Month: July 2020

Fourth of July, all things American, Giancarlo brought me lunch; pasta, salad, bread, a sweet. Then he reached into his bag and pulled out a small foil-wrapped loaf.

“Do you know this stuff?”

“Philadelphia Cream Cheese? Of course I know it. It’s been clogging arteries since I was a kid! Very American.”

“Exactly.”

Brief pause. “Oh!”

“Happy July four!”

When I was a kid, my aunt loved amazing us with her No-Egg Wonder Cake. It was chocolate, and gooey, and scrumptious, and she iced it with sweetened Philadelphia Cream Cheese. That icing established the cheesy substance among my special favorites – though I rarely eat it in any form. My aunt’s recipe, by the way, used vinegar and baking soda as leavening. I was of an age when I was just discovering the marvels of vinegar and baking soda bombs, so the cake had added appeal.

Elia gets a kick out of explaining to everyone how my American accent is teaching him English. I don’t quite follow, but the idea delights him, so who am I to question? We are as much a novelty to our Italian friends, as they are to us. And Elia is Moldovan, so double that.

A few American part-time residents with solid immigration credentials – such as permanent residence or EU passports – have found their ways back. Some go into quarantine, some do not, depending I guess on where they come from and when. I don’t know, it’s very confusing. Some I had a chance to see before I entered personal lockdown because of my tendon. Others have stopped by to see the creature himself, braving the heat of the day. Still others, I have heard of their arrivals, but have not seen. I assume they are soaked in jet lag or the usual amazement of being here. 

Being here these days can involve quite a back story. One couple I’ve yet not seen, but heard from, wrote of a flight that included four stops, cancellations, delays, and missed connections over a three-day span. Others got on Alitalia at Kennedy, and disembarked more or less on schedule in Rome. These days, even uncertainty is uncertain.

One thing we Americans abroad all share; a deep gratitude for the luxury of a home in, or around, Orvieto. We talk about the town among ourselves, Americans and expats of other extraction alike, because we cannot cease but to marvel at our being a part of it.

“Do you like Orvieto?” Annette, a German physiotherapist asked me yesterday while teaching me a series of limbering and opening exercises.

“I love it. Do you know the film, King of Hearts?”

“Oh, yes. Lovely.”

“Orvieto reminds me a bit of that. Everyone is just a little bit crazy. And because we all are, we let each other play out our characters with a bemused affection. The really serious people can’t bear the inconveniences of living on a medieval street plan, and have left for more rational lifestyles. Those of us who remain embrace the loopiness, the scramble, and the beauty it creates.”

Or at least that’s my take. Actually, I only got as far as “bemused affection” with Annette present, the rest is what I would like to have said were I not being told to breathe.

The municipal building here (municipio) was designed by Orvieto’s preeminent renaissance architect, Ipolito Scalza. It is a series of arches topped by a porch, very stately and harmonious. Then one arch and a half beyond what was obviously designed as the central arch – replete with extra columns and more thickly embellish with decoration – the building suddenly ends. The government ran out of funds for the project in 1585. I’m sure there are good reasons for the project’s never having been taken up again in 435 years; lack of political stature, land rights, the Papal States. I am also sure that almost every American who passes and notices the incompleteness is driven just a little mad by it. In America, we finish what we start! Or at least, so we like to believe.

On more than on occasion, I have caught myself dreaming idly as I pass that I’d won a lottery (that I never play) and offer a stunned mayor money enough for Scalza’s vision to be realized, thereby setting off a series of political intrigues and machinations that eat up another 400 years, the end of which witnesses the filling in of the half arch that now marks the building’s western limit. 

And that is why we like it here.

Happy July four! Even if a week or so late.

Three years and several months ago, my friend Ron in Williamsburg, Virginia saw a list of plays I had written to that point and became curious.

“Do you have one you’d like a staged reading of?” he wrote.

“Try Risotto,” I suggested.

He read it, thought it worthy. We agreed that our mutual friend Mary, who I first met at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco forty years ago, would be perfect for the lead, and Ron had ideas for the other two roles. Then logistics and reality intervened and nothing came of it. 

That summer I was in New York, and my friend Rosina, who had read the play and liked it, organized a public reading with herself in the lead. It was very helpful, and she read wonderfully. I also decided that I wanted nothing more to do with public readings of a script that was still raw.

I worked on the play during the following few months, then put it away until last November when I suddenly realized what was needed to take it over the top. I picked away at it from time to time until February, then the world stopped and so did I.

Then somehow, the project surfaced again in the Age of Zoom. Ron was interested, Mary was available, I had identified Kenny as well-suited for the male lead, and Ron knew of a good fit for the third role, a fellow Williamsburger named Ed. What’s more, our friend Travis knew Zoom, and opted to host.

I will sound like a fatuous old fool of a playwright, because that’s who I am, but I sat by the window in my bedroom in Orvieto and watched five friends, three in Virginia, one in New York, and one in St. Pete’s, and was amazed. Amazed by the fact it was happening at all, by the seamlessness of the program, by how connected and committed were the actors – by how well the play seems to work.

