Author Archives: mydoublelifeinitaly

An architectural interlude

My sister has been  trying to find one of those fly-blocker door screens made of long plastic ropes, so far with no results.  It has brought my mind around to some of the subtle and strange differences  regarding doors and windows in our houses.

When we built our house, my joy at having small balconies on every upstairs room from which to admire the countryside was vexed by the fact that a glass door, or porta-finestra, cannot be had with any type of closure from the outside.  In other words, if you step out on the balcony you cannot close the door behind you!  If it should be closed by someone on the inside, you will remain there indefinitely, lacking a rope,   because there are no door handles on the outside.  After many years I managed to procure one  balcony door which actually locks with a key on both the inside and outside, but still with only an interior handle.   God forbid I should ever forget to have that key in hand when outside.  It is not my plan to be closed out on a balcony  in the  country,  with no hope of escape other than a very loud yell.

This represents to me an interesting insight into the differences in psychology between the cultures.   Maybe Italians don’t enjoy spending time on the balcony?   Yet clearly they do.  Hanging and gathering the laundry is carried out daily, and rooms are expensive to heat.   On a day with a chilly wind,  leaving the door wide open must seem counter intuitive.  Maybe Italians do not care about flying insects coming inside?   The plastic rope fly screens would belie that theory.  Or maybe the concept of having another door handle with a necessary locking device would just complicate things in the dolce vita…  What I can say is that I have devised all manner of ways to keep the darn door almost, but not fully, closed when I am out on the balcony.  Bricks, rope cords, elastic bungee cords and wooden wedges; trying to keep the door shut never fails to frustrate me.

Windows, constructed in similar fashion with interior-only handles, can never be  blocked in such a way that they don’t slam shut in the wind.  I use American rubber doorstops (another item that simply does not exist in Italy) to keep them open.  The panes  invariably open into the room and create a hazard to the heads of shorter people and children.  Oh to have some sliding windows which don’t have to be propped open!  Screens are a new addition to windows, and thank goodness.  Ours are mounted on rollers, and at the end of the summer are the dwelling place of wasps and tiny adorable bats.  We have to be careful when pulling them down not to squish them in the roller mechanism.

On the positive side, I can’t say enough about the wonderful rolling shades which serve to black out any room, any time, all or partially.  These are on the outside of the glass windows in any house.   There can be nothing more relaxing than to take a siesta, drifting off on a warm afternoon with the shades closed only enough to leave small spaces between the interlocking strips, small checkerboard snippets of light and a nice breeze blowing through the room.  When I am in the US I find that having only a curtain between my rooms and the street never lets me completely relax at night.  I feel exposed.   In Italy my rooms become  essentially windowless with the shades down, a silent and private space.  They are also marvelous when jet lag sets in, and a totally black night-during-the-day room is required.

As children we  all marveled at bank vaults, their cylinders aligning to form a solid unbreakable wall of steel between ourselves and the shiny stuff.  In Italy, every house has a front door which is a porta blindata, which means it locks with a series of steel cylinders just like the bank vault.   A large key can be rolled over and over in the lock to insert the cylinders ever more deeply into the receiving end of the iron door frame.  The doors themselves are also made of reinforced steel, with a thin veneer of wood.  But as any workman will tell you, it is fine to have one of these doors, but anyone with a hammer can knock a hole in the masonry walls of any house faster than you can remember that maybe a big dog would have been a better idea.   I have known people who will leave a little dish of money on the kitchen table to discourage burglars from doing gratuitous damage to the house, after they have taken everything else of value.

When I suggested that we should fence our plot of land, my husband dismissed the idea by explaining that we might antagonize our neighbors by creating a physical, and therefore psychological, barrier between us.   In going with the flow I did not insist.  However each small yard in the suburbs is clearly delineated by a  fence, and each driveway boasts a large and imposing automatic gate, which opens with a remote control device.  Even the humblest houses have these gates, and it would seem everyone has a need, even if they won’t admit it, to keep “me” from “you.”  So now, out in the country, everyone is in the process of fencing their property, if they can afford to.  If it is true that good fences make good neighbors, we can hope that this trend will make for fewer skirmishes among property owners.  But I worry about the goats, who depend on their  free-roaming grazing each day in order to supply that good milk for our cacciocavallo and  ricotta.

