Author: dallanz

Every two weeks, I change sheets. On weeks off, I wash towels. I have each event entered into my calendar so I don’t forget which is due, when, because often Wednesday comes around and I can’t believe only two weeks have passed since the last iteration of this domestic ceremony. I jumped ahead by a day on the sheets, this week. I’ll launder them overnight because tomorrow promises to be a good day for hanging wash in the yard to dry. (In cold weather, sheets festoon railings and racks indoors.)

I look forward to changing sheets exactly as much as I would wrestling an alligator. Or to put it another way, I’ve never wrestled an alligator, but imagine that I would view it at about the same level of enjoyment as changing sheets. I’ve analyzed it, and believe my attitude derives from the fact that the room is small, everything that has to be tucked at the foot of the bed is either way too long or too short, and those facts together conspire to cause me to trip on disheveled bedding on every circuit. Plus, to get the corners of the bottom sheet to fit snugly requires lifting the corresponding corner of the mattress and hoisting it onto my bent knee, not a terribly difficult maneuver, but annoying enough to bolster the alligator metaphor. 

The reward for all of this comes at midnight when I slide between air-dried sheets. The crispness of the fabric is a delight. Tomorrow’s batch of sun-dried sheets will be even better. The crispness is of a quality all its own when sheets have been set outdoors on the line.

The experience takes me back to childhood in an instant; to before I went off to college, when my mother would enlist my summer mornings to pin up laundry on the rotating clothesline in the extreme back of our back yard. During the school year she would mysteriously shift laundry day to Saturdays, and all credit to her, I never figured it out until I came home after my first year at the University of Arizona to find the clothesline apparatus dismantled and a brand new electric drier on the back porch. I loved hanging laundry. I guess that wasn’t a genetically inherited trait.

Today, while putting the clean bedclothes in place, I could not believe that it had been two weeks since I and the alligator had engaged. It seemed like the day before yesterday. How can a stretch of the sameness-of-days make an event seem more recent than it is? I would think that a day of such distinction would stand alone, remote as a holy mountain on a vast plain. But no, sheet-changing days pile up like books on a shelf during a mild earthquake.

The same temporal distortion may explain why I lose track of my last shopping day. My mind captures the textured bits and squeezes them all together against the blandness of the days between. Is this how factory workers gauge time? My professional schedule was always variable, even random, from month to month. Perhaps my confusion is that of a fortunate few, of one who has never been subjected to years without significant variation of task.

One thing I can usually keep track of is soup. If not the day each was made, I can describe the order of types, and details about the making. Whenever it was I last shopped, I recall standing at the fruttavendola’s door and authoritatively listing product, size, and number as she collected the items with her gloved hand newly sanitized by alcohol gel. What it all added up to was a mystery at the time. I’ve become used to making soup from what I happen to have on hand, I guess, and am quickly set in my ways.

Today, I began a chunky potato soup and ended up with a red bell pepper purée, more elegantly styled as a peperone vellutata in Italian. It’s devilishly good. After a late lunch I texted Renzo an offer of it for supper. He replied that Patrizia was making a vegetable minestrone. He’d be over within the hour for an exchange.

I love to cook, but grow a bit bored cooking for myself. It may be pure ego, or maybe it’s just a natural human need to share in our innate enjoyment of creation, but having someone else to revel in the mysteries of flavor and texture and nourishment makes a dish come alive. This morning’s soup tasted good when I had it for lunch. After I’d provided a container to my neighbors for supper, I snacked at the stove by dipping bread into the pot, and the flavor had bloomed spectacularly. Some of that is the natural ripening of soup, but I have a feeling that anticipating that friends would, in several hours, discover similar flavors at their own table as I was savoring over the pot, had a hand in improving its flavor, too. The wonders of the unseen.

Therefore, for your gustatory delight… Peperone Vellutata

• two large russet potatoes
• two medium large yellow onions
• one large red bell pepper
• six or eight leaves of fresh sage
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 liter vegetable broth
• 1 cube vegetable bouillon
• 100 ml heavy cream
• ¾ cup parmesano regiano, grated 
• fresh ground pepper

1. halve then rough slice the onions
2. place onions in half the oil, heated, stir
3. pour remaining oil over onions, stir, cover and heat 10-15 minutes over a low flame, stirring occasionally
4. wash and cube the potatoes
5. wash and rough slice the pepper
6. once the onions are soft, add potato, pepper, sage, broth, and bouillon – simmer for 20 minutes, covered
7. once potatoes and peppers are easily pierced with a fork, blend thoroughly using a stick blender
8. blend in the grated cheese
9. stir in the cream
10. pepper to taste and stir
11. let sit off flame for at least 10 minutes
12. serve warm (not hot)

Today is Pasquetta. This is traditionally a day, weather permitting, for picnics, or for dining at a friend’s country place under their pergola. At the very least, it is a day for eating out.

Oh, well.

My good friend Maria Gagliano and I say hello via WhatsApp chat almost every morning.

“Happy Pasquetta, Maria!”

“Likewise. The Pasquetta when everyone stayed home.”

Oh, well.

