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I discovered the message at 8:00. “There’s a Spring Walk today in Monterubiaglio. If you want to join us, I’ll pick you up at 9:10, exactly, in Piazza della Repubblica.” From Claudia.

Monterubiaglio is a picture-perfect little town about twenty minutes from here. So far, I’ve been to their Olive Oil Festival and their Harvest Festival. Both were exuberant beyond description. The town’s frantoio (an oil mill) produces wonderfully picante, fresh, full-bodied oil. For the Olive Oil Festival they put up a tent in their yard, put out a spread in their pressing room, added music, and attracted crowds.

The Harvest Festival was held in the piazza. An ideal square for a small Italian town, it is paved in various shades of rose and buff brick and stone, and closed on one end by a castello, also in brick and stone. Mini-piazzas sprout at three of the four corners, one before a lovely (brick) church, while the other two serve as courtyards for houses with verandas. The Harvest Festival featured a pair of open fires with chestnuts a-roasting in large perforated iron pans swinging on chains suspended from tripods, several booths vending fresh sausage you roasted yourself on a stick over other open fires, fresh wine (sparkling, and just beginning to ferment), and a local band named Organicanto that played both traditional and new music.

The band was notable; one of their original pieces would begin, for instance, with a tune from an Umbrian folk tradition, morph to something Latin American, breeze through Elizabethan Celtic, dip into Spain, Morocco, and end up in Sicilia, all without seeming the least bit contrived. It featured flute, standup base, violin, clarinet, harmonica, cornet, cello, concertina, hand drums, various sparkling percussives, and open-throated vocalists. I fell instantly in love.

So, do I want to rush my morning to go on a nature walk with Monterubiagliani? Damn straight.

I arrived in Piazza della Repubblica two minutes early. My friend Svetlana was strolling towards me. She intuits everything and asked where I was going. Morning Italian tried to exit my mouth and failed. She patted me and continued on. Claudia was waiting, and paradoxically I explained to her – in Italian and without effort – that the first conversation of the day is always a disaster.

As we parked near Claudia and Enrico’s house, their sons Andreas and Tobia were playing in the piazza. I greeted, they ignored me. We went upstairs. Enrico appeared to be bumping into walls. I said hello, he ignored me. We gathered the gear required for a nature walk, and trooped downstairs. Simone, who is about twenty-six and has a developmental disorder of some kind, was hanging out with the boys. People passed and were nodded to with grunts and breathy sounds. We hiked to the bar (The Fabulous Las Vegas Bar and Pub, in English, that’s not a translation) in front of which thirty or forty solid citizens had already gathered with their children, some as young as three, ready for an adventure.

I followed the family into the bar, which is indeed, fabulous. We ordered coffee. We drank it. Enrico turns to me as if it was the first time he’s noticed I’m around (and it may have been) says, “Meglio! Depressa domenica,” and grins. I observe a house across the way. The facade is all plaster painted a kind of gray-mauve with a terra cotta plaque of a pharaoh embedded in the wall, above and to the left of the door. The door and an inset porch above the pharaoh are painted in shades of bright blue and green with shots of yellow.

Outside, the group of assembled nature walkers has grown in size. I am introduced to Francesca, who is a naturalist, or at least an expert on wild plants, and who will be guiding this morning’s tour. The word “guide” instantly sets up expectations of order and polite conformity.

About 9:50 we go off downhill. Simone takes one look at the slope and links his arm in mine. Dogs behave as if they’d never seen one another before (or are holding a grudge.) Cars come past, attentions are shouted, the line straggles down to the road to Orvieto, crosses it, and stops (sort of) in an unpaved turnoff from which emerges the old dirt road to an ex-hot springs. Francesca turns to what could be loosely defined as a group and begins to explain what she is going to be pointing out. No conversations are halted for this presentation, no children are silenced or made to pay attention, a portion of the group continues down the road. Francesca is not in the least disturbed or surprised by this, she speaks as if she were in a lecture hall before her rapt students. She concludes and, with no transition whatsoever, follows those ahead of her.

Another woman announces to the moving throng that there are treats waiting at the river. Claudia explains that there was a formal hot spring, now in ruins, at the end of this curving road lined with unpruned umbrella pines, and that people have been discussing its revitalization ever since it closed in the seventies.

Francesca stops, pulls on a few plants, and describes their properties, uses, flavors, and provenance. Whoever’s around listens, smells, tastes, and takes photos. Children collect flowers as she identifies them. The woods seem to spring to life as a result of her awareness.

We approach a steeper path downwards. Simone shouts “help! help!” and links arms with Cinzia on the other side, then with Claudia. We encourage him, and he relaxes.

The group passes the old hot springs. A building with all the marks of the fifties rises high above the road in a series of terraces. It looks, in its Borsch Belt way, as if it were quite elegant of its time. It is in ruins, and ruins fascinate, so all necks become rubber as we go by. Saplings jut from balconies, creepers snake up pillars, wall flowers bloom next to naked windows.

The road becomes a trail. Simone unlinks and relinks with Enrico and another man. Francesca finds wild garlic, camomile, mustard, fennel, and a type of orchid, and shares them with whoever happens to be around. The line of hikers squiggles off in both directions and as far as I can see. A sound track from a Fellini movie plays in my head.

The trail leans steeply downhill and turns into a series of improvised rock steps. Simone returns to Cinzia, then links up with me again. We encourage him down to a stream we have to ford. The woman who announced the waiting goodies lends a hand to all who cross here. Simone is successful, everyone around applauds and calls compliments. He looks at the ground and seems content.

The river is sighted. Andreas and other children shout its name, “La Paglia!” and their walk breaks into a run. The trail emerges directly uphill from a rapids; it’s a lovely coming out of the woods. And there, at the head of the trail as it spills towards the river, is a spread of pastry, juice, water, and pop set up on a picnic table, parts of which look like they, too, were imported. I wonder aloud how they were brought here. “By car, probably,” someone answers. By car? Where’s the road? People shrug and continue on to the water.

Simone, triumphant but fatigued, sits on the bench. Claudia, Cinzia and I flank him by turns. He’s had enough adventure for the moment, so I forgo the river walk and we watch and listen to the water. “How far back to Monterubiaglio?” Simone asks. As far as we’ve come. “Will we be back by two?” We’ll get there when we get there. He nods, thinks, grins.

After everyone has snacked and played and admired, people begin to drift uphill. Simone expresses a little concern about the walk immediately ahead, but is on his feet before it can stop him, and linking arms and holding hands with whomever is available. He skips across the stream like a veteran. I find the crossing easier, too, by his example.

More plants are identified on the climb. Children continue to collect flowers, both in hand and on telefonino. Each flower they collect, they inquire about, and Francesca speaks to them as colleagues.

As we ascend towards Monterubiaglio, she finds a flower that seems to be growing straight out of the earth. She opens her switchblade and cuts the flower open at the base. “A small insect is attracted by the odor that arises from the pollen deep inside the flower. Once the insect enters, the flower closes above the chamber, and the insect is trapped. Happily trapped, however, for it has plenty to eat. As it feasts, the flower wilts and dries, eventually opening cracks in the side of the chamber. The insect, having had its fill, leaves, takes along the pollen that has stuck to it, is attracted to another of the same flower, and the cycle continues. Brilliant symbiosis.” The plant is called Poor Man’s Tapioca because the root was dried, ground, and used to extend flour in times of want.

A young woman finds a wild orchid. She is asked by someone if she’s going to pick it. “No,” she replies, “it’s very rare, and too beautiful to pick.”  Simone has gone up into town on this own.

Count those blessings. When I’m ridiculously weary, when my back aches to sit (nothing serious, just tired) when I can barely think, barely move, barely contemplate going out for a walk, barely remember what purpose I think I have in life — perhaps it’s time to write.