Of course it is true that architectural peculiarities can determine the feel of a neighborhood.  I think of air-conditioning and how it has caused the total demise of porch-sitting and interacting with neighbors in Texas.  Air-conditioning in Bernalda is beginning to cause the disappearance of those folks who, in order to keep cool, sit outside their doors in the afternoon and chat with passersby.  I don’t know if I would choose sociability over superior comfort, myself.  However I can recommend a plastic fly screen, those lines of hanging spirals which hang in the doorways of houses and bars during the summer. They do work, and are the best hands-free method for creating a barrier I have seen.   People are welcome, flies not so much.

“Openings”  oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

What did you say?

I always think it is incredible when someone asks me if I speak Italian, forgetting that they might not know that I have been here for  thirty years.   Of course I speak Italian; I had to learn it to get along when I first stayed behind in 1982 after the excavations group flew back to the States without me.  And then I remember that there are people living here, people who claim to adore the local culture and society, who after almost as many years still do not speak the language.

How can you live in a place and not learn the language?   I know the answer.  You form your own small comfortable ghetto comprised of people just like you and continue to live in the bubble.  The culture “outside” is a cinematic illusion, to be sampled on outings, a kind of  resident tourism.  You are able to conserve your romantic views of the culture without getting your hands dirty, and without truly understanding what the hell is going on around you.  Good luck with that.

“Castello di Oriolo, Isolato” pencil and metallic pigment on paper

Down where we live, they proudly speak a dialect.  “V’rnallese” is its name, or “Bernaldese” in Italian.  It is one of hundreds, each uniquely-evolved on top of  crowded hilltops  in tiny anthill-like communities over three thousand years or more.  And yet these dialects are sprung from common roots:  Greek of course, as this area was Magna Graecia after all,  and Arabic.  Neopolitan, the “real”  Italian language, not that flat and colorless version spoken in Florence, which, thanks to television and the Republic, is today considered the standard version.  And smatterings of other languages as well.  Near us there are towns which conserve their Albanian language, including their street signs.  There are also towns which still have strong Aramaic roots in their dialect.  French, Spanish, even recent English contributions: In Bari they say “celery” for the Italian sedano, I am sure because of the second world war and the number of American servicemen there.   In Bernalda there are many oldsters who are known as “Shoomak” which reflects their experience as emigrants to the USA where they worked at making and repairing shoes to survive.   All these cultural contributions are smudged together in each small town to create a particular version unique to that town.

My learning curve was a little steep, because all my friends here typically spoke this dialect among themselves, although they could be prevailed upon to translate for me into Italian. If I had known Italian at that point I would have had it made!   However I spent many an evening laughing along with the group in utter ignorance of what was going on.  But I can be perceptive, and this saved me on many occasions in following the gist of things by observing body language and context in order to muddle through.   In the 1980’s, being young and blonde, it wasn’t hard to get along on nods and  smiles.

Notice I said “they” speak a dialect.  This is to say, while I understand almost everything (although I still encounter an obscure term every few days or so, and have to learn it) I do NOT speak it.  I think it.  So my cerebral routing procedure is as follows:  English to dialect, dialect to Italian.  The reason I don’t speak dialect I suppose comes from a sense of pride in my almost-perfect Italian pronunciation (people may or may not know that I am “not from around here”)…and it is also because I don’t relish the smirks and ironic comments which so often greeted my attempts at formulating thoughts in dialect.  OK, I learn.  In my mind, I speak it acceptably, but I still trust my Italian interlocutor to express my ideas.  And that Italian, in my case, is heavily-inflected with the southern accent of these parts, of which I am proud.  I ignore smirks from northerners as well.