The weather was not perfect – a little overcast by mid-afternoon – but I celebrated by hanging laundry on the clothesline for the first time this year, and by sending a pot of tomato/rice soup over to Renzo and Patrizia. They thanked me like they had done nothing to deserve such kindness. Our bowls of gratitude seem to be overflowing in good form; plenty of noisy joy in this part of town.

Their daughter, Beatrice (who has a double doctorate, one from Melbourne, Australia) translated yesterday’s post for her parents. That made me happy. They went on Facebook and replied, liked, and exchanged niceties with anyone who referenced them personally. Our early balcony chat was about how much fun it was for them to connect with my friends and family half a world away. 

This is great, folks. Thank you for enabling that. It’s stuff like this we can spend our lockdown time and energy fostering. We can do more than simply “get through it.” We can come out the other end with honor for those who served, sadness for those we lost, and with glorious examples of how wonderful people can be to one another to remember in the future.

That will also help us “get through it.”

In the spirit of Pasquetta – to set a different tone – I invite you to share with us your stories of recent kindness, gratitude, and joy. If you read this on Facebook, comment. If not, email me privately, and I’ll post your comments for you. Write JOY in the subject line if you me send an email. (If you don’t have my address, send good thoughts.)

Now go have a virtual picnic, y’all!

A message arrived last night from Renzo.

“I’m making egg tagliatelle with an asparagus sauce for Easter lunch, and there will be some for you. Ok?”

I didn’t read it until this morning, so I wrote back, first thing.

“Okay! That will be a real Easter lunch! Thank you so much.”

My day had a center to it, thanks again to my wonderful neighbors. 

I went about my morning chores, meditated, walked the circus minimus, called my dear friend Joan in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania.

“Time to hang up,” she said. The connection wasn’t great, but I could have kept talking.

Turns out, her timing was perfect. I went upstairs to put my phone under charge (it would surely be regarded as a vintage model, and its battery is slowing down), and as I was doing that I heard my name. Renzo had let himself in through the gate, and was already coming out of the lower door of the house (observant of distancing) by the time I was out on the landing. He carried a tray.

“I brought you lunch,” and he gestured inside towards the table. “Buona Pasqua.”

He retreated towards the gate so I could get a peek. The table was laid with a healthy portion of pasta, what looked like breaded chicken, a sour-cherry crostata, a few cookies of various kinds, and even a shard of a chocolate egg!

“Buona Pasqua!” echoed a voice from above. Patrizia had come out onto the balcony.

“Oh, guys, this is so wonderful! A real Easter dinner. I can’t tell you how special this is!”

They both chuckled.

“I want to take of picture of the two of you together, and the only place we can do that is on your balcony, so… can we?” I didn’t say, your fans are dying to know what you look like, but I could have.

Renzo, while replacing the key, nodded and waved his hand over his shoulder. Patrizia beamed.

“This is all homemade, even the tagliatelle?”

“Renzo’s pasta.” I wasn’t sure if that meant other things were her creation, or if Renzo was responsible for everything, and I didn’t have a chance to find out because he returned upstairs in record time. A photo was taken, and everyone went inside for Easter lunch.

The tagliatelle was the most delicate, elegant, and delicious I’ve ever had. The chicken was likewise good. And what I sampled of the pastry was the same wonderful product I am privileged to expect from my neighbors’ kitchen. I went to text them. A message was waiting.

“I forgot to tell you to put a spritz of lemon juice on the meat.”

I wrote back what I just told you, acknowledging that a bit of lemon would have improved the chicken, but it was nevertheless excellent.”

“Not chicken, lamb! The traditional meat for Pasqua.”

“Of course! It’s been years since I’ve had lamb, and never breaded like this, or so delicate,” and I thanked them again.

After lunch, I walked in circles while listening to a conversation between Krista Tippett and Brother David Steindl-Rast. They talked about gratitude. That gratitude leads to joy, if you let it. Brother David compared it to the bowl of a fountain; it is silent until the bowl begins to overflow, then the water makes a joyful noise as it cascades into the fountain’s next level. And that, in wealthy, consumer societies, the joyful cascade is often not permitted to happen. It gets advertised out of existence. He said that gratitude fills the bowl, but instead of joyfully overflowing, we make the bowl larger – we need a more recent model, the next cool thing, more of that, I want something else. And as long as that’s the case, we never experience the joy that naturally follows gratitude.

When I wrote back to thank Renzo and Patrizia again, at message’s end, I said, “Beyond everything, thank you for your friendship.” 

And the reply – “We are also very happy for the friendship,” and the bowl of gratitude, and my eyes, overflowed in plenty.

What the miracle of Easter teaches me is that resurrections happen every day — I only need be quiet enough to notice. And when I do, a joyful noise will always follow.

Happy Easter, everyone!

It was almost 16:00 when it dawned on me that even the supermarkets would be closed tomorrow and Monday, and that if I needed anything, I’d better get it right away.

It had not been an easy day to that point. I’d kept my schedule, but only after a restless night with what seemed like a lot of gaps in my sleep (though some of those I think I dreamt). Meditation didn’t turn the day around as it did yesterday, and at the end, it turned into a rather long nap. I’ve been uncomfortable in my computer chair all day, so didn’t work on the play. I did walk a fair amount in the courtyard, a kind of therapy that delivered good results while I was in motion, but didn’t sustain. I started a soup, a good one as it turns out, but not particularly inspired.