I tried working on a play. Maybe I could have continued in my semi-comatose state, sometimes those sessions yield some good that is recognized only the next day. But it didn’t work. I found a scene that needs lots of work, and that’s always positive, but had no energy to improve it. So I thought about reading, but I took all my books to the new place yesterday, so nothing here is anything I’ve begun, and who has the energy for new beginnings?

True, last night sleep came but reluctantly, and this morning nonetheless began early. Maybe that explains the doldrums, the yearning for 10:30 when I can finally justify going to bed.

The day was brisk, both weather and energy. I wrote a proposal this morning, then met with Andrea at 11 on a initiative he and Lucianna and I have begun to work on. Then I had lunch and met Claudia. We moved the chairs and whatnots I bought on Saturday from their temporary storage at Villa Mercede to the new house. Then I met friend Roy who kindly took me down to Scalo to buy a little printer and a few household items.

For housewares we began at a place close to the electronics store; a big box filled with items of antiseptic design at relatively low prices. I mean, it was okay — I bought some nice towels, and inoffensive is better than ugly, but nothing in me stirred. Then we went to Mercatone where Roy said my chances with kitchenware were better. He was right. We ran into a friend of his, a lovely lady from New Zealand married to a Venetian. They’re trying to sell their house near La Badia, and part of their prep is to get rid of stuff. She says she has a whole barn full of housewares, so to come up and take whatever I want. That pepped up the shopping. Roy and I will visit on Friday morning.

But by the time I got home, I was wasted. I decided it must be because I was hungry, so I went for dinner. However, I was out of several things that would make breakfast a tedious affair, so I stopped at the “supermercato” on the way. I bought a bag of heavy stuff — you know, water, juice, aperitif — so I had to return home first. By the time I had unloaded, I was pretty hungry, so I fixed dinner. Then I sat on the sofa and sank into it like a stone.

I put the new chairs in place around a phantom table this afternoon. They’re lovely chairs, but they looked so lonely. Tomorrow, Daniele may take me to fetch the table while we’re fetching tile for what I am told will be an “area pavimentata” not a terrazzo as I have been calling it. In the meantime, the tile-made-to-look-a-little-like-cotto floor in the house clashed with the blue damask upholstery, the kitchenette gave the chairs an incongruous and tepid backdrop, and the two French provincial chairs looked isolated and stranded in the part of the ground floor room that suggests no purpose. Furnishing a small house is a lot like editing an early draft; sometimes the incomprehensible should simply be cut or moved to another location.

I do believe that under it all I’m a little sad to be leaving Orvieto. Last few days have been pretty good language days. Today I felt like a limp pony. The streets worked their magic on me, as they usually do, but I paid them, and the magic, less attention. I want to continue what I’m doing without a break, but that’s not going to happen.

Yesterday at Blue Bar a young Italian musician sat across the table from me and played “Here Comes the Sun” and “Norwegian Wood” on Antonny’s guitar, and sang. He was marvelous. I nearly cried. He said that last year at this time he and his band were touring Los Angeles and he misses it. He asked about me. I told him I’d just taken a house in Orvieto. “Why?” he asked. I like it here. It’s a good place for a writer. “Not for a musician,” he replied. “Too isolated, too few of us, no new blood.”

I walked out wanting to find a way to make Orvieto a spontaneous center for the arts. A place where people just come to because there are other artists here to interact with, and from all over. Because it’s conducive to honesty, finding your place in the cosmos, and facing your own demons. And it’s beautiful, and millions of human souls have left their stamp on that beauty. I wanted to be able to post on Facebook,”Hey everyone, choose any three months out of the year and come live in the Orvieto area. It could be Porano or Baschi, or Fabro. But come here and bring your guitar or viola or saxophone, and make this city sing. I’ll help you find a place to stay.” Would anyone come because I said so? I doubt it. But it’s a nice dream. I even wrote a few friends, asked for advice in how to plant a cultural seed. They had none.

What I realized is that everyone has their own itinerary. The young musician made of L.A. what I made of Firenze forty years ago. That must happen. In the meantime, we embrace our own yearned-for place and struggle with the yearnings that draw us there, or that take us away from life in the moment wherever we are.

Looking back on these months it was not exactly a process of demythification I’ve gone through, because many of the things that held my fascination in Firenze of 1975 are real and still hold it. But what has fallen away is my passive-aggressive relationship with Italian culture. I’ve lived here. I’ve struggled with the language and culture, wanted to be more integrated with both, and have discovered that I can be exactly who I am and enjoy and be enjoyed. I have also learned about the illusive lure of novelty and conversely, the challenge of familiarity. To cleave to the familiar is dulling, but to see through it and find novelty in each moment, is to open your heart to reality. That effort gives novelty real meaning and real benefit. Neither novelty nor familiarity is bad nor good, but life takes more effort than either can passively provide.

So, as I sit on this by now familiar and rather uncomfortable couch and type away at what may be my last post under this rubric, and as my back wishes it were in a tub of hot water or under the magic hands of Michele the shiatsu therapist, I try to see past the heavy body and the confused spirit, to the kindness of today, to the best smile in Orvieto that belongs to a young man at the register in the “supermercato” and who uses it too rarely despite its immediately positive effect on the general welfare, but who used it today while joking with an old friend who is the mother of one of Orvieto’s most beautiful children. Those are the gifts of a day. They are delivered on their own unpredictable schedule, often wrapped in brown paper. They cannot simply be signed for and put on the kitchen table. They need to be anticipated, examined, opened, explored, and enjoyed.

Then for me, they need to be shared. Thanks for reading.

It rained today. Sad for the gelato and tasting events that are happening all over town. There are nevertheless plenty of visitors, but rain makes it logistically difficult, if not impossible, pleasurably to eat gelato. Fortunately, tomorrow is a national holiday and the weather is predicted to be sunny, so there will be another chance.

I took a walk despite the showers. I intended to visit my favorite gelato shop, L’Officina del Gelato – notwithstanding the pavilions all over town featuring flavors and types from all over Italy – and I felt a bit righteous about it, too. But within two minutes of leaving the house, the shower turned into a torrent, so instead I wandered. Later as the rain calmed, I redirected my feet towards l’Officina, but by the time I arrived the storm was again tumultuous.

The gelato shop is located close by La Torre del Moro, and this morning friends had pointed out an exhibit on AmerIndian culture upstairs in the adjunct Palazzo dei Sette, only open Sundays from two to five. So, as I was directly in front of the entrance, I squeezed my way in through the crowds sheltering from the downpour.

Earlier, I also noticed a large poster advertising another exhibit, paintings by a fellow named Marco Gizzi. The poster features an almost life-sized portrait of a man in chain mail, helmet, emblazoned livery, with a cudgel resting on his shoulder. The image is stunning, but the cudgel seems so real I felt its weight, the covering on the shield is slashed and torn, and I was lead to imagining battles fought. A few seconds of contemplating the reality and purpose of those medieval trappings left me cold, or at least ambivalent about attending the exhibit.

Having twisted through the throng I found the stairs and followed the signs that read “Mostra” confident I was about to see an exhibit in Orvieto on AmerIndian culture. Cool. I love unexpected, unlikely mashups. When I arrived, however, I had entered Signor Gizzi’s exhibit instead; a long series of rooms – quite large and comfortable, if a little ragged – with four or five works hung in each. The first room had nothing heraldic in it, so I shrugged and started with the painting immediately to my left.

One of the many unthinking prejudices I’m saddled with is to instantly categorize hyper or super realism as banal. All technique, I tell myself as if I could somehow rival it, where’s the soul, the purpose? How is this different from creative photography? Within about thirty seconds, that bit of arrogance got a well-deserved slap down.