“It reads well,” said Ron.

“It reads better on stage than on the page,” said Travis. (That is often said about my scripts. After years of hearing it, I’ve decided to take it as a compliment.)

“That was fun,” said Mary.

It wasn’t until after we’d signed off that I became wistful. I miss the rehearsal room, the generosity of actors, friends in theatre. 

“You asked what I see next for this play? To see it onstage with this cast, Ron directing, and Travis producing. There, I’ve said it,” I wrote in an email thanking them. I have a habit of seeing rep companies wherever I look, however impractical trying to make them happen may be.

That was yesterday. I’m still captivated, replaying the actors’ performances – and my emotional responses – in my mind. I have no right to be so satisfied. In rehearsal, the holes and lumps would reveal themselves, there is no doubt work to be done, but that’s okay. I want to do the work. But when will we meet again to dream together after house lights dim, even in Williamsburg? When can I travel? Who has money for such things?

This morning my physiotherapist, Katrin, came to my house to work on my foot. There are two small tears in the tendon. She explored, showed my neighbor Giancarlo how to apply hot compresses, called a few specialists she knows, described what is probably next.

This prompted a day-long discussion among several of my neighbors as to the best way of assuring that my foot would get the regular attention it needs. Much of the discussion arrived unannounced, thus me without my hearing aides. Making sense of what was being said, and why, was about as slow as my going down the stairs, but I eventually caught on, and a solution was proposed that I had been pondering on my own, as well. Elia, who cleans my yard and waters, who harvested the apricots and shared them with neighbors, who needs money and has no other obligations, Elia will be trained by Giancarlo in the mysteries of hot compresses. A schedule was set, and everyone went away satisfied. 

This evening, Erika and Alba explored an apartment available – ground floor, balcony, centrally located, needs work – and minutes later I had a video, photos and commentary. Another option is always a good thing.

As he left, Giancarlo made doubly certain that I had milk enough for breakfast tomorrow, and food enough for the rest of the day. Because of his largess, I still have full helpings of pasta fredda and wheat berry salad, two helpings of lasagna, three or four of green beans, plus a bag of garden tomatoes and cucumbers, a half round of cheese, prosciutto cotto, and three kinds of bread. {And Emilio is shopping for me tomorrow afternoon.}

“This is great, Giancarlo, I may never want to heal if you keep this up.”

“Okay, but don’t let us catch you walking!”

Risotto was inspired by Annie Musso, our Italian neighbor when I was growing up in Sunnyvale, California. She kept a quarter of an acre of garden and from it supplied everyone on the block with gorgeous organic produce from May to November (and certain things, all year long). We thought of her as phenomenally generous. She thought of herself as normal. Now I understand why.

I renamed this (hopefully short) series of posts “Sideshow” because I really don’t know what’s happening beyond my garden walls. My world has grown even smaller than it was during lockdown. A journey up or down stairs takes planning and forethought. A journey out for groceries seems (and actually is) impossible.

Fortunately, as I hope I’ve made abundantly clear, I’m blessed with wonderful friends and neighbors.

Giancarlo, my neighbor to the north, in addition to providing more food than I have time to eat, has been icing and spreading gel on my left calf and tendon for several days, now. That involves a kind of simple massage using an icepack, waiting until the area warms up, then laying down an impasto of gel. It’s enough time for a little conversation, and today I finally had the linguistic wherewithal to ask him a few basic questions, like – where’s your country house?

The answer is, in Bagnoregio where he was born and raised. He moved to Orvieto when he and Annalisa wed thirty years ago. He began his career as principal of a cooking school in 1978, first in Perugia, then in Terni, and starting twenty years ago, here in Orvieto at the Palazzo di Gusto at the old cloister of San Giovanni. He retired a year ago, and still keeps the family house, with a separate garden, in Bagnoregio.

I’ve been to a handful of events at the cloister and it is an evocative and gracious space. You enter from the piazza, then cross to a long reception-type room into a courtyard on several levels. It’s one of those spaces that calls out for more use. 

“Even ten years ago it was the site of many more gatherings, concerts, parties. There was a concert of medieval music there a few years ago, absolutely magical. Orvieto used to be so much more lively than it is.”

I’m told this often. The summer before last there were more than a dozen concerts a week from mid-July through August, you couldn’t get to them all. Last summer there was also a six-week long outdoor film series. Seemed pretty lively to me.

“No, much more than that, and more variety of everything.”

“What happened?”

“The spirit went away.”

Every time I hear this I think of the towns I’ve lived many times the size of Orvieto that would love to have the cultural life this town has – had (before March).

“And now the theatre is closed, and most things this summer have been cancelled… Will it ever be as vivacious as it once was? Who knows?”

That question, more than anything, motivates me to restore my health and improve my Italian.

“But you retired so recently, I didn’t realize.”

“Yes, but before lockdown I would go to the school several times a week, anyhow. When you love a place, you want to remain connected. But this year, enrollment was down, hard to say why. Even before the crisis.”