But when I realized it was now or never for the weekend, that overcame the blahs, and before I knew it I was on the street and headed toward Piazza Cahen for the edicola at the bottom on the hill. I have a CVC digital thermometer that needed a battery, and you never know when a working thermometer might be a good idea – especially these days.

It happens that the edicola is across from Antonny and Romina’s. I knew that because the last time I saw him and his kids it was because I’d stopped to read headlines, but I didn’t put it together today, so when I approached, and Romina was on their balcony with little Linda, hanging a comforter out to air, I was pleasantly surprised.

“Buona sera, Romina!”

“Ciao, David! Buona Pasqua!” Linda smiled and waved three times.

I also knew tomorrow was Easter, of course, but forgot that meant you can wish anyone a good holiday or a good Easter whether or not you know them. The shape of the next two hours was set in that moment. Antonny came out. We talked a bit. Linda smiled and waved another four or five times. I was delighted to return each one.

I pass the woman who owns the edicola often, and we always exchange greetings even though I only make it in to buy something once a year or so. She is a purple person. I’ve noticed for a long time that people who love purple love it to a degree that others with other color preferences don’t share. She always dresses in purple, usually to the exclusion of any other color. Nevertheless, she provided the not-purple battery, wrapped it in its not-purple receipt so I’d be less likely to lose it, and we wished each other a happy holiday – Easter, which always includes a little purple. 

A few more waves with Linda, and I continued up to Metà.

The guys there all call me caro or carissimo, that is, dear or dearest, not at all unusual in Italian. I’ve always loved that, but it took me three years to comfortably return the favor. I asked Gabriele if they would indeed be closed tomorrow and Monday.

“Oh, yes, both days, caro.”

“Good! You guys deserve some time off after this past month.”

“Grazie, carissimo! Tanti auguri per la Pasqua.”

“Altrettanto, caro,” I managed to say without the least embarrassment.

“How is everything going with you,” he asked.

“I’m not complaining, but for instance it is so good to hear another voice!” And that was profoundly true, at that moment hearing him say anything, even stuff on the phone I didn’t understand, was like listening to an angel. Of course he’s been working twelve hours a day for a month and conversing most of the time, so there was a moment of incomprehension before he nodded in agreement. I choked up and chose to leave it at that.

I returned home, unloaded, and went back to the Via Signorelli store for stuff Corso doesn’t stock, then to the bank, the housewares store, and indulged in a couple of unnecessary jogs just because I was out. I wished well to people I don’t know, to people I sort of know, to people I know but not that well. We were all of us with masks concealing our main features, but recognition managed to happen just the same.

I’ve related this sort of thing before, but it continues to surprise and delight me. Today, it was a kind of resurrection – perfectly appropriate.

This morning I received word that a friend and colleague in New York has been taken by the virus. He is the first of people I know, and I hope he is the only. He left a legacy of more than fifty years of unselfish dedication to a school he loved, and gently touched the lives of thousands, always for the better. We shared a first name and a last initial. He would have loved it here.

Buona Pasqua, Zip.

Back in the day – and I don’t mean early March, I mean when my life was described by schedules – all it really took to feel like I had time off was to remove my wristwatch. That simple act meant that I didn’t have to keep track of the hour, I could follow my impulses, linger at enjoyable tasks, ignore routine. Plunging into the second month of all things in suspension, I am so hungry for time-related commitments I could scream. And it’s been years since I’ve worn, or even owned, a watch.

My schedule has been slipping randomly around for months now. October in Bratislava was very structured, and I enjoyed it. Back home, I’ve been trying to reestablish order to my day ever since. About as far as that has gotten; I’m pretty good at taking pills.

Last night as I fell asleep I said – almost in full voice, but not quite – I really have to get up at a normal hour (for me, that’s 06:30) and take control of my day. I heard an interview yesterday, and the fellow told how he and his wife, both working at home, had decided from the first day of lockdown to maintain schedules as if they were still going into Manhattan for work. The last time I’ve gone into Manhattan for work was in 2002, but it still made me feel clumsy by comparison. Hence the midnight vow.

Well, talking to myself, even sotto voce, apparently works. I woke at 06:30, was moving around before seven. By nine I had eaten, showered and dressed, and unloaded the dishwasher. By ten I’d meditated. At eleven I took my courtyard walk, and I arrived to wait in line across the street from the fruttavendolo at 12:15. I stood at the door and ordered a list of produce with the confidence of someone who knows what he is going to prepare (totally untrue) and even attempted to use my huge pile of collected coins to pay the bill (didn’t work out, she was short on the necessary paper change). I had the last bowl of Wednesday’s soup for lunch, wrote a few emails, worked on the play I received an epiphany about last week, and walked again for an hour while listening to tear-inducing stories on This American Life. I decided to scramble eggs for supper rather than spending the late afternoon cooking. That would allow me to write a post early and get to bed early, too. Setting priorities.

It was back in the saddle again, time. The wristwatch was metaphorically in place. It felt good, I felt good.

