion, and a few minutes later I was totally jazzed.

Over the following weekend, I could think of nothing else. Even my ten-year-old personality derived great joy from cataloging and organizing, and that there was a generous supply of books upon which to base the project, a library – grass-roots, home-based, a neighborhood library for kids, not a branch of the county’s vast system – seemed a brilliant idea. As I mulled it, I concluded that my impressive collection of Disney comics would be an apt compliment to Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice, neither of which I had heard of previously. My excitement carried me back to Jimmy’s to make sure the books had not been carried off. They were still there! Some had been rained on, but were salvageable. I carried them home, a shopping bag at a time, over a long day of walking. Jimmy voiced enthusiasm, but I could tell his interest stopped short of cartage and actual physical organization. That’s okay, it would return in full flower when he saw the idea realized. I dreamt of greatness.

My mother had long since come to understand that when I had a project in mind, the path of least resistance was to make sure I did no damage to the furniture and let it play through. So, as the bags of books appeared along with the explanation for their arrival, she shrugged and smiled and said, rather wanly, that it might be a good idea, except who would be the clientele. I angrily dismissed her unimaginative and pessimistic commentary, and forged on.

In a week’s time I had stripped my room of personal décor so it would have the proper institutional ambiance, sorted and shelved all my literary treasures by title, author, and date, and typed up a list that would have to do until I had the money and time for a proper card catalog. I designed a sign, found some old railroad board, loaded up my FloMaster refillable felt tip pen (a prized possession), and went to bed that Friday night knowing I was ready for business come morning.

The sign was created and hung on my bedroom door first thing. After all, the fliers I had distributed to my classmates listed hours of operation, and the first rule of public service is consistency. So at 8:30, the announced hour of opening, I was at my desk behind an ancient Remington typewriter, the kind that proudly displayed its working parts, ready for an influx of eager young readers.

At ten, I had a sinking sensation that perhaps I had neglected something we would now call market research. At about eleven, my mother, probably steeling herself against what she accurately imagined would be my annoyed response, endeavored to be my first customer. I played along, knowing it would amuse her, but was privately perturbed. She checked a few things out that I was fairly confident she would never read, but I was pleased that my system of date stamps and cards (which I felt improved on the county’s model) worked so cunningly well.

At some point my mom called Jimmy’s mom, or at least I suspect that’s what happened, and the afternoon was a rush of eager literati. This continued for a couple of hours. We talked comics. It was fun. But Sunday was a dud; I figured because people had other stuff to do. So, despite my late opening time (in deference to churchgoers) I closed early at two. The next weekend, was slower, and my hours grew shorter. I had distributed another round of fliers to classmates during the week, and many had vowed they would visit, but I imagined there were family outings, maybe homework that had been put off, so I endeavored to read a classic from the library’s significant collection – before its time in my literary development – at which I failed. The third weekend someone asked me over to play, so Saturday hours were very short, and on Sunday the library didn’t open at all.

I don’t recall the actual demise and disassembling of the Neighborhood Library for Youth, it probably happened gradually. But that moment on the first morning when the penny dropped – that my dream of service was perhaps not shared by anyone else, not even my own mother – has lived with me through innumerable, and what have often seemed to be hauntingly similar, projects of arguable viability. The memory has corroded numerous attempts at my establishing a useful place in the world: the theatres, the cafe, the writing. “It might be a good idea, but who’s the audience?” I’ve been fleeing from that spot behind the ancient Remington typewriter all of my adult life.

So, upon passing Gianluca’s store today I suddenly wanted to write what would mostly be about a failed fifth-grade, and totally daft, library project. But it would also be about what strong patterns can radiate from a single moment at the age of ten and the significance they may have to later life. Metaphorically speaking, the moment is when you notice that the arch you just labored so hard to erect has no keystone.