The first painting was of a copper coffee canister. Not all of it is in frame. It is dented and poked, shiny and scoured, parts of it covered with a patina. There is a trace of dust and coffee grounds sitting on the top edge of its metal “Caffè” label. The effect of its standing out from the canvas is stunning, wonderfully confusing, paradoxical, and irrational. It is set against a plain colored background, which lends its illusory dimensionally an even stronger impact. I was immediately drawn in, not by the novelty of its proffered illusion, but by the power of it. I strolled to the next painting and the next, and each drew me in further.

I believe there is a kind of sub-genre of painting that shows the back of a canvas as its subject, I remember seeing those somewhere before. Signor Gizzi pulls off some mean magic with his contribution. I was never quite able fully to accept that the painting was not a reversed canvas, only that a butterfly had landed on the upper half forced me to capitulate. It is simultaneously confounding, provocative, and delightful. It also took a strong effort of self-control not to touch it, my visual sense wanted help in determining exactly what was going on.

Following, there were a number of canvases with pomegranates – one with a wasp, some with leaves, others broken open next to a skull not always human. Tea kettles, tea pots. Gourds and pumpkins. A piece of white drapery with a fly resting on it. Each dares the viewer to discern what illusion does to our visual perception, each encourages us to make an effort to become more visually acute, to appreciate detail and color and form in ways — new ways — that relate to the world outside but are also distinct from it.

The third room held the soldiers, six of them. The couple of warriors without helmets I would later realize are self-portraits, and from the hands and the stature of the other figures, it would therefore seem that all of them are. The craft is as startling as in any of Gizzi’s other works. The effect, at least for me, is somewhat different. The poster downstairs, as true as it is, doesn’t have the impact of the original. The reaction it began in me was tripled, quadrupled – multiplied – in the presence of the paintings. They are gorgeous, disturbing, provocative, graceful. Each suit of armor and livery – so lovingly detailed, so confident, so elegant – is designed for two purposes, only; to prevent and inflict a messy death.  The tension between that and the pristine clarity of the work tears holes in my comfortable mind.

More still lives followed. (Interestingly, the Italian name for a still life is natura morta.) All are surprising, enlivening, impossible. Gizzi mixes painterly conventions with startling realism in subtle and pleasantly confusing ways.

I was thrilled. I’m going back.

I wandered out, revisiting a few of my favorite pieces. The two men I had passed on the way in were still in the outer room. I approached the one at the table, “Excuse my horrible Italian, but I have to say that was some of the most amazing work I have ever seen. Not just the…” He interrupted and pointed to the other man, who, with the force of the first man’s index finger, became one of the knights two rooms distant suddenly brought to life. “Congratulations, sir. The technique, of course, but composition, choice of objects, placement on canvas, framing, all of it. Extraordinary!” I went on for a bit too long. Gizzi shuffled, glowed, and shook my hand as many times as I offered it.

The first man picked up a catalog from a stack on his table and offered it in my direction. I glanced around for a sign, a cash box, any indication of how much I should pay for this gorgeous publication. He noticed, waved his hand, and flapped the book at me again. I accepted with a little bow and pressed it to my chest like an eager schoolboy might with his first textbook of the year.

“Auguri!” I said to the artist. “I can’t say anymore.” “Thanks,” he replied. “No, thank you!” and so we went back and forth for a few rounds before I managed to jumble back downstairs. Art of all kinds teaches us to see, to perceive with greater appreciation. Life on the street shown more vividly and with a fresh particularity for my experience in those rooms under La Torre del Moro. So it really is mine to give thanks. But I’ll overlook Gizzi’s error – for now.

First time gardening since August. Oh. My. Goodness.

One of the attractions of over-wintering in Orvieto was that I would, without really thinking about it, walk for miles a day right through to spring, and therefore be ready for any digging that might ensue. Okay, to be fair, it did help a bit. But I somehow neglected to factor in that yard work uses a very different set of muscles than long walks do.

The garden I’m moving into (with house attached) was, shall we say, rather neglected. I’m not sure for how long. I guess that would depend on what is meant by “neglect.” If it means that whatever plants might come up were allowed to grow until they died on their own, then it was perhaps neglected for a year or two. If it means that nothing went into the ground that wasn’t already there, up that estimate to five or six years. The earth wasn’t packed – it’s fairly light soil, probably because it’s volcanic/organic and had been assiduously tended for, oh, say twelve hundred years before the last six – but it felt neglected. Ah! That’s what I mean by neglected, it just felt that way.

Daniele, who I hired last week to paint, grew up with Massimo – the real estate agent who improvisationally found me the place – in the neighboring town of Porano. (see Etruscan Wood for details) He’s doing a great job, I like his taste, we share a sense of color and of boredom with “classico” white. Massimo told me that Daniele is also a muratore, loosely translated, a mason. I want to pave part of the yard in pieces of stone or brick; the section under the apricot tree. The light is dappled, it’s a northeastern exposure, it’ll be lovely. So, on our first meeting, and after we’d discussed paint, I asked Daniele about the terrazzo.

He hunched and stammered and I completed his sentence for him; not really a muratore, but sort of one? He nodded, but willing to look at the job. A couple of days ago he came to me with a plan. His father really is a first-rate muratore, they discussed it and proposed to frame the terrazzo with used cotto set in concrete so as to reflect the existing walkways, fill what lies in the middle with good sand, tamp and wet it alternately until the sand has seated itself, then lay large pieces of “brick” over it. The house is a rental. That way if or when I move, I can take what lies in the middle with me. Good thinking.

Today, Daniele covered everything in the house that might get splattered, removed doors and electrical plates, scraped and filled and treated, and began to paint. I worked in the yard for much of the day, and every hour or two we’d take a spontaneous conversation break. Great for building vocabulary, because we’re talking mostly about tools and paint and walls and pavement, with economic comparisons between Pennsylvania, Orvieto, and Porano thrown in for good measure.

Come afternoon, it was time for me to visit the fortuitously just-reopened ferramenta (hardware store) about a half mile to the south, but still sopra – on the Rock. I’ve been going in pretty regularly over the past week. The guy who opened it knows his stock, what it’s for, and how to use it. He is quickly learning that I don’t have the things I need to put together a garden or repair what might go wrong inside a house. I’m quickly learning that, as with the pharmacists here, he’s more than a dispenser of product – he’s hands on.

I ask for my first tool, a shovel. He shows me a selection of blades and handles. I choose. He hands both to me and points to where I have to drive the nail. Sorry, say I, I have no nails. Nor a hammer. He offers to assemble the shovel. Today, a similar scenario played out over a pickaxe, a rake, and an extension for the garden hose I bought this morning. He gave me advice on how to fix the filling mechanism for the upstairs toilet, which eventually boiled down to “take it apart and bring it in, I’ll show you what to do.” (That didn’t have to happen, by the way – Daniele fixed it on his own.)

I returned to the house carrying the new pickaxe and rake slung over my shoulder. I tried carrying them under my arm, but clearly the classical method is more efficacious, and it cuts a much better figure. I walked towards Via della Pertiche though the part of town that was host to orchards, vineyards, and gardens until the early 1950’s when many of those were filled with incongruous apartment buildings (they have since aged into something slightly more harmonious.) Walking with new tools, just assembled by the guy who sold them to me, though those streets with smaller gardens and orchards still intact, was like stepping onto a temporal treadmill. I stood still while walking because the earth rotated beneath me. (I know it’s not really like that, but allow me the whimsy.)