Then Renzo sent me a text. It had a link to a video just posted on YouTube by Metarmonica, the band his son plays drums with. It’s really good. They’re really good. And he followed it up with the fabulous news that Patrizia was making pizza tonight, and that they would have a piece or two for me. Pizza! Pizza and scrambled eggs! Why not?

If you’re waiting for the punchline, so am I. One has not presented itself, yet.

When I first moved to Orvieto for a seven-month trial five years ago next October, I didn’t know it, but I was looking to create a permanent vacation. I’d been taking all my vacations here for twenty years at that point. They were always budget, and often intertwined with work, but they also somehow managed to include beamed ceilings, thick stone walls, pergolas, good wine, great dining, and trips to the lake.

Except for the wine and dining, my first seven months included none of those things. Instead, I described the time to both myself and others as a self-styled writer’s retreat. And true to the maxim that what you say to yourself, even sotto voce, is often how things works out, that is what it became. 

I knew few people here, and every venture into Italian society was tinged with linguistic terror, so at three or four every afternoon, I would sit to write and continue until bedtime with an hour off for supper. I accomplished more projects and learned more about craft than I had ever imagined possible. But it was totally unlike any vacation I’d ever taken.

That basic schedule continued until a year ago December, when health became a project of its own. It still is, but what I’m discovering during lockdown is that creativity (cooking, writing, sharing, caring) is a vital component to regaining, or stabilizing, health for me. I don’t need time off to recover, I need a wristwatch. 

And that is all I have to say on the subject.

But there is always more to say on the subject of pizza – three kinds, all delicious!

The weather is warm. Spring warm, inviting. The window in my sitting room is open, and as it is shortly before six o’clock, I can hear the bells at Santa Maria dei Servi. They seem to be at a great distance, but are in fact only two and a half streets away. When the windows are closed, the ringing can be mistaken for a malfunctioning motor. Recently – meaning more than a month ago – I happened to be walking near the church while the bells were singing in their full splendor, and they are rich and mellow and as inviting as this spring day. Astonishing bells. Masterpieces of the foundry. If I could, I would time a walk to be there for an evening concert. Some day, again.

This city absorbs waves of all kinds. The Orvietani will tell you that the great and ancient structures – the towers, the churches, the nobles’ palazzi – have survived innumerable earthquakes because the mesa upon which they sit is made of tufa, tufa that has the qualities of a sponge. They will say that all those tiny cavities, encapsulated in stone and filled with air, deflect and soften the shock waves, and render them relatively harmless. Add to that the hundreds of excavated chambers and passageways, cisterns and wells that the occupants of the city have created over the millennia, and the worst damage a quake is likely to inflict is a few cracks. I hope they’re right. They probably are.

The buildings are largely made of tufa, as well, the common method having been; dig your cellar, shape the stone, put up your house. Very efficient. All that tufa, combined with staggering streets of varying widths, plays with waves of sound in a manner similar to the way the caves disperse geologic ones. 

In times recently past, I might suddenly hear a brass band, somewhere. I would follow the music, always turning towards it until I’d find myself back where I began, and having discovered nothing as to its physical location. I’d try again and follow people instead, pass through silent spots, and find the band a few meters away.

More than a dozen years ago I was here for Pentecost. To cap a day of festivities, a fireworks display was offered. I saw it advertised, but forgot, and was already in my room near Piazza del Duomo when I was reminded by the explosions. I quickly dressed and dashed across the square towards the noise of rockets and arial displays. I knew where they were supposed to be seen from, by name, but was not familiar enough with the town to know where that name referred to. So, I followed the booms.

This was a major pyrotechnical event. When I could hear the explosions, they were loud. Then I would turn a corner and – complete silence. It was only after I saw Giovanni and Vera ahead of me – having closed their shop to watch, and strolling hand in hand – that I had a clue as to which direction to go. Even as we drew close, there were acoustic blank spots.

During these times, it is only the bells that regularly break the silence. Oh, and the comune has had workers out with weed whackers trimming the growth between paving stones. If my windows are closed I can mistake the motors’ whine and sputter for bells. Once every few days, an engine attached to an unknown vehicle can be heard. Rarely, there are voices. Even the birds are quiet, as if they don’t want to disturb whatever is going on that has prompted such a human hush; they like the spell, they’re careful not to break it. The bells are the one steady, and unnatural, feature of the daily soundscape.

I picture silent sections of town in my mind. I can catch a glimpse of what they look like by going out for an essential purpose, or on the back streets late at night (and even then, to be legal, only within 200 meters of home), but mostly imagination must do. I would love to be out at sunrise, perhaps having donned a cloak of invisibility, and able to creep through the familiar streets in their stoney silence. Much the way we crept the morning after a significant snowfall, two or three years ago; carefully, stealthily, not daring to leave traces, hoping to catch a glimpse of a pristine, snow-covered, piazza.

Instead, I walk in elongated circles in my little courtyard, tuned to This American Life, or (perhaps more appropriate to the setting) The World, or Living on Earth. After a couple of hours, if I feel saturated by viral references, I’ll pull up Selected Shorts for relief. Only in extremis do I simply shut down the connection and walk the ovals without, movement accompanied only by the squeaky scraping of my slippers. And an occasional bell.