Installed behind his modern-day Remington, Gianluca shows genuine courage in his dedication to what may appear to be a Quixotic waste of energy to the casual passerby. But you know what? So did I seize courage with my childhood library, even frozen as my omission dawned behind the skeletonized typewriter – and later, behind the electric one on which I typed notes and press releases for the theatre I started in San Francisco and the caffe in Santa Cruz, and even later, behind my own computers that I pecked away on during my stints as theatre administrator in New York and Scranton. And maybe even this blog, highly redundant as it is in the grander scheme of things, requires courage – “Who’s the audience?” – as do all blogs uploaded with good and generous intension. And as do all young persons laboring at their dreams.

Donald Duck is always throwing himself into far-fetched but alluring schemes that lead to grave consequences he never learns anything from. Rage and frustration shadow him everywhere. And it makes us laugh; because we recognize his dilemma, of course, but also I think because we aspire to be otherwise. He’s just a duck. We hope, at least, to behave as something more evolved than that.

I’m living in Italy now. It’s taken me, at a minimum, two years to maneuver myself into this reality, an urge and a dream I’ve had since I was charmed by my Italian neighbor’s seventieth birthday party when I was fifteen. Rage and frustration shadowed my many attempts at convincing myself that I could never find a way to live here. And, lo, I am here and nothing in my circumstances these days seems to depend on my having an audience! If that’s true, I’d like to think it the gratefully accepted wages from a life of Quixotic courage.

I live here because life is love, love is all, and I do not miss the inner Donald (Duck.) And because this hard-working city clings to a communal dream that I find glorious and worthy of my unembarrassed support.

Quack? No. “Salve, Gianluca! Cerco un libro. Può aiutarmi?”

 

The technological terrorist for anyone attempting to learn a new language is the telephone. At least it is for me. There are no facial expressions to aid understanding, no gestures, no body language. On the phone it is even that much more difficult and embarrassing (for me) to ask for the frequent repetitions I almost always need – at a slower rate and, ideally, in a less exotic accent – when you can’t look someone pathetically in the eye and plead old age, ignorance, or fatigue.

But when you are anticipating a scheduled delivery, there is no choice; the phone must be answered.

As I write this, I’m anticipating a delivery. I received a call from the courier about an hour ago. He said they would arrive around 3:30. That seemed reasonable in the moment. Of course, the delivery was appointed for 14:00 and the fellow who called was adjusting it to 15:30, but he didn’t say it that way, he said “three-thirty.” This created some confusion in my brain and I sat for forty minutes worrying about how he could arrive at 14:30 as it was already 14:30 when he called. Somehow I had not converted his “three-thirty” correctly into 24 hour time. Or something. Anyway, my mind was in a disturbed state. For a long time. Over nothing.

It takes a lot of guts to be relating this, I hope you appreciate that.

He will arrive exactly when he said he would at 3:30, of course, but I didn’t realize my error until 3:10, about five minutes ago. This allowed me to waste an otherwise perfectly good forty minutes fretting that I had somehow offended him, and that his last bit of conversation, which I believed to have meant “tell you what, we’ll see how navigable the street is when we get there,” was actually “tell you what, your damn street is too damn narrow, why don’t you just come and pick the damn stuff up yourself.”

I had committed the usually dreadful error of trying to make conversation. (I sometimes say stuff just to demonstrate that I can speak the language, at least after a fashion.) I energetically approved of his estimated arrival time, then offered a friendly warning that the street may be too narrow to come all the way to my house. This led to responses I did not understand, which led to my further attempts at urbanity. Which never work. They only confuse everyone involved. I finally said, after several what sounded to be urgent questions about street width versus truck width, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that last bit, at all.” That lead to his closing suggestion. Which I would have simply taken to be what it sounded to be; “lets not talk on the phone about something we need to be on site to know,” as I just mentioned. But when I answered “Grazie, bene, perfetto!” and that was followed by silence, a blip, a beep, and a click, it caused me to wonder how well I had interpreted his closing remark, and that rapidly morphed into speculations on cancelled delivery.