Then followed digging and raking, and using muscles for the fourth day in a row for which I had forgotten the intended function. By then, Daniele had put some color on the walls. The universal first gasp of “it’s so much darker than I thought it would be” escaped from my mouth before I had a moment to think. And the universal response of “it will dry lighter” was returned in tennis pro fashion. We talked paint. Daniele showed me pictures of others of his jobs. Beautiful work I cannot afford. When and if I move, perhaps I’ll hire him again, taking the imbianchino with me just like the pavers.

Awhile later, as he calls it a day and prepares to leave, he joins me in the garden and we discuss the size and shape of the future terrazzo. I ask if he could maybe use the cotto tiles I’d dug up earlier in the day for the border. He briefly inspects them and tells me that of course we can. Using them will save money. Well, I reply, mostly it’s because they’re beautiful. He agrees, they are.

“And to find the best large pieces for the middle, we should take a look at what’s available off the Rock.” In Scalo, I ask? “Oh, sure, in Scalo, Sferracavalo (also at the base of the cliff) but why not go to Bagnoregio, and there’s a great place in Lubriano, too, and a few others. The further we get from Orvieto, the cheaper they’ll be. Plus, it’ll be fun to look. We’ll go together until we find the right stuff.” I look at his tiny Fiat 500 parked on the lower terrace, imagine a quarter ton of brick in the back, and grimace. “Don’t worry,” he assures me, “I can borrow a Jeep.”

This morning Claudia suggested that she and Enrico could take me to antique fairs in the area, see if we can’t discover a few gems for appealingly low prices. Massimo, who is stupid busy, offered to take me to paint stores and furniture stores when I first took the house; I thanked him but declined, I’d feel stupid guilty for adding to his duties. Andrea has been beyond kind as the guy who takes and makes first-time phone calls for me, and accompanies me to procure new items not available sopra.

I reflected on all these lovely people on my walk home this evening, and it was a bit like settling into a warm bath after a hard day of digging. That metaphor was also an appealing projected reality, but as I don’t have a tub I collapsed onto the sofa instead, resisted falling asleep, and forgot all about the lecture/presentation on classical music that – although it is designed specifically for children – I enjoyed so much before the musicologist who gives it took a break for Easter. Oh well, I’ll catch the next one.

This morning after reading email, I’m reminded by my calendar that it’s time to check the Playwrights’ Center for submission opportunities. That usually takes about twenty minutes.

The first op I notice is a recently posted appeal for ten minute plays, they’ll accept up to three of them, and they are due tonight. The time delay gives me a bit of an advantage, but what the heck, I only have three ten minute plays total so at least there’ll be no time wasted in selection. I may as well do it immediately, get the day off to a good start.

I have learned this; always check a script before sending. Never mind that I last revised all three of these plays about three weeks ago, two months before that, and six weeks before that. Each revision was prompted by my horror (horror, I tell you!) at what I had been convinced was pretty good after the previous revision. Each gap between revisions represented a ton of writing, and learning, and changing priorities, and those are all positive things. But come on, three weeks? What major shifts could have occurred in three weeks? Better check them anyway.

Four hours and multiple revisions later I get up, stiff, bleary-eyed, and oddly discouraged, and it’s only eleven o’clock. I keep thinking I’ll eventually arrive at a point where I can trust myself as a writer. That something will seem to stay finished. Apparently not. I send the three plays as instructed, and continue what I began at quarter to seven – cataloging opportunities.

Oh, my goodness. Well over half the opportunities I look at read more or less like this:

“Small, underfunded community theatre in Grand Rapids seeks plays by female child playwrights who were born in Michigan and whose father is a dog owner, to celebrate the theatre’s 125^th season in the same location. Scripts of exactly 12.5 pages, 12 point type, Times New Roman, blind copies with all author information stripped out, and only from email addresses that do not have a .com or .net extension, please!

“Our theme this year is ROARING, so have fun exploring ROARING! Send us your best work. We will try to find someone who can read, but they will review only the first 800 scripts received, so submit early!

“Each script must be accompanied by a completed twelve-page online application form, a bio of no more than thirteen words (Open Office) a three-page synopsis (Word) a character list (PDF) production history (WordStar) half-page creative resume (Excel ’97) and a letter of recommendation from an agent, your lawyer, or an ex-lover (longhand).

“No plays that include use of an egg beater, please!

“All characters must be between 34 and 43.5 years of age, and should collectively represent a racial and spiritual cross section of the population of the Midwestern US. Maximum average cast size, 3.76. No profanity that the typical resident of Grand Rapids may find too familiar. All plays must be bold, relevant, provocative, thoughtful, and obscure (but not dense! No dense material, please!)

“A reader’s fee of $35 per play must be paid online, and approved by our business manager, before you submit. Diner’s Club cards, only! Members of Dramatists Guild pay twice. Winning playwright receives $10 and a invitation to attend opening night at half price (guests pay full); no travel, lodging, meals, or haircut expense will be covered. Perms are negotiable. Good luck!”

By the time noon drags around I’m worn out, discouraged, and glum.

I walk to my recently rented house on Via delle Pertiche to suss out paint colors and spend a little time weeding the garden. No water yet. The agent said in three days, four days ago. The painter said it would take three weeks. Someone else told me I’d have to go to some office to fill out forms. What can you do in a new rental without water? You can’t clean, you can’t plant, you can’t invite the fellow over who inspects the hot-water heating system. I weed, get tireder, come back to the apartment and take a very short nap. I water the plants on my terrace in Via Pecorelli, just because I can.

An hour passes. I understand very clearly that I need to walk. The town will fix me right up if I just allow it access. I’m ready for a snack, but the kitchen is ten feet away and it takes awhile to summon up the energy. I snack. I sit back down. I check the weather about eight times. Still nice out according to my phone. I sing a made up song about having to take a walk. What finally gets me downstairs is the bag of plastic and metal recyclables that needs to be binned.

I stride out the gate in the direction opposite from my intended route on the Anello. Two cats run up to me on the corrective path back – greet me like they know I need to pet them. Then the sleek black and white dog across the street runs to the gate and we have an extended session of sniffs, wet nose sensations, scratches, and nuzzles. He too seems to be saying “Don’t let it get you down bub, it’s only a stupid play.”

On the way down to the Anello, the first glimpse of the valley through the ruins of Porta Vivaria is transfixing. Greens I have not seen before, and I have seen green. Trees that a week ago were nearly naked, are fully clothed in silken foliage. Colors pop out from everywhere, slap me in the face, rough me up, and tickle my belly.

I take a short version of the walk; the wind is picking up and a bit on the chill side. As I emerge from Porta Romana, I run into one of my two or three American friends in Orvieto, Roy. He’s opening his garage to go somewhere, and tells me that when his routine is interrupted, he frequently leaves town with the garage door open and his house keys still in it. He knows this because the keys are always there when he returns.

I head towards Via del Duomo. The previous tenant at my new rental tears around a corner in an overlarge car and nearly runs me over. We both apologize. I savor the irony of the “what if” part of that moment. He needs to slow down, generally, but the fact that he just about plowed me into Via Lattanzi annoys me less that the size of the car he drives.

Taking Via Luca Signorelli to Via del Duomo, Claudia pulls along side in her little red Ford. Just finishing a week of sixty-five students in residence, she is. Ciao! A dopo! Tanti impegni! And she smiles, waves, and pulls away. Turning right takes me past Giovanni and Vera’s. Giovanni is seated majestically in the rear of the shop. We smile, nod, and wave.

On towards the Duomo, just feel like paying homage to its splendor. Once in the piazza I notice that the little ex-church across the way is open for a “WEEKend ART” exhibit. I attended the one in December and was thrilled by the quality of the work, so I cross the square to check it out. Magnificent, moving, provocative black and white paintings of the female form, clothed and nude, wonderful detail, stunning light, and a glorious tension that’s kind of sexual but goes beyond in a way that’s difficult to describe. Manuela Montenero.