I don’t have a photo on file of Santa Maria dei Servi, but the one posted at least shows a bell tower.

A play in ten minutes.

MAX enters alone. He is wearing a protective mask, a knit cap, and blue latex gloves. He walks rapidly, looking down at his feet. RODRIGO enters opposite, wearing a homemade cloth mask, mittens and a scarf. They nod as they pass. MAX continues, RODRIGO stops.

RODRIGO

Max? (no response) Hallo!

MAX

Mi dispiace. Come potrei aiutarti?  Lei.  AiutarLe.

RODRIGO

Sono Rodrigo!

MAX

Rodrigo? Hey, yeah, I see it now.

RODRIGO

It’s good to see you!

MAX

It’s been… how long?

RODRIGO

At least a month, right?

MAX

At least a month. Hey! It’s good to see your face, too. 

RODRIGO

And I. 

MAX

Well, some of it. Some of your face.

RODRIGO

I am all the time missing your smile. Are you smiling?

MAX

I think so. Are you?

RODRIGO

Yes. It is wonderful to see someone I know. And to hear another voice.

MAX

A little muffled, but…

RODRIGO

Another voice. Not on my telefonino. Right here. Bouncing onto my ears.

MAX

Great. Where you headed?

RODRIGO

Headed?

MAX

Going. Where you… Dove stai andando?

RODRIGO

Dove vado? I hear there’s a giant party in Piazza della Repubblica. You going?

MAX

What?

RODRIGO

Coming away from the supermarket. Got my bag of foods for a week, maybe five days.

MAX

I’m on my way.

RODRIGO

Very exciting, going to supermarket. I dream about it all night before the day I go.

MAX

Hah, yeah. So, been keeping busy?

RODRIGO

Keeping?

MAX

Um… sei occupato? 

RODRIGO

A waiter can’t work at home.

MAX

Right. So, no work, no income.

RODRIGO

A shopping bag full of vegetables and pasta. What do you doing?

MAX

I’m writing.

RODRIGO

Oh, yes, so you are… accustomed to this… isolazione. For me, this solitude is for making a person crazy.

MAX

Solitude? Why… what..? Where’s Francesca?

RODRIGO

She was visiting her family in Puglia when the edict was announced.

MAX

Oh, no!

RODRIGO

Oh, yes. Could not return. No children, no wedding, not essential. Probably just as well. For one thing, there is not so many virus in Puglia. For another thing, we love each other, but together in our… monolocale?

MAX

Studio apartment.

RODRIGO

Yes, we would yell and scream after a week or two weeks. But too bad, if she was here, I could, you know, carry the pasta from the stove to the table, ask her which wine she would like.  Vorrebbe un dolce, signora? Caffe?  You know.Sta in forma. How do you..?

MAX

Keep in shape.

RODRIGO

Keep in shape. I speak five words a week, I forget how to… how works the mouth.

MAX

I know. I know what you mean. Writing and talking are not the same.

RODRIGO

So, what are you writing? Last time I see you, you were working on this book.

MAX

I got two hundred pages in, and realized it was awful. No, now it’s songs – lyrics, some dialog. I’m putting together a cabaret act for this couple I know in New York. So, like, no distractions. None. Nooooo distractions. Really, really quiet. When the Internet goes down, I feel like shooting myself.

RODRIGO

I have not shaved in two weeks.

MAX

Two weeks? Oh, well, yeah – the mask.

RODRIGO

I discovered I have a terrible beard.

MAX

You’re Italian.

RODRIGO

With a terrible beard. 

MAX

Aren’t you like required by law to have a beautiful, full, perfect beard?

RODRIGO

I’ll show you. Can anyone see?

MAX

Like who?

RODRIGO

Come over here in case someone is looking. (pulling down his mask) Ecco!  Quasi nulla, si? Dopo due settimane!

MAX

You call that a beard?

RODRIGO

Grazie.

MAX

That’s pathetic!

RODRIGO

Grazie, ancora. What is your secret?

MAX

Well, I was already way overdue for a haircut, and had an appointment for the day after the start of lockdown. So… I usually keep it pretty short, but now… So long as it doesn’t look like it’ll trap insects it’s fine. I wear a hat and avoid reflective surfaces. Wanna see?

RODRIGO

I am scared a little bit.

MAX

Take a deep breath. (takes off his hat) I half expect it to cascade down to my shoulders.

RODRIGO

By the time this is finish, you will have a horse tail…

MAX

Ponytail.

RODRIGO

Ponytail. Yes? And I will have twelve very long hairs growing from my chin.

MAX

When this is finished.

RODRIGO

Finished. Do you believe?

MAX

Believe what?

RODRIGO

Non credo che questa cosa sarà mai finita.

MAX

Naw, well, yeah, but I mean, it will be over in another few weeks, a month…

RODRIGO

No.

MAX

It has to end, it can’t just go on and…

RODRIGO

There will be no end. 

MAX

Sure there will. People can’t do this forever.