I conveniently forgot how unreliable voice service is alla mia casa.

Now, I sit. Seven minutes to arrival. Jiggling my leg. I also want to ask the couriers if they will, for a tip of course, move the divan on the upper floor down the outside steps to the lower. I hope they’re nice, jolly types, who have had a good day. I imagine outrage and disgust at my imperialistic American attitude, annoyance at my outdoor furniture which could be construed to be in their way, and incredulity at my taste in divans.

The other day I took the funicular down to Scalo and walked to the CIA, a housewares and clothing store, to buy sheets. The label for the pillowcases said “2 Capi,” and WordReference on my phone had nothing to add regarding what that meant. So, when I arrived at the checkout counter, I asked. The woman there spoke such clear, lilting Italian I wanted to ask her to dance. She didn’t dumb down or slow up, and I understood every word as she offered (and I giddily accepted) a CIA discount card good also for online shopping and gas. She then rifled through the five or six boxes of paper, each with many layers of forms and documents, that were cluttering the area an American would call the “bagging counter.” Her search continued as she described the marvels of the card I was about to receive. She filled out a form, conducted another search for an unassigned card, and pasted on a sticker that made it even more valuable. The card issuing accomplished, she proceeded to explain the packaging philosophy for bedding.

I intend to go back to CIA just for the experience of understanding what someone is saying to me. Remember this and speak clearly to immigrants. We’re all more or less the same.

Speaking of immigration, this past Monday I had my second visit with Alessandro the Intervenor for Immigrants, a title that makes him sound kind of like a saint, which he kind of is. At the previous meeting we had, he started in English and implied all the way through that my Italian had not progressed past ordering gelato. Then once we had finished business, he turned to me and said, in Italian “So, how was your summer?” I blinked. The sudden transition to Italian and personal threw me. He repeated the question in English. In Italian, I told him about the house, how all the wood surfaces had collected mildew and had to be washed, that the garden was weedy, but that working with one’s hands was satisfying. That wasn’t really my summer, that was my previous week, but at the moment it seemed, more or less, to be my summer. Alessandro cleared his throat and we bid farewell.

This time in, we started in Italian and stayed there. No more mention of Google translator for when I had to compose a document. Huzzah. I think my knowing the word for mildew may have turned the tide. Orvietani respect anyone who knows about mildew.

* * *

The delivery guys were just here. The main guy called again, and I managed to understand that I was to meet them in the piazza across from the carabinieri, so I did so and at a pace. They’re Romanian, which explains the accent. The older guy (about forty) speaks English, too. He’s smart, overworked, tired of it, but the consummate professional. In two trips they brought the furniture to my house with a hand truck, ingeniously and skillfully loaded, and delivered everything to place. They hauled away most of the really huge packing material. I was so grateful. All that cardboard needs to be fastidiously folded, taped, and stored for a week until paper day in the recycling calendar comes along, so having it off my hands is a huge gift. They moved the divan into place downstairs with the nimbleness and pride of veterans, saying nothing, negative or positive, of its shape or color. I gave them €20 for their trouble. They deserve that and more, but I fear seeming over-generous.

Now that they’ve left — as I survey the not unattractive but clearly not high-end furniture that was implied by the photographs — and begin to remove the protective layers, I have a sudden urge to thank those Romanian guys one more time. The technological terrorist turns friend; I send a text.

It is terribly important these days (or maybe any days) to recognize gratitude when it arises, and even more important to express it. To seek to be honest, fearless, generous, grateful, and kind is not just a matter of courtesy or good form, anymore, it’s about the survival of the species.

A voice called from beyond. Beyond what, I wasn’t sure. “Sopra o sotto?” I asked. “Al cancello.” it replied. The voice belonged to Andrea. I thought maybe it was my neighbor Renzo. At this point, all Italians sound the same.