I have spoken American English to my kids ever since they were in the womb.  They had to deal with the two most important people in their lives speaking entirely different languages to them at all times.  The conversations between myself and my husband are invariably in Italian, unless we are in the USA and he is required to use English, in which case he may surprise us all with his ability.   My kids and I speak English to each other, and they speak Italian with my husband.  It can get interesting at times, as we lapse into a strange patois  without realizing it!  “Ma!   Puozz’mangnia’ some of those biscuott’ you bought stamattina dal forno over by the ufficio postale?” *    The upshot is that my kids are truly native speakers, and by that I mean indistinguishable from natives, in both languages.  Of course we hope that this brain re-wiring will do us all good in some way.  We are flexible, and sometimes we are also confused!

I have my favorite examples, of course, of the incredible disparity between classic Italian and our jealously-preserved dialect.  My spellings are the best I can do to approach a phonetic  definition.  I enjoy following the town discussions on Facebook, where people’s attempts to write in dialect can be quite amusing.  Traditionally it has not been a written language, although scholarly types have published a couple of books on it recently.

Directly from the Greek is the orange, or arancia, which is the portaialla in Pisticci, the next town over, and l’ammaranch’ in Bernalda.   Need some wine, or vino?  Ask for “na zicca d’mieeruh.”  A napkin, or tovagliolo,  is “ooh shtiavruccula.”    Snails, or lumache?        “Cozzaiuffula.” 

Over in Pisticci, they came up with a relatively new expression–in the last century– to designate the mirage which sometimes forms over  asphalt, and I absolutely love it.   “Ooh marawall” means, roughly translating into Italian and English, “uguale al mare” which is, poetically, “the same as the sea.”    And it is!

In Italian, to ask, “If you are ready to go, let’s go, and if you’re not, we’ll stay” you might say, “Se dobbiamo andare, andiamo.  Se no, non ce ne andiamo piu‘.    In Vrnallese:  “Se ‘na ma shee, sha ma nneen.  Se nun a ma shee, nunn’ a shiamma shenn.”  It really does roll  musically off the tongue.

It is important to know which day you are speaking about, so “today,”  or “oggi”,  is ” iosh‘.”

Tomorrow, or “domani,” is “cra.”

The day after tomorrow, “dopo domani,”  is “p’scra,” and the day after that is “p’screedd.”     (The double consonant indicates a firmer pressure of the tongue against the palate.)

And the day after that?   “P’scruofula!”

What (She Says) He Said oil on canvas

*”Mom, can I eat some of the cookies you bought this morning from the bakery near the post office?”

An Easter Recipe

It has been a while since I wrote anything about cooking, so I thought I would honor my wonderful mother-in-law by relating one of her favorites.  Her repertoire was not huge, but the things she made were invariably excellent.  This dish is a crowd-pleaser, and it really makes a splash as it is presented because it is so eye-catching.

I will call it the Alianelli Meat and Frittata Roll.

Bernalda View, oil on canvas

Using very thinly sliced beef or pork, lay out the slices on a large piece of plastic wrap and pound them into one very large and flat slice.  A meat tenderizing mallet will work well for this.  Make sure that your flat shape, when rolled up, will fit in one of your large pans.    You can make two short ones instead of one  big one, and they will fit better.  Keep in mind that the slices should not have a diameter wider than two to three inches, or they will fall apart as you cut them.  Salt and pepper the meat, and dot it generously with butter.  Set aside.

Create a number of quickly-made thin frittate, which are beaten egg mixed with a generous addition of freshly-grated Parmigiano Reggiano, or Grana Padano.   “Generous” means about one part cheese to two parts egg.   Make enough to entirely cover the meat.  Be careful  because these are very thin, they are easily torn, but they will be rolled up in the meat so it really isn’t so important that they be perfect.

At this point you can add very thinly-sliced prosciutto cotto or crudo, depending on your taste, laying it on top of the frittata.  Again, cover the entire large “slice” of meat.