Taking the back way towards Teatro Mancinelli, then up Corso towards La Torre del Moro. The evening passeggiata is beginning to stir. Familiar faces pass, some greetings are exchanged. The sun hits the streets at a blinding, but golden, angle. The flower market is filled with exotics. I yearn for water. (But I have to weed first, anyway, so relax.) Turning off Piazza Sant’Andrea there is Ubaldini alimentari, but it’s late, so even though I need cheese I’ll get it tomorrow. Wait! Stop! That’s a habit from somewhere else in some other time zone. Go. In. Now. Cheese. Three kinds.

More cats to honor and court as I continue on to Via Pecorelli.

This evening I hear from Massimo, the real estate agent. The utilities don’t get turned off, he tells me. He takes a dated picture of the meters, then when the account is moved to my name, the bill is apportioned accordingly. To use any of them, including water, turn handles and flip switches at the house.

Life here is not, on the whole, at all similar to a submissions opportunity. It’s only that everyone seems to think it is.

Piano a piano is a useful phrase. Prosaically it translates as “bit by bit, little by little, step by step.” But literally it can be thought as “level by level” or “gently, gently.”

My lifelong habit is to rush, especially to rush into the untried and unfamiliar. Even worse, to rush through a process once entered so I can prove to myself that I will survive the new, accomplish that for which I have no experience, am able to finish a project more or less like an adult. I have the capacity to turn everything into a project. Goals must be set, timelines established, deadlines put firmly into place. If an effort is not organized within an inch of its life, why do it at all?

The irony is, of course, that the more I rush to organize, the less organized everything is. Organization, the word itself, would seem to rise from the idea of “having been made organic.” Organisms don’t rush. They grow in their own time and of their own accord. Piano a piano. 

So, I have a house to clean, paint, and furnish. I have a garden to clear, plant, and nourish. I have business to conclude, plays to write, a language to learn, walks to take, a culture to explore, and a body to keep healthy! Yikes!!

Piano a piano. What marvelous choices. What deliciously savorable experiences lie ahead.

Today, Andrea accompanies me – with his car, which I drive – to the Mercatone, Orvieto’s version of a megastore located on a practically invisible alley in Scalo. The proprietor meets us at the door, having invited us back yesterday to speak with the furnishings expert today about a proper bedroom set for my new house. We exchange news and pleasantries. Andrea keeps conversation going when I am unable, which is most of the time. The proprietor explains how and why his front window display has shifted (they had to clean the floor, it’d been weeks) and hails a fellow just arrived (the furnishings expert.) I am introduced as the man looking for a bed and an armoire. We have an appointment.

We all go upstairs to the expert’s desk. The expert, despite his lofty title, is relaxed, charming, funny. He wears bright blue-rimmed glasses. He checks catalogs, describes my choices.  We discuss the stressed proportions of the bedroom I mean to populate with the items I seek. I ask for prices, he quotes them.  He breaks the news gently that the cost of a bed is just for the structure. The mattress and rete are extra.

He takes me out to the warehouse so I can see mattresses in person. We pull a couple from a vertical pile and throw them onto the floor for a comparison test. I fall onto the first. It’s a mattress. I don’t get the subtle shades of mattresses. It’s not uncomfortable, therefore just fine. I fall onto a second, fancier, and more expensive unit. I admit that I can’t really tell the difference. Everyone laughs.

We return to the desk on the second floor and look at armoires in the expert’s catalog. We compare the real armoire in the display with the various drawings in the catalog. Nothing quite fits, but one almost does, so I settle on that. It’s all been pleasant, even fun, but it’s still shopping and I want this over with.

While the expert is creating his order form, I look over at the display of bed and armoire I’m about to purchase. The bed I like; elegant, simple lines, and a pleasant color. The armoire is okay, but boring. The end tables are worse. I imagine the armoire I’ve just ordered as looking more like the end tables than the armoire on display. I begin to feel queasy. It’s a lot of money, normal to be sure, but normal is enough to make me nervous.

Piano a piano. “You know what? I’m going to take the bed now – mattress. underpinnings, and all – and stop there. Okay? I mean, it’s a month before you can deliver the armoire, and I leave in a month, may not be back for two or three past that. If I still need an armoire in August, I’ll wait a month for it then.” Okay, he smiles, nods; no problem. And he means it. He’s not being nice nor is his mild and agreeable response a sales tactic. “Good,” he says, “I’ll be here. There’s no rush.”

We visit an office on the ground floor where two gentlemen, one of them with bright red-rimmed glasses, collaborate in rendering a sales slip from the expert’s order form. That done, one of them walks me out to the counter so I can pay. There, a tall young man – with a face of such strange but genuine beauty that he is difficult to look at – is learning the craft of accepting payment. The gentleman with the glasses steps him through the process. The young man’s Etruscan features shift and crinkle, smile and joke. For a moment, he reminds me of an old friend who died ten years ago.

Transaction completed, the young man turns, grins and says “Thank you!” He then shrugs and says in Italian, “That’s the only English I have, I hope it’s enough.” Everyone laughs.

It happened suddenly.

I ran into a friend on the street and mentioned I might be looking for a rental in Orvieto. He sent me contact info for a friend of his, a realtor. I wrote, told him what I might be interested in. He showed me a small house, the stone equivalent of a hut in a garden. I had friends look at it, we shared opinions. The next morning I told the realtor I’d take it. All in four days.

I cannot honestly say that moving in this direction has been without plagues of doubt. My heart says “yes” to this change. My head criticizes me for being too quick, too spur-of-the-moment, too impulsive, for complicating matters for myself and everyone in my life. For not looking at the bigger picture. For trusting what feels right over analyzing what should be best.

In the Hindu tradition, the last third of life is ideally spent as a forest dweller. You leave behind the activities of middle age that focused on responsibility, proving yourself worthy, and finding a place within the community. You retreat to live in a hut. You reflect on your deeper nature. You begin to intuit an identity not founded in time and place. You seek to peel away the veneer of personality so as to become acquainted with a consciousness not focused on crafting masks and projecting them outwards.

A decade ago I would listen to descriptions of the forest retreat and scoff; it seemed unlikely and not necessarily all that appealing. Now, I seem to have fallen into the very life I scoffed at and doubted.

Orvieto is not a forest, of course, except perhaps one of stone. I’m not physically isolated from the world, I’m rocked daily by the tides of community, visitors, and school children in great, noisy throngs. I hear languages around me that sound familiar but are not any that I know. Even English sometimes is mysterious and strange, rising and falling in shattering consonants, punctuated by “yeah” and “sure” and “I know,” but without other words I recognize. Colors and rhythms and movements mix, and a broad spectrum of human characteristics, corporeal and otherwise, crowds this place.

Those other crowds – the other wise – they come from temporal zones far away. They stood on these same bluffs, observed the ancestors of the birds that I observed yesterday, wondered at the shapes of the surrounding hills, the green fields, the gently changing colors of the olive groves. For hundreds of years they traipsed these streets, padded through alleys substantially unchanged in the time-gap that lies between us. Despite the occasional gas meter, traffic sign, and window screen, in essence we enjoy identical views. As with the visitor in space, the visitor in time dresses differently than I do, speaks another language, has other expectations and conceptions of life, aspires to diverse achievements. But we share this city. We share time on a rock.

When I mused to a friend here, almost a year ago, that I might like to spend more time on this rock, he warned that Orvieto can be “very isolated.” That didn’t scare me. That I was supposed to be put off by isolation, did scare me a little. Am I really that weak, I wondered? That a bit of isolation should put me off? Is Orvieto’s short winter between the first week of January and the last week of March really so lonely, so dull, so deprived of stimulation? Should I be threatened by tranquility?