I had switched off the ringer to my phone as I always do when I go out with it in my pocket, and had forgotten to turn it back on – which is also what I always do so I’m not sure it qualifies as a thing I forget. Andrea had already called, emailed, and texted. There was a dinner in Centeno, near Procena, he was invited and his wife Natsuko didn’t want to go. Did I? Oh, and by the way, would I drive?

Andrea owns a car, a 1998 Alfa-Romeo, but somewhere along the way I guess he decided he wasn’t a driver, so when travel by car is necessary, Natsuko usually takes him there. When she’s not up to it, or is simply not in the mood, Andrea must forsooth, stay home. Lucky for him, an American without a car who does drive (however reluctantly) lives ten minutes walk away and is usually eager to experience whatever. So, I said “Sure, let me get my driver’s permit.”

To be honest, I jumped up like I’d been given an electric shock. I was thrilled. Not just by the prospect of dinner in Centeno, but by a friend having dropped by and yelled over my gate. It was so, like, I live here. So Italian. I brought Andrea a glass of water, ran upstairs to put on real shoes, grabbed an old vest made of a kind of silky fabric colored with gold and brown, we rushed to Andrea’s parking place in the yard behind the palazzo he where lives, and off we went to the far reaches of the Lazian countryside.

We took the “short” way out of town. That means lurching into the twists and turns and extremely narrow streets of the Quartiere di Serancia, following a torturous path that seems to go on forever only to arrive maybe twenty meters from where we began so we can turn onto a lane too narrow for one car let alone the two-way traffic it carries, then swerving through Porta Romana (which is even narrower) timing our transit so as to miss the oncoming vehicle by seconds. A few more such maneuvers brought us to Sferracavallo below the city, and onto dark, curvy roads that either aren’t banked at all or are banked in the wrong direction, with cars appearing behind us at unreasonable speeds, then passing on improbable curves. I understood why Natsuko had opted out of the trip.

Another forty minutes or so brought us suddenly to the gates of Centeno. The gate, singular, I should say. Invisible in the dark are four metal posts connected with chains on either side of a gap barely wide enough for an especially narrow Fiat. Andrea pointed them out just as I was about to plough into one but with enough time for us to slow down and squeeze through the middle. “Park anywhere,” he instructed. I did. And as quickly as possible.

I had been invited to one of Piero Ortusi’s dinners last May. He is sort of the caretaker of Centeno. Historically, the tiny town was a customs check between the Papal States and Toscano. The name is said to be derived from its location at 100 kilometers from Rome on the Via Cassia, the ancient way north. I suspect this story for several reasons, the least being that kilometers didn’t come into use in Italy until after Napoleon, but it’s a pleasant justification for calling it Centeno and is likely based somehow in fact. The town also served both as a way-station and a quarantine, protecting Firenze and Siena from the vulgarities and insalubrious habits of Rome.

At some point in the past 20 years or so, a significant part of the town was repurposed as an artists’ retreat. There are private rooms, dormitories, a dining hall or two, studios for painters, dancers, and musicians. Piero has a house and studio of his own. He’s a quiet man who wastes neither words nor gestures. His puckish humor bubbles continually behind his observant eyes. He was a stage designer for years at the amphitheater in Verona. Now he sculpts.

I greeted everyone, and as I came around to Piero he fingered the fabric on my vest. “Nice colors, good pattern. I’d keep that on, if I were you.” and he winked without winking.

This dinner, as the one in May, was about plumbing the imaginations of Piero’s artistic friends regards an annual festa he wants to inaugurate in Centeno next summer. It’s a wonderful group of people. Smart, talented, funny, insightful; they are puppet makers, performers, arts administrators, ecologists, and writers. The dinner was potluck, but Piero hosted as if he were the keeper of a venerable inn. We dined in one of the halls, the doors open wide to the night, bread toasting over a fire (regardless of the day’s heat), moths of every size and color coming and going along with the dogs and children. No one is ever distracted by the traffic of creatures. The food is always various and wonderful, and appears in sudden bursts out of nowhere. No one waits for the Queen to dip her fork into the frittata. Everyone pours and scoops and passes without ceremony.