Now carefully roll the whole thing up very tightly, using the plastic wrap to help you, and hey, don’t roll the plastic up in the meat roll!   Fold in the ends.  Get out your cooking twine to bind it together so that during cooking it will behave.  Using twine is another chapter, but I trust you will be able to handle it!   Fry the roll in generous olive oil in which you have briefly added a couple of garlic cloves, removed before they brown.  When the roll is thoroughly browned, and you are fairly sure it will have cooked through inside, add a cup or so of white wine to the pan to create a tasty reduction to spoon over the slices.

Remove the roll, let it cool down, and carefully remove the twine.  With your sharpest knife begin slicing it into half-inch slices.  They are almost psychedelic in their swirling bright yellow and dark brown spirals!  Lay them out on a platter and spoon the sauce over.  These can be zapped in the microwave right before serving to reheat them, or held in a warm oven.

Buon appetito, and Buona Pasqua!

“Food Bandits” mixed media on paper

The grass is greener, at least in theory

Don’t get me wrong, there are many things I love about living here.  And there are many things that everyone hates with a passion, and rightly so.  It isn’t so much that we are all reluctant to follow the rules, which, after all have been created with us in mind…it is that these rules are counter-productive, counter-intuitive, and run contrary to every logical desire  we might have to comply  if given half a chance.

This is Italy, and being a country famous for its beautiful landscape, its citizens must be encouraged to behave in such a way that the countryside remains attractive and healthful.  But times are hard, and revenue and personal incomes are in a tug-of-war with each other where everyone will lose.   So what better way to aid the floundering economy  then by creating more rules to follow, more reasons to evade them, and more impetus to misbehave out of sheer frustration?   And maybe create some revenue in the process?

We are in the process of restructuring a small, centuries-old house in the old part of town.  The view from the roof is marred by a large square cistern, made out of that wonderful material from the sixties and seventies, asbestos.  As it sits, it is not a threat to anyone, but it must be removed to make way for the renovations.  The mind of a conscientious citizen moves forward in an orderly fashion, and imagines that the object, not too heavy for a few men to lift, might be removed with the help of friends and carried to a corner of someone’s yard where it might be yet of use.

Ah, but there are new rules.  Enter the Azienda Sanitaria Locale, or ASL.*   They will have to be contacted about the removal.  An appointment will have to be made with a transport company in the area, and this will cost money.  It will require time, as they are not immediately available, of course.  There will be the need of a specialized truck with a crane to lift the cistern off of the terrazzo, and before this there will be another call to make, with a firm which is responsible for shrink-wrapping the offending item before handling it.  But before they can be called, we must locate an authorized area, call it a dump, where such items may be “disposed of.”  One hopes that these areas are safe and correctly-utilized, but we can’t know for sure.  At the end point of its removal, whenever that comes,  it is out of our hands.  Our ASL will protect us.

All of this for the bargain price of roughly 1800 Euros, or about 2300 dollars.

The end result of such regulations is understandable:  no one uses the official procedure for disposing of dangerous items, and the woods and gulleys of the surrounding areas slowly fill up with toxic and unsightly rubble.  Near our house there are two piles of broken asbestos roofing, and I try to avoid them on my walks.  What else can I do, call the ASL and pay for endless toxic removals?  It could get quite expensive.

Yes, and what to do with tires that are worn out?  The government requires stiff fees for disposing of used tires, and it is practically impossible for a customer who buys new ones to get the gommista* to dispose of the old ones, utilizing the proper channels.  It is much too expensive and time-consuming.  The result is that  every rest area is festooned with tires, every low spot along the road has its compliment of rubber, picnic spots are delineated by piles of black doughnuts.  It is almost as if it were a requirement for them to be there.   Ditto for car batteries.  When these piles are set on fire in order to “reduce” their mass, everyone enjoys the effects.  For years.

Do you need to repair the roof of a shed?  The old tar paper will need to come off, but what to do with it?  It would be incorrect and dangerous for the public health to dispose of it in a dumpster somewhere, so the government agency which deals with such things will have to be called.  The cost of getting rid of eighty pounds of old roofing material?  Only 500 Euros.  Needless to say, the  roofing material ends up in the dumpster anyway, deposited in small quantities around town.  True story.