RODRIGO

It won’t be as with liberazione dopo la guerra mondiale – the Americans arrive with nylon stocking and chocolate bars and we throw flowers. One day, the bakeries will reopen, then the bars and pizzerie. Then it will be okay to shake hands, and shops will be open while we continue to wait in line outside, and most people’s masks will go into a drawer next to the shower. But it will never end.

MAX

Well, okay, maybe a year, two years…

RODRIGO

…we will think everything returns to normal, but we won’t remember what normal is. We will watch the videos on our phones from last year, two months ago, and try to build again the past, but it will seem too far away.

MAX

Which could be a positive thing.

RODRIGO

Spiegami.

MAX

For me, all this time alone has forced me to examine my habits; what I think I need, what I say to myself, my dreams, my fears. And I see how I am totally responsible for my own life – for how satisfied I am, for my moods, my cravings.

RODRIGO

So?

MAX

Maybe when things… move beyond social distancing and travel restrictions, we won’t just snap back into our frenetic lives. I don’t want to. I won’t. I’ll make more careful choices.

RODRIGO

To make choices you must have the possibility of options to choose from.

MAX

And?

RODRIGO

That is a very American luxury. And America no longer exists.

MAX

What?

RODRIGO

It, too, is only a memory. Like the Roman Republic, or the High Renaissance. A dream from which the world has… si svegliato?

MAX

That’s a very Italian way of looking at things.

RODRIGO

Except for my beard, I am a very Italian person. And it is very American to think you know what is the Italian way.

MAX

And very Italian to put a huge country like America in a pretty little box. America… America is… The thing about America – it’s an experiment in evolution.

RODRIGO

Italy was an experiment in creation, made up all at once from nothing, an elegant chaos. We keep thinking if only we can do this or that, we can be as organized as Germany, but that is not who we are. You say evolution, but to me America is always wondering what it is, and the rest of us sometimes laugh, sometimes cheer, and sometimes weep. Now is time for weeping. We don’t want to be a part of your cinema… movie… but it is too fascinating for us not to watch. Now I have to go; I have too much nothing to do and too much nowhere to go. I cannot have the time to stand in the street and insult my friends. We will not shake hands and not embrace so that we both do not become ill and live to see what is next.

MAX

The cabaret act I’m helping to create is about… Well, these two people meet on a street while waiting for a bus. The bus never comes, but in the space of an hour they search for meaning and conclude that meaning is in the search.

RODRIGO

I don’t understand.

MAX

And I don’t know how to translate. Another way of saying it might be, the past and future are imagined. The only thing real is what’s in between.

RODRIGO

When this is finished, as you say it must be, we will have a pizza, at a restaurant, wood-oven, and a good bottle of wine. Francesca will escape her family, your New York friends will come here for holiday, and as we imagine the past, we will also imagine the future. The only things we will not imagine is the pizza.

MAX

And the wine.

RODRIGO

And each other.

MAX

Can I use that for a lyric.

RODRIGO

You are the artist. I am only a waiter.

MAX

Who is an artist at what he does. Good to see you. Don’t touch your face!

RODRIGO

Don’t stay on the street.

MAX

Don’t talk without a mask.

RODRIGO

Un abbraccione, amico. Da lontano.

MAX

Altrettanto. Buona giornata.

RODRIGO

Buona giornata! Alla prossima.

MAX

Ciao.

RODRIGO

Ciao.

MAX

Ci vediamo.

RODRIGO

Speriamo a presto.

They continue on in opposite directions. MAX stops, calls after…

MAX

I see!

RODRIGO

You see, what?

MAX

Why you think this will never end.  Ciao, buona serata, grazie, a dopo.

RODRIGO laughs. They do an air high five, an air elbow bump, an air double kiss, and are gone.

I thought I might go shopping today. It’d be nice to see someone not a neighbor. My neighbors are all terrific, and I enjoy seeing them, too, but… you know, just to get out. As the day went on, I looked at what I still had available in the kitchen, weighed the trouble of figuring out what to buy that would equal something interesting for supper, and became increasingly reluctant to leave the property.

Now, that is strange. I’d love the walk. I’d love the company, however brief. I’d love to see if everything out there, beyond Via della Pertiche Prima, is still in place. Is this a syndrome? Does it have a name? Am I coming down with agoraphobia? Can you come down with a phobia the way you come down with a cold?

Anyway, I surveyed the hermetically sealed jars I have lined up with varying amounts of stuff purchased from Fabrizio at the market on Piazza del Popolo – back when there was a market on Piazza del Popolo – and decided I had enough to make soup without going out for more ingredients. Cannelini beans, rice, barley, a tomato, a small onion, garlic, sage (in the yard), tomato purée, etc. This is possible. Okay, I’m out of bread. I’ll survive.

I looked up cannelini for cooking instructions. “Soak overnight.” Damn. Or. “Cover with at least two inches of water, bring to a boil, and soak for four hours.” That’s the plan! 

I got a pan, put the beans in water, set it on the stove, and left it. I walked the circus minimus while listening to a charming show on PRI, went in for a glass of water, and noticed that I’d not turned on the burner for the beans. Silly me. Rectified. Just remember to turn it down once boiling. 

Back to the walk. Walked for an hour. Wow, a nap would be in order. Upstairs, put my feet up, happily dozed.