My reaction to lonely, dull, and isolated over the past six months has provided inklings of forest life. Lonely? My choice. Dull? Not with the crowds, large and small, dense and light, all filled with children discovering what magic a wobbling step is, a stone is, a ray of sunlight is. This is isolation? Bring it on. But the language does isolate, as do the webs of relationship that bind this town. A friend born elsewhere, but who has lived here since she was two, is – as another “immigrant” from the South told me – not an Orvietana. Those are genre of isolation that can be quite severe, but is isolation really so bad?

Time spent in the forest is meant to interrupt barriers, upturn assumptions, to calm nervous habits. The isolation required to effect those changes can be brutal, will blossom suddenly sweet, is damned challenging. I watch my mind’s adventures. They’re endless, often fascinating, seldom necessary. I don’t mean to say that thought isn’t useful, but I do mean that random, unfocused, uninvited, and tumultuous thought is exactly as attractive and desirable as it sounds. When I stop – instead of walking and talking to myself, even if silently – and look, listen, feel, and wonder, the Etruscans raise their eyes, birds sing the same songs they sang then, trees vibrate one to the other, and all our roots mingle and remember.

Today a flock of tourists was climbing the hill on Corso as I descended towards my work-in-progress home. They were a cross-section of the world. I took a moment to notice and was stunned by their beauty. A lovely, hefty, rosy black woman caught my eye. We shared a smile of the ages, bumped souls, and moved on.

The dogs across the street, the cats down the block, the baker, the checker, the produce lady, and the barista. We’re all connected by mingling roots. If I walk through town distracted, I see nothing but distraction around me. When I’m content to enjoy the beauty of my fellow rock-dwellers, native or transient, their beauty grows unbearably vivid. When we meet eye-to-eye, centuries of fortification crumble at our feet, we dance like the ancients, we augur the moment through the flight of birds, and we watch the miracle of the slowly shifting valley, together, eyes damp with recognition.

Then in the middle of a stone piazza, the forest crowds in around us. Protectively. A green embrace.

“You’ll have to open a bank account.”

Words more dreadful have never been spoken. I feel more or less the same regards any requirement that involves signing pieces of paper, but the reputation of Italian banks has seeped into my brain for years and nothing about it has been appealing. Many banks add to those negative impressions with entry systems worthy of the CIA, teller windows ready to withstand an assault from Daesh, and rate schedules that make filing instructions for the IRS seem childish. I don’t want to do it.

But when I’m out of the country, I’ll need to pay utility bills so there’s no choice.

I begin by asking everyone I know for recommendations. Most point to a single institution, so that’s where I go. Good first impression, the entryway is security relaxed. Second impression, the young woman leaning against it speaks English.

“No one is in right now who can open an account for you.” Okay, I’ll come back later. “But wait, let me take you to meet the branch manager.”

What? I’m an American, so obviously I’m going to invest millions on the spot?

I wish to open a checking account, I say. “Domestic or foreign?” I have no idea. Smiles between the branch manager and the other chap in the room. I don’t know what distinguishes one account from the other. “Do you have an ID card?” Like Italian? Sure. Here. “Are you registered?” Like with the anagrafe, yep, about two months ago, but no certificate yet. “Why do you want to open a checking account?” To pay rent and utilities. “Do you have a business card?” he says, reaching out his hand. I look at his hand and, Harpo Marx-like, shake it. He looks at his hand, looks at me. “Okay, I’ll give you one of mine.” He searches in his drawer. No cards. He glances at the other chap, who explores another drawer. No cards. They shrug. Oh yeah! We moved them. One is found and delivered. “No one is here who can open an account right now, come back after two-thirty.” Thanks, I’ll be back in two hours. “No, two-thirty.” The young woman explains that I meant two thirty. I meant two hours, but having no idea of the time, I agree; two-thirty.

When I arrive back at three, a gentleman is seated at a previously empty desk, and as the young woman is not in sight, I approach him and explain that I wish to open a checking account. He smiles, offers me a chair. “Domestic or foreign?” I again plead ignorance. My cards and papers are put onto the desk. He looks through them. “Why do you wish to open a checking account?” I panic just a bit, this being the second person who has asked what seems like a placeholder of a question; to pay rent, I say. “That’s it?” That’s all I can think of at the moment.

This well-spoken, very kind gentlemen then proceeds with a well-reasoned and detailed argument in favor of not opening a checking account. He compares the costs of wire transfers, bancomat charges, and account fees. When I pose questions, he immediately phones someone for an accurate answer. This goes on for what seems like twenty minutes. At the end, I’m convinced. I shouldn’t open a checking account. What a waste of money that would be! And for nothing!

At the end of this discussion, and after I promise to “investigate” alternatives – a word perhaps not often used in banks here because he chuckles and repeats it, saying that would be a very wise idea – he sums up our conversation, a summation I don’t quite get on the first pass. He calls someone on the phone to send him the translator. While we wait, he repeats his final points and I totally understand him, so when the young woman arrives he reports that I have understood, and that we have agreed I will not be opening a checking account unless further investigation deems it absolutely necessary.

The young woman demurs. “He spoke with the branch manager earlier.” The authoritative and confident man I had just spent twenty minutes with now smiles broadly, and offers that he may have misinterpreted my situation. The young woman suggests he call the branch manager and ask him to join our conversation. While the gentleman does this, she sits next to me, smiles conspiratorially, and says in English “There are certain people you must know do not understand everything.” Her eyes indicate the gentleman behind the desk. “Do you understand that we must not talk about certain people?” I nod, having now been cast in a spy movie. “You need to open an account.” This seems very final, so I nod again, indicating that I see her point and it is as obvious a fact as the sunrise.

The branch manager joins us. He speaks more rapidly than before. The gentleman behind the desk grins more and more broadly, nodding as he does. The branch manager slows down a notch and I catch “…he also has to pay utilities.” There is a moment of hushed recognition. The young woman glances at me again, indicating that the deed has been done, we have survived a hazardous journey, all obstacles have been traversed thanks to sterling leadership.

The branch manager departs. The young woman and the gentlemen explain that it will take at least a day, possibly more, to prepare the paperwork. It is Tuesday. “Please to come back on Thursday morning, all will be ready.” I rise uncertainly, thank them profusely, and weave out the door, once again drunk with confusion.

For the next twenty-four hours I replay the scene. Was the gentleman correct, after all, just beaten into submission by authority? Or was it only that I forgot to tell him about the crucial factor of utilities payments? When, at the end of the interview, the young woman handed me a slip of paper with the gentleman’s contact info on it, and all but winked at me while she explained that I could contact him at any time by phone or email, was she offering me a way out, just don’t tell the branch manager?

Scenarios rise and vanish. I imagine the language I would use to email the gentleman, tacitly acknowledging my part in the conspiracy to maintain his position, while simultaneously seeming to be neutral. I fear I had fallen into a corporate trap, one so complex that I would never quite understand its nature or function.

Wednesday morning, I glance at my phone to find the gentleman had called five times within fifteen minutes. I’m heading out anyway, and dread phone conversations, so I stop at the bank. “Ah! I just called you! How convenient!” I explain that my ringer had been off. “Do you have your social security card with you?” I have never carried my social security card in my life. It’s made of paper less sturdy than your typical bus ticket, carrying it is assured destruction. No, but I’ll find something with my number on it. “Excellent!” I locate a Medicare card, and it is deemed sufficiently official. There are more near winks and smiles and nods. I realize that I kind of like the guy, so dismiss the previous day’s confusion as cultural.