Another true story:   An old friend ran a gas station with a partner, which  naturally  needed to dispose of its collected used motor oil.  There is a government agency for that!   The owner of a  station is responsible for compiling a scrupulous and almost indecipherable notebook accounting for every drop of oil, its date of arrival and source, and so forth.  A moment of distraction and their notebook contained an incorrect entry, discovered when the authorities from this specialized government agency arrived to enforce their rules.   The fine for the incorrect entry?   Sixty million lire for each partner, or a total fine for the business of about 200 thousand dollars.  Paid with no possibility of recourse.

And again, a friend’s experience only a couple of years ago:  While doing some  remodeling at home, he parked his almost-full wheelbarrow full of old bits of plaster and cement by the driveway while he went in for some water.  In that brief period of time the NAS officers (nucleo antisofisticazione, or a kind of  “agency for the conservation of  purity”) drove past and spotted the wheelbarrow.  Not allowed!   This was not deemed to be a permissible method of storing or moving such materials, and a fine was applied.   Sixty-five thousand Euros.  Almost 100 thousand dollars, give or take a few thousand.  I believe the case is still making its way through the permanently-constipated court system after fifteen years.

So we will be careful as our remodel proceeds, not to leave any wheelbarrows parked awkwardly around the site.  And we will continue to live with the fruits of way too much government regulation, unfortunately, in the form of   poisonous fumes and toxic waste, strewn about in our beautiful landscape.   As people, in their desire to avoid stringent regulations and fees, dump anywhere but in the right place.

I believe our offending asbestos container will magically make its way to my garden after all.

*Local Health Authority

*tire repairer

Saint Mary’s Loch,  oil on canvas,  30 x 60 inches

(above) detail, “Damage Control”  mixed media on paper

Spend wisely

If you are going out to shop, you will have to make a decision;  stay in town where the shops are smallish and local, or head out to the big city where some supermarkets are so large that their workers get around them on roller skates.  You  may save money at the big box centers, but you will have to calculate the gas and the aggravation.  Keep in mind that I am talking about my small area of Italy, and of course Rome, Milan, and even Bari are probably a different matter.

I have never figured out why many items cost what they do.  Plastics, everyday items such as washing basins, all manner of molded colorful utensils are incredibly cheap when compared to typical American prices.  I have heard about Italian Plastic, maybe this is what was meant.  Some of the most beautiful laundry baskets, lawn furniture, and kitchen utensils I have ever seen anywhere are here.  Why plastic should be so cheap and gasoline so expensive, well, it tells a story about how easily prices can be manipulated.

Bathroom rugs are incredibly expensive.  They are ratty and badly-made, ready to fall apart at the first washing, and yet they are costly.  Things like band aids, hair bands, brushes, demitasse cups, faucets, door knobs, office supplies, insect repellent, and lamps are all incredibly expensive.  Why is this?   There are two levels of commerce, the very nice  (places where I will not easily be found)   and the kind of crappy.  It is either custom-made-to-order bookshelves or shrink-wrapped and assembly-required.  There really is no middle ground of decent quality and modest price.  There is a third option, the market on designated weekdays, which is made up of traveling vans which set up and then leave in the course of the morning.  But if you don’t know how to haggle and bluff, or if you have a face like mine, blond and foreign, this might cost you dearly.

In the past few years one area which has benefited greatly from the influx of foreign-made merchandise is doors.   The doors which were so lovingly made for our house twenty years ago, no two exactly alike, cost about four hundred dollars each.  I can remember having to sit down when I heard what our modest (compared to other houses) component of  seven doors would cost.   Now you can get very nice doors and frames for about seventy five dollars if you look in the right place.  They are made in neighboring countries to the East, and they are now in every new house and building.  Walking into a charming old remodeled house and seeing these doors can be disconcerting.  It creates the same feeling of melancholy that peeking at  a kitchen in, say,  Japan produces.  You see your exact chairs and table, cutlery and clock,  and you understand that we have paid with our identity for our Ikea world, where everyone can choose the same items.  And they do,   because they are so irresistibly cheap.