Not too much later, I woke up coughing. Great, I got the virus. I tried to figure out a way of feeling my forehead for a fever without touching my face, failed, and concluded there was none. No fever. Buoyed by having escaped the plague this time, at least, I opened my eyes.

Wow, my vision is cloudy, I wonder how come that is?

The damn beans.

Oh, yes, a lovely white smoke filled the house, interestingly similar to the (former) color of the beans themselves. I turned off the flame, left the pot in place (for which I applaud my good sense), opened all the windows, pulled down all the screens, and listened to another charming show while walking for another hour.

I don’t know I’ll ever get the pan clean. It’s pretty black. But I’ll try. 

As for the soup, the beans were the least of the ingredients, it was more about using them up than anything, and I’d venture to say that goal has been accomplished. The beans have been used. Up. Way up.

On my way down the exterior stairs after having opened windows, Marianna was on her balcony hanging laundry.

“A beautiful spring day,” I observed.

“Yes indeed, spring has really arrived. Are you set for groceries?”

“Funny you should ask. I was going to go today, but got distracted, so now I must go tomorrow.”

“Well, if you need anything, just let me know.”

“Thank you, I will. But I look forward to having a reason to go out.”

I felt a little like I was lying.

“Opening all your windows to let the spring inside?”

“You could say.”

I left it at that. I wasn’t sure my Italian would be up to the full story, but even if it were, it was too soon after the fact for confession.

One great thing came of the misadventure – it gave me something to write about. As the days become increasingly redundant, this screen, devoid of black pixels, becomes blanker and more of a threat.

Tomorrow, although there will be no charcoaled legumes, but there will be stories about shopping adventures. Or…? Who knows? All kinds of things can come to pass. Or come to mind.

I’m happy to report that my house is set up with wonderful cross-ventilation. Aside from the pan, no evidence remains of my memory lapse. Except, of course, for my having told the story to friends all over the world. But that’s life in the modern age.

Last, and as far from least as least can get, the number of new cases in Italy has been dropping significantly for several days. Don’t slacken now.

The photo is of a spring day, 2015. I imagine that parts of town are beginning to look a bit like that.

A few days before the lockdown began, I sent a message on Facebook to someone I didn’t really know.

The virus was advancing. Containment efforts in Lombardy and Veneto had not worked. Word had gotten out that travel restrictions were soon to be imposed so thousands of people left those regions, taking the virus with them. We were all worried, and a quiver of fear was beginning to creep into previously benign social interactions.

That evening on my walk, a song from years ago and miles away came into my head:

I shall not fear my body takes me there

I shall adore this hour within my skin

I shall release myself through words that bring forth tears

I have refused to be alone

My cries are yours

and it goes on to its joyous ending,

Sing the glory of your life to the world

Dance the story of your life to the world

Tell the tale of living flesh to the world

Till the pain that you feel goes away

I didn’t remember all the lyrics, and only knew some of the music, but I was startled at that moment to realize I had been hearing and singing that song – and quoting what I remembered to friends – since the mid-seventies. It was written by Donald Currie, and he sang it, along with many others, with musical partner Pilar Montaine. They called themselves, appropriately enough, Don & Pilar, and I was a stalwart fan for almost all of the six years they were together, following them from venue to venue like a purring cat.

Then in August 2016, and totally by chance, I saw on Facebook that they were planning a reunion concert for the twentieth of that month at a church in San Francisco’s Noe Valley. I was in the Bay Area when I discovered this, but had already booked my return to Italy for the sixteenth. Had I known sooner, I would have planned my trip around them.

That night before the lockdown – a day or two more than a month ago – on my walk home, I also realized that there were a host of songs Don & Pilar had given me that I have woken up to, walked, gardened, and driven with, for most of my adult life. I owed them a thank you, and social media made that possible. So, I messaged the Reunion Concert page and hoped for the best.

Donald wrote back immediately.

“Give me your address, I’ll send you a DVD of the concert.”

Emails were exchanged.

“Can it be coded for region two?”

“I’ll check.”

“May I reimburse your costs?”

“It’s a gift from the heart.”

I felt like saying that their music had already been that, and for decades. No further gift was necessary. Instead, I ardently watched my mailbox for three weeks.

Last Friday night I found it. It was too late to play immediately, so I put it aside for Saturday. 

I used my DVD/CD remote drive for my computer, that I had bought just before I moved here in 2015, for the first time, steeling myself for technical difficulties. Everything worked as it was supposed to. The recording was of a good quality.

It was like seeing a dear cousin after a forty-year separation – my gosh, we’ve grown up.

If they took all those years off from performing, it certainly didn’t show (and I know nothing of their intervening histories). The performances were masterful. The music was so rich, so elegant, detailed, complex. The variety of experience encompassed by the stories the songs told, a dazzling mosaic. The first half left me feeling like in some mysterious way I had been brought home. 

One problem. I couldn’t find the second half. 

Maybe I’m playing it wrong. Check the envelope for another disc. Click on “menu”. No, no, and nope.

So, I risked being a nuisance and wrote Donald. He didn’t know why act two was missing either, but as a kind of recompense, sent me a dozen mp3 files of recordings from 1974-75. 