There was a woman of about forty there last night who I had not met previously. She has a lovely relaxed way about her, was dressed even more casually than the others. Her hair, piled and tied improvisationally about her head, manages to look elegant. She speaks well and with kindness, but for the first half hour I had no idea what the subject was, only catching bits and pieces and nothing that would make a whole. Others held forth in turn. It was a polite and committed exchange of views. The speaker would continue for a goodly time, someone else would pick up the argument, and everyone else would listen. Claudio, the fellow sitting to my right, said nothing for so long I imagined he wasn’t much of a talker, then it was spontaneously his turn and he proved me wrong.

Eventually, someone asked if I was able to follow the conversation. I hazarded a very inaccurate guess. They explained that the area around Acquapendente has accepted eighty-some refugees from North Africa. The discussion was about the treatment the refugees were receiving, the need to educate their children, the difficulty of employing them, and generally how they will be absorbed into local society. I thought about the walls and taco trucks that seem to define discussions like these in the States, and fell into deep wonder. The conversation broke quite naturally into pairs and trios all talking at once, there was a crescendo, a finale, and the room fell quiet.

More food arrived from somewhere, the woman with the pile of hair took out a notepad, and the discussion turned to the festa. Many proposals and ideas were put forth, always in the same deliberate manner as in the discussion about refugees. Notes were taken by several at the table. After each proposal or question, the woman with the hair would take the lead into the next phase. Piero spoke rarely until it was time to conclude, then he gave a settled description of the pieces he imagined would constitute Centeno’s festa.

I leaned over to Andrea and confessed that the hour was making me tired, and as I had to face the twists and darkness that lay between us and Orvieto, we had best contemplate an exit. He nodded and concluded his piece with a comic oration. He stood, explained my need to bring him home alive, everyone followed suit, and goodbyes were exchanged. Piero again fingered the fabric of my vest, lifted his eyebrows and made it clear that I would don that garment in his presence again only in peril of losing it to a more appreciative wearer. He winked – again without winking.

Back in the car Andrea quizzed me on the second round of discussion. I had been able to follow it a tiny bit better. “She’s the major, you know.” Who? What? “Il sindaco di Proceno.” Who? “The woman you hadn’t met before.” Oh! The mayor. “Si. Sorry. The mayor. Centeno is part of the comunale of Proceno.” Wow. “Yes, good to have her here.” Nice to have seen this idea develop in its various stages. “Oh, there will be more dinners like this one.” Good. Good. That’ll be good.

The road back was exactly the same, of course, but so much easier to drive.

The expandable garden hose is the best idea of the century. Except when it isn’t.

I neither credit nor blame Italy for its design. It’s made in China. I bought both sections of hose at the local ferramenta (hardware store; a godsend for anyone with a new house and garden who doesn’t have a car) but neither do I hold responsible the brothers who own the store, nor the Egyptian fellow they reputedly bought it, and its inventory, from. The hose is a good idea – with interesting surprises.

The hose at rest – that is, when not filled with water – is about two meters long, green, and shriveled. Turn the water on, it fills behind the pistol-head-sprayer thing, extends to about seven meters, and becomes smooth and hard. It remains green. Not the color, but the engineering can’t help but remind one of a penis. And why not base a garden hose on a popular feature of anatomy? It’s a model that has satisfied its purpose for millennia. But being of human design, the hose has attributes not shared by the male member.

The inside of the hose is a blue rubber tube, very stretchy. The blue tube is sheathed in a fabric sleeve that holds its shape as it fills and grows in length. You may wonder how I know so much about how the thing works. You learn these things when you’ve paid for something that breaks with a regularity that is, at least at first, inexplicable.