Thursday morning I return for the paperwork. I have signed fewer times buying a house than I do for that checking account. More instructions, more questions, more explanations. I notice the gentleman’s hands. Strong, short fingers – like my father’s – worn nails, dirt embedded here and there. I want to ask if he’s a gardener, but fear it will come so out of left field that another linguistic tangle will result, so I suspend my curiosity.

The young woman joins us to make sure I comprehend the subtle obligations attached to owning a checking account. That sounds snarky, and I do not intend it, for she reveals to me, among other mysteries, that I need deposit nothing into the account to make it active. I register surprise. The gentleman poses a hypothetical example. Suppose I were put a million euro into the account. (I look around to see if the branch manager is hiding somewhere, listening. Not that I can tell.) Then I come in to draw a check for a half million. It will be honored, of course. But suppose I have deposited only one euro. No cash, no carry. So why should the bank care if I have money in my account? If I don’t have money, they don’t give me any. Very simple.

I have one more question. Do I get any checks? He looks past me towards the entrance, smiles, finishes the interview without addressing the question, and stands to put on his jacket. The young woman explains about checks, in English, basically saying that if I need one, come in and ask. “But why would you ever need a check?” The gentleman rushes to meet his friends who have just entered. The young woman asks me to return on Friday for my bankcard. On my way out I see the gentleman with a man and a woman, all of them smiling, laughing, and bustling off to lunch. At 11:15? Maybe for coffee, then lunch.

Friday. More paper, more signatures, and a colorful bankcard to use on my account with no money in it. Hands are shaken. It feels as though our having survived the last four mornings together means now we will have reason to greet on the street. Indeed, the whole dance of the checking account seems, at this moment, to have had no other purpose; the bankcard is but a byproduct of a meaningful cultural ritual.

As I leave the building I notice the door handles pictured above.

Almost every time I cross onto Corso Cavour or into Piazza della Repubblica, I feel like Scrooge on Christmas morning, or George Bailey rediscovering Bedford Falls.

Yesterday the town was crowded. Summer-crowded, or Jazz Festival-crowded. A sidebar consequence of all the visitors may be that waiters and sales people become more easily impatient with stumbling verbs. Or perhaps it’s not impatience, just the reasonable assumption that verbs will soon be joined by nouns and prepositions, so why not finish the sentence I’m struggling with themselves, and do it in English? Of course, when that happens I grow nervous, pronouns and articles join their kin in the abyss, and my behavior becomes incomprehensibly foolish.

Speaking only for myself, however, and regardless of crowds and the attitudes of waiters, language is always a problem whenever I’ve spent considerable time writing (in English) or walking (alone.) The mouth and brain stop functioning for speech, and are stunned when it’s required of them. When it’s Italian speech that’s required, brain and mouth pretend to belong to someone else. It’s their least embarrassing alternative when hurled violently towards panic. I do wish brain and mouth would consult me now and then.

I went out several times yesterday, all of them in Scrooge/Bailey mode. I love the crowds that fill the streets. Dogs wagging and sniffing and straining on their leashes; cats, undaunted but cautious, streaking low among giants. Infants, sitting in their strollers like the royalty they are, gaze astonished at the miracle of The World. Toddlers fall and spring up again, not missing a beat. Little kids roam in packs, create alliances, accept adoration as their due. Early teens look cool to cover their terror, dizzy with the discovery that the world they thought they knew is less friendly than it was a moment ago. Older teens seem to have recognized the terror for what it is – fear of the new – and find the new intoxicating.

Young couples are so in love with being in love, and with one another, that not to smile would suffocate. Young parents are so in love with their children that eyes and hands dance – or they are so worried, or they are so tired, or all three in elegant combination. Young families stroll like dust devils. Those newly released from active parenting float, waiting for demands that never come. Friends of decades scour their little-changing town for fresh detail, tease anyone within range, hold hands, lock arms, brush shoulders, kiss cheeks, laugh and scowl and nod and give forth. A few smile silently with a secret so carefully kept, and so generously shared, that the pulse quickens to see them.

After a half hour or so, I leave the streets and stop for dinner at Caffe del Teatro. They serve simple meals here – the warm parts purportedly from a package – surprisingly tasty, ambiance elegant, prices cheap. There is usually a menu in a lucite holder sitting on the counter, but I can’t find it. Neither of the young women serving is familiar. The older and lanker one is smart and ironic, the younger and more-relaxed, overflowing with sweetness.

I step up to the counter before I know what country I’m in, open my mouth and ask, ‘”Bufiht, gohgutnhdi faorataeede?” The older leans in. “What are you trying to say?” I repeat myself, only less intelligibly. She rolls her eyes, “We don’t do that here.” After coaxing her back, and with several more attempts in no language that exists, I manage to order. The younger serves me at table as if I were her favorite uncle.

The counter fills up. Four men, young by my standards but probably in their late thirties, discuss something – maybe soccer, maybe politics, maybe fashion, probably food. A few minutes pass and a gentleman who looks every bit an ancient Walt Whitman lopes in. He’s Orvieto’s homeless contingent – though he reputedly has a place to live, he just never goes there if he doesn’t have to. Then a young couple, so beautiful it’s embarrassing, joins the group at the bar. They order prosecco, and proceed to instruct the rest of us on how to pull off public displays of affection with the greatest imaginable ease. Shortly after that, a man in his forties, maybe older, with a face so appealingly handsome I immediately distrust him, confidently enters. He is delivered a drink the color of red papaya served in oversized stemware.

I linger over the last of my water, waiting, wishing the crowd would thin so I can make a dash to the register without anyone talking to me. The earlier tongue twisting was enough for one evening. I want to be back on the street, admiring, reveling, and observing – all from a tolerable distance. This bar scene, right now, is too intimate for my comfort.

Eventually, I finish my water, gaze at the lovely paintings on the ceiling for as long as I can pretend to have reason, suck in some air, and approach the counter. The lanky signorina asks if I’m an American. I assure her that I am, especially at this moment. “That’s why I said all that about the food,” she notes. I have no idea what she’s referring to. She follows this crypticism with a flurry of colloquial Italian that makes me smile, but clarifies nothing. The guy with the bright red-orange beverage says from behind me, and in magnificent English, “We Italians enjoy discussing food. We’ll talk about it for hours; the nuances, shades of flavor, color, origin, history, you name it.” Everyone nods, though I doubt their English is much better than my Italian. The lanky signorina begins a monologue with “If I (or “you” – I miss which person the verb is couched in) win the lottery…” She then continues for an acre while counting out my change. I make a flaccid stab at a witty reply, with “Well, when that lottery is won, you’ll share some with me, right?” She answers that if I win the lottery, sharing it will be my business. I guess it’s me who’s supposed to win.

Everyone in the Caffe is friendly, attentive, and ready to welcome me into their world. I’m as disoriented and distressed as George Bailey in Pottersville or Scrooge at his tombstone. I squeeze out a grin, conclude the transaction, and flee, relieved to be out but also feeling like I’m abandoning a room full of old friends.

Back in the street, the crowds are in passeggiata mode, thick and slow. But not as thick and slow as I feel. I reel, I stagger, I’ve either just had a mild stroke or the salad was dressed with grappa. Nothing brings me out of it, not even bambini or puppies. I wander, hoping the sensation will subside. It diminishes but does not go away. I weave up the two flights to my apartment, and throw myself onto the sofa.

At the end of this coming week I’ll be signing a lease for a house in Orvieto. A small place with a garden – an amazing find at an affordable rent. On the sofa last night, the thought crossed my mind that taking a house here was probably delusional and was surely a mistake. The thought crossed my mind, turned to look back at me with some nostalgia, and fell off a cliff. I had a warm drink and went to bed.