Yesterday, on my circular evening walk, I listened. Same songs, same wonderful voices, same committed performances. But, my gosh, we were so young! I remembered myself in the audience as borderline crazed, gilding the real beauty of the moment with my own over-reactive fandom; an act unto myself. They were virtuosi in speed and vocal dexterity, technically wondrous, exceptionally sophisticated.

The Reunion Concert, on the other hand, was so much more; informed by all those years of living — passionate, deep, and thrilling. The songs were let free to express themselves. Maybe I was also impressed by their talent and technique, but found their music so transporting that I had no attention left to notice.

Donald tells me that the second half was even better.

A personal effect of quarantine has been a stretching out of time to embrace friends, family – even difficult friends and family, even relative strangers – from far distances and decades ago with fresh appreciation, love, and affection. That gift of the heart from San Francisco acted as a vortex, focused all that love, made it strong, made it worth having lived for, and worth reliving. Every bit of it.

The power of art is immeasurable.

In my yard there is an apricot tree. It was one of the reasons I took to this place so quickly. My mother’s parents had an apricot orchard in Cupertino, California; ten acres that my uncle farmed until the mid-seventies when they were parceled out to make room for an electrical substation and a go-cart park. He was getting tired of farming, no reason not to sell, and the land was being taxed as commercial which made farming impossible, but for all of us it was ceding away a piece of the family.

So, when I took over care of the tree in my yard, I felt somehow qualified by birth to do so. Never mind that it was a variety of apricot I’d never seen before. Never mind the depth of my agricultural training consisted of many a July spent first, playing house with my cousin, Gail, under the shelters built by our adult relatives using drying trays, then, as we became old enough to wield a knife, cutting “cots” at those same trays, arranging them in neat rows to be set in the California sun for a week before they were weighed and boxed for Del Monte, or another distribution company. Never mind that my only other experience was an hour with my father at another tree in another yard at another place I lived, in Santa Cruz, when he demonstrated and explained how best to prune an apricot for a solid yield, and that was in 1980. Apricots were in my blood. I could do this.

The tree had not been pruned in years. Concerned neighbors stopped me on the street to inquire about my plans for it.

“If it is allowed to get bigger, it will send roots into the foundations of the house.”

“Best to prune in February before it begins to grow, but when it’s cold enough to prevent disease from infecting the cuts,” I responded knowingly, quoting Dad from thirty-six years prior.

I still remembered his exact instructions: remove crossed branches and suckers, trim frutaceous branches to the fifth lateral bud, prune for shape and ease of accessing fruit. Simple, right?

Well, the first pruning would reflect none of that. I had to purchase a chain saw. This was not a matter of selective trimming, there were branches that needed to come off, and some were thick enough and heavy enough to qualify as timber.

The tree recovered beautifully, but produced few blossoms. The crop that year – four. Apricots.

Having been largely shaped, the next February I greeted the tree with optimism. While the first pruning took a week, the second was finished in five hours, with my friend Lucky turning the trimmings into kindling for the following winter as the branches fell. To be honest, I stood looking at the tree, tools in hand, for quite awhile beforehand, trying to apply my father’s instructions to an actual tree, and ended up just hacking at whatever seemed right at the moment. So much for family line.

The tree bloomed handsomely and grew a luxuriant crop of leaves. Oh, and an increased bounty of fruit – five. Apricots.

Maria, who has fruit trees in the country, and Renzo, who worked as a plant sales and delivery person for more than a dozen years, explained that the rain had come at exactly the wrong time that spring, knocking blossoms off before they could set. Vivid memories of my mother lamenting April showers that arrived a few days early, sprung to mind.

Last year, I wasn’t fit for the job, so hired a guy to prune. He approached the tree, sized it up, and proceeded methodically. I was encouraged. When I looked at it with attention a week or so later, I realized that he had trimmed entirely for shape, and we would most likely be back to square one; that is, a crop of four instead of five. Apricots. Yep.

“When nobody took care of it at all, there was enough fruit for the whole neighborhood!” Renzo noted by way of comforting me.

January rolled around, and I asked Renzo if he might be able to prune the tree. I like apricots, it would be nice if the tree did, too.

“No, I really don’t know anything about pruning, but I know a guy who does, I’ll ask him.”

I managed to wait a week without bugging him about it. Late January arrived, I was getting anxious, and Renzo, now retired, was not around much. Finally, we ran into each other on the street.

“Yeah, I asked that guy. He said leave it alone, let it bloom and bear, then after the harvest prune it severely, down to the main branches. The tree will grow back vigorously in two or three weeks, and the crop before that will be good.”

Forty years of received wisdom went up in smoke. I know that’s not how my family did things, but hey, this ain’t Cupertino. At least, I don’t think it’s how they did things. But then again, my dad, the one who imparted the agricultural know-how to his theatre-guy son? was an auto mechanic.

The tree has blossomed nicely, though not the full cover I was expecting. It rained, but few blossoms fell. And now leaves are showing in clumps. None of it looks right to me, or familiar, but I bet there’s a crop good enough to supply the neighbors, and regardless of how we got there, that would be great.