No, You Don't

We're doing fairly well with overcoming jet-lag.  I am right back to my nasty habit of getting up before sunrise which just now reminded me to get up from my chair and open the den blinds so that I can view part of today's sunrise. 

It's been great, so far, seeing friends again, here.  It's been hard, so far, missing friends, there.  Arriving at our house had lots of good moments, none better than the first load of laundry I threw into the machine after being without a washer for five whole weeks. That felt really superb.  I also enjoyed about five minutes of television viewing, everyone speaking a language that I almost understood (most of what's on network t.v. makes me question the actual native tongue of the "talent").  We also enjoyed getting into our car and driving away along flat and familiar roads.

The hard part, or part of the hard part, has been answering well-meaning friends and neighbors who ask "so, how was Italy?" "Did you have a favorite part?" And then, "we have to get together so you can tell us all about your trip!".  Sweet, kind and very much appreciated words from sweet, kind and thoughtful people.  While I am on the topic, allow me to inform that neither of our children or grandchildren have asked.  Not one phrase that even resembled "So, how did you enjoy your trip folks".  My father, who I fretted about constantly, had to be reminded of where we had been, despite the fact that, on a daily basis, he was reminded by the staff at his nursing facility.  But, he's 98 and he has dementia.  Does my brother even know we have returned?  I guess our Italy trips have become old hat to them and our comings-and-goings fold into the weave of their lives like old shirts. Still, it would be nice to know that they maybe felt our absence on some small level.

We will soon fit back into the fold of everyone's life and once again, we will all take each other for granted, the good with the bad. For now, we've kind of decided to pause when asked to "tell all".  How could we possibly?  This is not the first long trip from which we've returned.  We know the drill.
We watch eyes glaze over and yawns on the verge often enough to know that you do not want to hear about it all.  Nope.  And we honestly can't tell you anything that may bring even a slight thrill to your own ears and we're sure as heck not going to whip out photos.

I have prepared a short answer for those who really and truly want to "hear all about our trip". The version of my story goes sort of like this.....

We got up every morning, made crappy coffee, showered in a booby-trapped bathroom, hand-washed a batch of clothes, hung them out over a pan-tiled roof for the first round of drying, grabbed our gear, our backpacks, and headed out.....for the best cappuccino after walking past people who sang out "buongiorno" along the way.  We exchanged buongiorni with the barrista and scooped foam from our cups as if it were spun from gold.  Sometimes, we had coronetti that oozed the most delicious and delicate cream as we bit into them. We sat over our coffee until we decided it was time to leave and we went on to have absolutely wonderful, unhurried and unscripted days of just "being".  How can we describe how it feels to just exist in a place that feels absolutely right for your entire being, all the time?  How can we tell you how living without a car in a hill town energized us and challenged us?  How can we explain the need to go back and back for long walks in the woods, ending in impromptu lunches before an open fire at an osteria that was once a mill in a tiny, ancient borgo?  Can we tell you how satisfying it was to look down into a valley from way up high, and high-five each other saying "look where we were and now, we're up here"?  Is it possible to convey to you how sunset looks from the very top of one of Italy's most beautiful towns? Would you understand why we hiked up to the tallest point, not once, but several times and one of the times was specifically to catch a sunrise? See, you're probably glazing over already, and I haven't even started yet.

If you are still interested, we'll be happy to share.  None of this stuff, or pretty much nothing else we ever do in Italy, can be found in a guide book. Trust me.

Addesso.......Now

I’m seated on an airplane, it’s after lunch and I’m listening to the opera and classical music selections on my headphones. The plane interior is darkened and that’s a very good thing because I’m actively crying my eyes out and can do so without being seen by my husband or fellow passengers.

We’re homeward bound, an expression that I find harder than ever to fit into the vernacular. Home?  It’s been five whole weeks.  I guess the catharsis was inevitable. I thought the weeping might have come by now but, it takes an incredible amount of preparation and strategy to get from Point A, across the ocean to Point B, and back again. No time is allotted to emotion.  I recently discovered that we are above the age at which we are referred to as “ancienti” and have officially joined the group known as the “vecchi”.  Somewhat disturbing. We have to force ourselves to stay focused.  Care-free travel is owned by those who are younger. Focus folks.

I have nothing but time at the moment.  I have had nothing but it for all these weeks and it wasn’t until a few hours ago that I finally understood how precious a commodity that is and how well the Italians embrace the whole concept allowing time to be their silent partner, always.  Were I given a dime each time I was reminded of that, I would be one, very wealthy vecciana.  We, who live in a country that is only a few hundred years old, can’t fully appreciate the fact that we have had to bee-line everything in order to bring our civilization to where it currently is.  The Italians have had centuries and have not rushed to anything, ever.  I now find it incredibly funny to think of so many Americans who come to Italy as tourists and report that they have fallen in love with the country after two weeks of hopping from Rome, to Florence, to Venice and on and on.  It takes a whole lot longer than that to really and truly get it.  Twelve trips and I’m just approaching the iceberg. With each visit, I get it more but the gap is still huge.