The ingredients are simple. One patron saint, a couple hundred children, an even greater number of their family and friends, some twisty streets, and a whistle. Oh yeah, some really dedicated and (so I hear) wonderful teachers.

Claudia let me know this was happening, both her boys would be involved. “At nine-thirty Saturday morning, there is an event in Piazza del Duomo. Confusion reigns supreme.” How could I not show up? I had no idea what I was going to.

On the way down Via del Duomo I check the alimentari owned by my friends Vera and Giovanni. As they’ve grown older, their previous schedule of Giovanni in the morning, Vera in the afternoon, and both together after four, has concentrated to include only the both together shift and that not until six. It makes it harder to remember to visit, so I made a special point to do so in early February. “We’re closing for a few weeks on Monday,” Vera told me. “The entire place is being restructured.” I’ve been peaking on my way past the store for two weeks now, but the windows, covered with sheets of white paper, have not let me discover what might be going on inside. This morning is no different.

In the piazza, a large crowd has gathered, lots of children, ages young to younger, wearing numbers safety-pinned to their shirts. Just about everyone I know or am familiar with in Orvieto is here. The first I meet are Natsuko and Andrea. “Don’t you love seeing the piazza full of people like this?” Andrea says, more or less greeting me with a statement. “Wonderful things happen here. I want to install a webcam.” He points up to a window I never in my mind connected with his apartment. “One night, I looked out my library window and there were three cellists formally dressed playing on the steps of the Duomo. No one else in the square, just them.”

A few minutes later Claudia emerges from the crowd, and a few after that Giorgio dashes by, dressed a little like he’d just stepped off a trans-Atlantic voyage with Noel Coward. It’s nine-forty, nothing has happened yet. At least nothing organized. I ask Natsuko what the kids are going to do. She describes a complicated route through a part of town sort of centered around the Liceo. I imagine a procession. After all it’s San Giuseppe’s Day, the city’s patron. I nod in response, smile, and take in the crowd.

The crowd grows thick. Children organize themselves into groups. Other people I know appear and disappear. Then the kids who have coalesced at the mouth of Via Maitani, which leads into town across from the central door of the Duomo, assume starting positions, leaning into an imaginary wind. I ask
Claudia “Is this a race?” She doesn’t hear me, but it sure is starting to look like it. Then one of a group of who seem to be teachers, steps forward with a coach’s whistle, gives it a mighty and throaty blast, the group of kids spills into Maitani, and most of the adults run – albeit at a slower pace – towards Via del Duomo.

We congregate in what is variously called Piazza Gualtieri or Piazza San Giuseppe. Soon a policeman on a beautiful motor cycle with sirens blaring and lights flashing clears a path. He is followed by a pack of kids running like demons towards a subtly identified finish line. Enrico, Claudia’s husband, now appears out of the crowd, and their sons, blond Adreas and dark Tobia emerge from the runners’ pack and go off to collect their gold medals and chocolate eggs.

But that’s not all of it. Much of the crowd now retraces towards Piazza del Duomo where a group of younger students are preparing their race for grace. The same thing happens again, only the contestants are a foot or so shorter. And a third time, with contestants so young they must have been assigned a special route, for their efforts are more to keep going in a single direction than speed. Each race is given a police escort, gold metals, and chocolate eggs (dimensions of which diminish slightly to match the corporeal size of the contestant.)

The crowd now strolls over to Bar Montanucci where the good people there have set up a table with dolce, coffee, and other snacks, free for participants and their elders. On the way I glance at the alimentari, and in the previous hour the paper has been removed and the new interior exposed for the town to admire. I excuse myself and step inside to congratulate Giovanni (Vera is not there.) “It’s beautiful,” I say. “Yeah, and pretty darned expensive,” he replies. Their daughter brightly repeats the slogan that was hand-written across the paper just torn down; “the tradition continues!” She and Sabrina, her daughter-in-law, are bustling about making final adjustments to products on display. It really is beautiful, and I say it again. Giovanni smiles, shrugs, and shakes my hand. I’ve been planning a gift for this moment, so excuse myself until I can find one.

At Montanucci, the scene is a dance of children and dogs and grandparents. Children with their medals and eggs, children in strollers, children toddling, falling, running, greeting and making friends on all sides. Andreas and Tobia run up to announce that their school, Luigi Barzini, was the overall winner of the race. How this was determined, I have no idea, nor does anyone else seem to know, but joy is registered all around. I don’t ask what other schools competed as I’m afraid there might not have been any, and why dampen the flush of victory.

Claudia and Enrico suggest I join them for lunch in Monterubiaglio. Claudia is returning to Orvieto early afternoon to pass petitions against using animals in studies on substance abuse, so I have rides both ways. The kids find us, and we walk towards Piazza Fracassini and one of the fresh pasta stores. There’s quite a crowd there, too. Claudia disappears, the boys run off somewhere, Enrico goes on ahead. When Claudia emerges she’s carrying two clamshells of ombrichelli, a thick, hand-rolled pasta typical to the region. “A gift to all who participated, today,” she reports, pleased and amazed. “Every year like this.”

We lunch on ombrichelli (and cheese, and favas plucked fresh from their shells,) I ride back with Claudia, take a short nap, and hit the streets again. At nearly five the festivities are still going. I run into Andrea, Natsuko, and theirs guests for the day, Hugh and Paola, and am invited to dinner.

Another round of races has begun. This one features boys of about 15, a team from each of the four quartiere, with each team member carrying what looks like it might be giant chocolate egg wrapped in colored foil – but the contents is never verified. Teams of girls and young women, each with a single male recruit to give their routines a point of focus (or so it would seem) perform on the stage set up for the festival. They do dance numbers, nicely choreographed, learned with studied determination, and presented with varying degrees of self-consciousness. Their courage and enthusiasm are greeted with appropriate abandon by the audience.

At about six, I stop at the flower stand under the loggia of Sant’Andrea to choose a mini rose bush with orange blooms. The lady wraps it elegantly, and I find my way through the crowds to the alimentari. Sabrina and a grand-daughter are the only ones in the shop. I present my rose. They are gracious. “Giovanni got tired and went home. Vera has a pain in her hip, so won’t be coming in.” They have other things on their minds, but I cleave to the hope the flower will be delivered, and that Vera will figure out who it’s from. Disappointed, I ask them to pass on my good wishes and slide into the street. I love those two, wanted so much to connect.

Awards are being given now to the young men who raced with their gigantic, and supposed, chocolate eggs. Each team has its own character, as if they were each from a different sub-culture, each quartiere enforcing its invisible rule. The young priest presenting the awards is enthusiastic and careful to point out that although this is a feast day of the church, it is more importantly a celebration of the city, the culture, and the community – regardless of one’s relationship to religion. I wonder if this disclaimer is made possible (or necessary) by centuries of direct papal rule, a period no one contemplates with pleasure.

A band of three acoustic guitarists takes the stage. They are called “The Bartenders,” and are marvelous. The lead musician was a teacher of mine at LinguaSi a dozen years ago. As always there is a space in front of the stage for little children to dance, and a flock of them willingly oblige. One particularly brilliant little girl is repeatedly held back by her grandmother, as if the woman believes dancing to be dangerous or immoral. The girl doesn’t complain, but as soon as her nonna’s attention wanes, she’s back into the swing. Grandma is unwittingly cultivating a ballerina.

I listen for a half hour, then go for dinner. Vera’s grand daughter is in the alimentari (renamed, as I now notice, “Botega Vera”) slicing prosciutto. I ask for a photo. She waves her hand and says “sure”, apparently of the opinion that slicing salted meat is not her most flattering angle.