This morning Bobbie and Peter stopped by again to puzzle out the drip system that was dripping only in selected zones. Elia came over to wash the paved areas, so I switched him to harvesting apricots until the drips had been scrutinized. He picked four small buckets in various stages of ripening, and distributed sacks among the neighbors.

Peter found a blockage, repaired it, only to find evidence of another block further along. It was hot, and rain is promised late tonight, so we called off the project for now. In the meantime, Bobbie affirmed that the ultrasound used in yesterday’s echo/Doppler can have therapeutic properties, which may help explain why my pains were so quickly reduced.

Around noon, Maria wrote to ask if I needed anything. I sent her a short list, and she said she would deliver after closing, which is usually around 17:30. She appeared at four.

“Nobody coming in,” she said, trying not to be as disappointed as she really was. “Nothing sold.” We tried to make light of it, but didn’t do very well. I thought of reminding her again of my American friends who want to do mail order, but thought better of it. She likes the idea, but the spirit wasn’t there just at that moment.

I had planned to meet with Rachel at six to discuss her maybe managing my move – whenever that is to wherever it might be – whatever that means. She called at five.

“My car wouldn’t start. The garage says they might have it fixed by seven or eight. Argh! I hate cars!”

My mother used to write letters like this. Who came over, who said what. I cherished them. They were like snapshots – no real composition, nothing of note, just a few hours caught by words and sent across the miles with fondness and a simple love of life.

I hobbled to the little piazza with the trees to meet Claudia at 11:20. It’s a short walk, but I left at 11:08 to be sure I’d get there. Walking was less painful this morning, and I arrived in good time. We were going to Todi.

There’s a ghost town in California named Bodie. For reasons forgotten, I grew fascinated with the place when I was about ten, so on a trip to Yosemite my parents took a side trip so I could say I’d been there. The town’s slogan, as it were, was “Goodbye, God, I’m going to Bodie”. 

Todi is not like that. But the road to Todi from Orvieto could draw comparisons, however slight. The road to Bodie was unpaved and seemed about 500 miles long. My father the mechanic cringed the whole way. And it went through the most desolate countryside imaginable. The road to Todi is 22 well-paved kilometers, goes past a beautiful lake through lush forests and stunning cliffs. And is clogged with the traffic of enormous trucks and busses. One feels on the edge of entering paradise at every other curve. Okay, every curve. So maybe the slogan is “Hello, God, I’m going to Todi”.

But I digress.

We went to Todi as the result of heroic efforts on Claudia’s part to secure an appointment for an echo/Doppler exam that was close enough not to devour the entire day. What she went through seemed to have devoured much of yesterday what with calling, waiting for the appointed hour, receiving calls from offices contacted that morning to tell her that had she called again, a morning appointment would have been available in Orvieto, and checking in with Dr. Gazzurra to report on progress. Claudia is a nourisher, and she gives her everything to whatever she chooses to care for, including a host of lost or ailing animals. And friends. Like me.

The actual exam took less than twenty minutes, but probably due to viral-related protocols, we had to arrive 45 minutes early to be allowed access to a series of waiting areas that led to the inner studio. We began outside. Then when two chairs seemed to empty, we asked the couple remaining if we could enter.

“Certo,” the woman said. We complained about wearing masks in hot weather. The inner door opened and names were called, mine among them. We exchanged goodbyes with the couple as if we’d just been to a wonderful concert together. I wanted to hug them, but restrained myself.

The woman in charge of leading us through the series of waiting areas is a cheerful, energetic, kind, attentive person in her fifties (guessing) with hair dyed Italian red, a color almost obligatory for any woman who doesn’t want to wash grey hair in the morning… at least not her own. I cannot describe nor explain how pleasant it was just to be in her presence. No one could have been better chosen for her job, and every medical facility in the world should have someone like her in residence.

I took advantage of the flat floor to pace. Also, to avoid the first few painful steps after sitting. 

Right on time, we were let into a small office staffed by a male physician and his young female assistant. 

“You begin with me, then he finishes up,” she said. “Shoes and trousers off, please.” Then she directed me to a small set of steps, impossibly narrow and uncomfortably steep for the state of my left leg and foot. With both of us participating in the maneuver, the table was successfully reached, and the exam begun.

I’m glad they’ve training. What showed on the screen was such a jumble of grey globs that I wanted to laugh. I restrained myself, not wanting to cause need for explanation. 

They tested everything.

“I leave no stone unturned,” he said.

After questions about pain, lots of grey globs, and pointing often to the screen and muttering, it was affirmed that there were no clots anywhere. Good news. By then, I’d grown so fond of this duo, I wanted to invite them or lunch. Again, I restrained myself.

We stopped in the tiny village at the bottom of the hill leading up to centro storico for sandwiches. Not much was on offer, so we settled for lettuce and tomato between lightly toasted bread. They were somehow utterly delicious.

On the way home, Claudia’s eldest son Tobia called. The small cat that Claudia had been trying to nurse back to health, had died. She wasn’t surprised, but there was a silence as she wiped away her tears.

What we nourish, we grow to love.