My heart and soul are in Italy.  I’m called back by a force that even I don’t fully understand.  I feel so much more like myself when I step off a plane and touch the soil of my ancestors.  My heart opens up and I feel as if I am living in a world that could only exist on another whole universe. Every man looks like my brother.  I am my grandmother, I am my mother and I am saddened by the loss of those lives within me.  I want to have both of them back so that I can lie on their deathbeds and curl into their bodies, as a child, begging them to not leave the earth.

Oh, to have that chance.

I was paid a great compliment a few weeks ago by a beautiful man who makes his living binding books, by hand, in a tiny workshop in Assisi.  He told me that I was an “Italian woman” and my heart soared.  I told him that my grandmother must be smiling and I levitated at the thought. My Italian friends ask me when I will become their neighbor because I “belong” here and should.  And, I pause and think about it.  So much that I am sure it will happen, that one day, before I become too unable to, I will join their ranks. I am an Italian woman.

But for now, I’m restless on an airplane that is soaring through a sky that hangs over the ocean that separates my mind and body from my true origins. My return to that other life is becoming profoundly certain and I have more reason for being a sad person.  It’s going to be a challenge holding my ground when we get back into our house.  It's going to take all that I have to keep the Italian hours alive.  There’s no reason to fall back into the fast lane. To get where, I do not even know. Time. 

Time to remember that I can be whoever I chose to be and can live my life in any way I desire. If I have learned nothing else, I have learned that.

My grandmother and my mother are waiting.  For that last embrace.

Ciao Italia. Ci vediammo multo presto.

Wrapping Up

Our departure through the ever-present Porta Perlici went as smooth as bechemel sauce yesterday morning.  It's amazing what good planning and a little bit of good, old-fashioned strategy can do.
We have a lot of heavy baggage with us and making more than one trip up to where our car was parked, was not an option.  But, we pulled it all off and hit the road, stopping off  in the town of Rivororto for our cappuccino.  We found a local bar (no, a "bar" is not a "bar" in Italy) which was filled with locals of course - all men. Where are the women in the mornings? A quick coffee, a panino (more than one would be "panini") then a brief conversation with a gentleman who was terribly interested in who I was an where I came from, and what I thought about the surrounding fog.  Umbria is famous for it and this time of year is conducive to the beautiful show that the white layers topping the valley provide. I am starting to believe that I live in Boston.  It's so much easier to explain in Italian than Cape Cod.  New York, Boston.....

Our next stop was to the Assisi War Cemetery which is located on the border between Santa Maria degli Angeli and Rivortorto. Here's a little explanation of this beautifully  maintained place of rest:

On 3 September 1943 the Allies invaded the Italian mainland, the invasion coinciding with an armistice made with the Italians who then re-entered the war on the Allied side. Progress through southern Italy was rapid despite stiff resistance, but the advance was checked for some months at the German winter defensive position known as the Gustav Line. The line eventually fell in May 1944 and as the Germans withdrew, Rome was taken by the Allies on 3 June. Many of the burials in this cemetery date from June and July 1944, when the Germans were making their first attempts to stop the Allied advance north of Rome in this region. The site for the cemetery was selected in September 1944 and burials were brought in from the surrounding battlefields. Assisi War Cemetery contains 945 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War.

I have never considered myself a "history buff" but find details of the Second World War to hold my interest and of course, Italy's involvement and, narrowing it down to Assisi's involvement, really fascinates me so this stop off was a must on our to-do-with-a-car list. 

After paying our respects, we hit the road for a long-anticipated lunch with our friends Giselle and Mark Stafford.  It was her birthday party that started our Umbrian holiday and we were booked for a lunch at a country osteria that was on the way to our final destination near Orvieto.  Mark and Giselle have been our dear friends for almost ten years.  After ex-patriating from the U.K., they opened "Gusto! Umbrian Wine Tours", a business that has become, as Trip Advisor will attest, the most successful wine tour businesses in Umbria.  We love spending time with them and will always consider them our nearest and dearest friends in Italy.  We had a great fish meal and of course, a very decent bottle of vino bianco.

Our promises of a return visit as soon as possible,kisses and hugs,and we were back on the road towards Orvieto and after getting lost, we arrived at our sanctuary for the next few days, the lovely Locanda Rosati in the area of Veterbo,