The first time the hose broke it was apparently my fault. I had only one section at that point, and it didn’t quite reach to the extremity of the garden where sits the thirsty camellia. So, I gave it what I thought was a gentle tug. The hose came apart right at the plastic slip lock that connects it to the faucet. The releasing pressure caused the hose to slither like an angry snake, and it sprayed me down as I danced about in panic.

I took the hose to the ferramenta. There, Rafael patiently slipped the green fabric a centimeter at a time over the blue tube until the tube was again visible. Then he stretched the tube-end over the nozzle that is meant to hold it in place, secured a clamp sort of thing over the join, and told me to move as much fabric as possible through the collar that screwed the pieces together because he was tired of fiddling with it.

I did what he suggested but didn’t quite understand that last part about fabric and collar, so as soon as I turned the water on, it sprayed me down again. That was May 11^th. I flew away on the 12^th and left the hose hanging at the garden wall.

When I returned a couple of weeks ago, feeling in a jetlagged and mellow mood, I looked at the forlorn wrinkled green hose and was moved to determine what I’d done wrong. In the heightened receptivity that jetlag can sometimes induce, Rafael’s instructions to move fabric towards the connector suddenly made sense, so I reproduced his patient feeding of blue through green, worked the fabric into the screw-on collar, and tightened it as securely as I could. It worked brilliantly – for about a minute. I’d not been rigorous enough in feeding green fabric but in principle the approach was correct. Soaked through and through, I commenced another half-hour of tedious scooching at twilight.

In 1972, I visited my first cousin once removed who was named, as was my father, Pete Zarko. He lived in the mountains outside a town called Ravno in Herzegovina. Ravno means “flat” in Croatian. Naming the town in that way was surely someone’s idea of a joke. Petar’s village, named Gaic (which means “actor”) lies five kilometers outside of Ravno. So mountainous and rocky is the terrain around both towns that the last four of those kilometers could not form into a trail or road, you just had to know where you were going. Fortunately, another cousin was guiding me.

Anyway, this remarkable man called Petar had lived in California’s Santa Clara Valley from 1909 to 1929. When I met him, he still spoke the English of that time, filled with colorful swear words, similes, and metaphors. It was summer, so his wife cooked everything (and baked bread) over an open fire pit in a “summer kitchen,” basically a shed attached to the main house. In short, life in Gaic only peripherally referenced the latter 20^th century.

One day, it was time to cut the hay. To cut hay Petar had to sharpen his scythe. He did this by hammering on the blade’s edge as it lay against a specially-shaped stone. About mid-way through, the hammer handle broke. Without missing a beat, and with no use of this vintage English cuss words, he moved to the wood pile where he identified the best candidate for a new handle, worked it with a knife until the end fit the hole in the hammer head, and pounded in two iron wedges (with a rock he used specially for this job) to hold the head in place. By then, it was past twilight, and he didn’t feel he could finish sharpening the scythe. Next morning after waking at four so he could take the cow three kilometers up steep inclines to pasture (he was 83 at the time) he finished sharpening and cut the hay.

To this 23 year-old who was always trying to prove he could do the next thing on his list more quickly than anyone would have any reason to wish for – and with as much patience as a hog in heat – watching all this was to witness a miracle.

So, I sat on the top step leading up to my garden on Via delle Pertiche Prima, took the green fabric cover, and one centimeter at a time, advanced the blue tube inside it for about a meter until it shone a-glistening and ready to stretch over the plastic connector. The hose was tested and it worked well for a day or two.

But I had still not tucked the fabric in tightly enough. I saw it with my own eyes. The green fabric pulled loose while the blue tube grew a huge bubble that burst into a spray of water, most of it ending up on me. The engineering of this thing was becoming clearer.

So, taking a cue from cousin Petar, I sat down again, and coaxed the tube through what this time was a meter and a half of green fabric, and when it came to tucking, I tucked in earnest.

What I didn’t do was to trim the green fabric sleeve. Because the blue tube had burst, it was now 20 centimeters shorter, and as the system is calibrated to maintain a balance in tension between tube and sleeve, that there was extra room inside the green casing meant the blue tube expanded past what it was designed to tolerate. So later that day as I was using the hose – and glowing with pride at how well I had repaired it – water suddenly stopped flowing. Blif. Nothing. Then it started leaking, everywhere, and mostly onto me.

I felt the hose near the connector. The tube had not slipped loose, it was still attached. I felt along the green fabric a little further; nothing inside. Nothing for two meters, this time. The blue tube had broken neatly off at about 30 centimeters. Back to scooching.

In the end, I must admit that even after forty-some years I have not achieved the patience of cousin Petar. After having scooched for a meter, just to look at the remaining meter made my fingers sore. I employed scissors. I trimmed the fabric. And the blue tube – but not as much as the sleeve. Now there is too much blue tube proportionate to the green sleeve (waiting for that, were ya?) but I am willing to risk that too much blue is better than too little. The beast twists into grotesque gnarls as it fills up, but I think it unlikely to burst.

Still, the compromise is a blow to my pride. That I might continue to imagine myself spiritually advanced, I pretend to believe that one day Petar’s hammer handle broke again, at which he growled, let loose a string of vintage expletives long ago smuggled in from California, and sent a neighbor down to the hardware store in Ravno to fetch a new hammer. But I strongly suspect he actually carved a replacement while humming a centuries-old folk tune.

Two weeks later, the hose is still working. And if it bursts again, you won’t hear about it from me.

I knew it would be different this time. The seven months between fall of 2015 and spring of 2016 were filled with amazement, novelty, discoveries as small as an unnoticed alley or a spring bloom. It was a time for falling in love with a town while remaining apart from it. I was fond of the handle I had given myself; The Outsider. It was accurate and let me off the hook at the same time.

My cousin Gail, who I had lunch with in California after a thirty-five year, unintentional gap, listened to my stories about street life in Orvieto and, as an only-child herself, said it was not unusual among us almost to prefer a solitary observation of communal life to being an actual part of it. She called it “parallel play.” I have since discovered the term refers to a stage of childhood development where two or more children will play next to each other without involving the other. Still, her observation struck a chord. It’s time this toddler evolved to “group play” outside of a theatrical milieu, regardless of how awkward the language skills or how abiding his ignorance of the cultural code.

When you rent property in Italy, you either purchase whatever is inside from the previous tenant or let it go. Letting it go often means that when you take residence, the house is empty of everything including the kitchen sink. In my case, the kitchen stayed and all but three of the lighting fixtures went away, none of those that remained very usefully positioned. I had occasion to buy a table lamp in May which sits on the mantel, its little cord straining to reach the nearest outlet, but that’s it so far. I’m slowly collecting wall and ceiling fixtures and have contacted a electrical fellow from York to install them. In time there will be light, but at this moment night life involves a lot of careful treading.

Before I left for the States in May, I also bought myself a bed. And a elegantly comfortable sofa that is made of dense foam that will fold onto the floor to make a guest bed. And a lovely antique walnut table and six chairs. And a set of two plastic-wicker armchairs with matching settee and coffee table for outside. And an large umbrella that hangs from an arm to put them under. Writing this, it seems like a good list. But I can tell you this; to be home one needs drawers and shelves.

For example, I have a small, oddly shaped, bedroom, and what Americans think of as closets are practically non-existent in these old buildings. I spent hours measuring and searching online for a wardrobe that makes any sense at all in such a restricted space. I found several narrow ones, all a bit too deep, and by the time I managed to fit the imaginary thing in place, there was never any room left to imagine crawling into bed. Clothes have therefore been laying around in lackadaisically random piles. Between trying to locate what I would wear on a given day, and the unobstructed lines of sight from bedroom window to across-the-street neighbors, getting dressed in the morning has been a circus act.

Then I found the armadio of my dreams; a frame of steel tubes pops together via nylon joints, fabric stretches to form shelves between the tubes, a canvas cover encompasses all, and it zips shut should I wish to enter storage mode. The thing assembled in about two hours, and enjoyably, too. It looks fresh and cool and young, and I lay this morning gazing lovingly when I should have been planning my new act. There’s a small chest of drawers of similar design that serves as a bedstead, and my clothes now all have predictable places to hang out, as it were. (The sight lines issue was later resolved when I rediscovered what shutters are for.)

Today I finished planting the garden. I’ve become rather knowledgable about shade gardens in the last three or four years, and that experience paid off gratifyingly in this one’s rapid development. Now it’s just the four “W’s”: water, weed, watch, and wait. (Oh, and “wonder” but that’s subjective; a personal choice.)

Also today, were delivered two small rugs I had ordered and an armadietto, a chest of three drawers for beside the upper bathroom sink. One of the rugs is brightly colored, Jackson Pollock-esque-ish, and makes a happy statement in front of the fireplace. The other I got because it reminded me of the handsome Afghan that lies languid and lush before the fireplace in the library of the apartment in Scranton. The Pollock was love at first sight and we are totally right for one another. The nostalgic Afghan? Well, best not revisit attractive infatuations from the past. The new Afghan is not ugly, it’s okay, but it’s red, and conventional, and I don’t like it. It doesn’t capture the magnificence of the Afghan left behind. At all. I will give it to the first person I know is looking for a rug. It was cheap.

I saw an armadietto, similar to the one delivered, at the housewares shop on Piazza Vivaria yesterday – for ten euro more. I was so proud of my razor-sharp acumen in hunting bargains – saved ten euro and free shipping to my door! What wisdom and foresight, how resourceful. What I didn’t factor was that the one at the store came assembled. The one that arrived at my door was in a box. A thing I have encountered with unwavering consistency over the past twenty years of putting together things that come in a box; the little holes that guide the screws that hold the tracks that guide the drawers are never deep enough. So, the screws don’t go in all the way, the tracks wobble, and the drawers don’t glide, they stumble. I’ll borrow a friend’s power drill, take much of the thing apart, and correct this, but the experience was not, shall we say, joyous.

Joyous or not, these simple adventures root me to this bit of land on Via delle Pertiche Prima in Orvieto. The hassles and decisions, right or wrong, the voices and clicks from the palazzi around me, the voluntary violets, the shop just around the corner that serves delicious falafel sandwiches for about four dollars – that I am gradually furnishing a modest house and carefully planting a garden, this is not parallel play. It’s frequent visits to the ferramenta for tools and screws and brackets. It’s discussions at the market with the nursery guy about what plant needs what care. The lovely women at Ubaldini elettrodomestiche are beginning to treat me like a local. Someday I’ll invite friends over for drinks. I’m looking at incipient group play mode, here, without it being a rehearsal or class – or any other situation where I pretend to be in charge – and it’s pretty exciting.

There has been progress in other ways, too. The several deliveries of the past week shared a sort of unity in that they all arrived at the very moment I needed, for whatever reason, to take off my clothes. I can’t figure out the buzzer/intercom system, always fumble it, drop the handset, and ring open the gate by accident. So, I have had occasion to introduce myself to the delivery team in various degrees of deshabille. Two days ago, I was able to greet them in swim trunks, a dirty tee-shirt, work boots, and black styrofoam knee pads; my best garden attire but for the first time pretty well covered up. I think they were surprised. Maybe even proud. Certainly relieved.

Yesterday my wonderful neighbor, Renzo, rang as I was upstairs (what else?) getting dressed. I opened the window and shouted “Vengo subito!”

Oh.

Screw the intercom and the rushing around to satisfy a buzzer – all that Pavlovian-American behavior. Open the window and yell. I’ll learn this Italian thing, yet.