However, there are some bargains!  Wine  flows and flavors most meals at  negligible expense.  When I first came here there was a Cantina Sociale where you could buy red, white, or rose–these were the categories–by the case.  Twelve full bottles for about seventy five cents each.  Many areas still boast their wine cooperatives, which is what these are, where all the farmers can pool their grapes with generic but decent results.   Unfortunately our cantina sociale is a thing of the past, a victim of in-fighting,  location,  and the boutique wine industry.  But lest you should be forced to stay sober, you can pick up all manner of hard liquors at your local supermarkets.  A bottle of Russian vodka will set you back about five dollars and a decent single malt whiskey, imported from Scotland, will cost no more than about nine dollars.

Do you want to buy a nice carpet?  It might be very expensive.  There are a few televised infomercial sellers who have been around for many years, and one can only assume they do sell their Iranian and Indian-made rugs to someone.  From what I have seen, they are four times as expensive as the equivalent in the US, and nowhere near as attractive.  Even in high-end shops offering antique hand-woven carpets, red and blue are the colors offered.  Unless of course you prefer blue and red.  Tradition is a powerful beast.

Strangely,  it would seem that television has cornered the market on art sales.  All those channels at the high end of the dial, presenting their line-ups of paintings by “quoted” artists, and will they constitute a bargain?  Not hardly. I have seen pieces offered, horrendous kitsch and pitifully awkward abstracts,  for upwards of fifty thousand dollars.   The median price will be high, and never are there pieces of original art offered for less than a month’s salary. Sadly, while purchases are being made in this fashion, galleries are gasping for sales with no hope in sight.   So I always wonder, who can be buying this art?   Are they satisfied when the pieces are delivered and displayed?   Who in their right mind would happen on a station, some afternoon with nothing better to do, and telephone to order a fifty-thousand dollar painting, plus shipping?

Everyone here complains about the inexorable advance of the Chinese in all commercial areas.  But there is an almost total disconnect when it comes to consumer behavior, and if anything at all can be had at a cheaper price, then it will be had.  Every small town has its  storefronts with those red Chinese lanterns hanging out front, popping out like mushrooms after a rain.  They are a regular stop on everyone’s shopping trip, mainly to see if that item seen down the street can be bought at a cheaper price.  Usually a cheap imitation can be, and so another Italian shoe factory, fabric weaver, button-maker,  or small local shop  continues its  decline into bankruptcy.  Yet some hyper-protected areas of national pride are still safe, such as cheeses and olive oil, but you will be well-advised to read the label before you buy.  There are always alternatives to the real thing for the unwary.

Today, March 12, 2012, gasoline is going to cost you almost exactly ten dollars  a gallon.    As far as I see it gas prices are a lot like skin;  they both have the capacity to expand almost indefinitely.  Over-eaters and drivers  have to adjust their intake in order to cope.  My car, a relative gas-guzzler at 27 MPG, is used only when absolutely needed for hauling a trailer or lots of friends.   After all, there is another solution to high fuel consumption:  drive less.  In a small town in Italy, this is still possible.  I might note, however, that even at this price, the roads are still packed with cars.  Sometimes the very thing that we think can be manipulated with pricing will cause unexpected results.  Cars are still swarming over the roads, while local economies are suffering the slow death caused by shoppers going elsewhere.  In their cars.  There is a lesson there somewhere.

“Conspicuous Consumption”   mixed media on paper, 2005

A deep subject

The water lines which supply the town didn’t come out this far when we built our house.  The obvious solution was to have a well dug, and keep our water tanks filled with well water.   To do this, we needed an expert who had experience with our stratified terrain, which was comprised of hard sandstone “chiangare*,” sandy soil patches, and, of course, sand.  Not the best material to collect and hold water.

Word was spread around town, and a man appeared who seemed to meet the prerequisites.  He was from Pisticci, (because when an expert is needed it is always better not  to go local)  and we were assured that he had ample experience,  and was responsible for numerous productive wells in our area.

We imagined that his first day on the job would bring heavy equipment, rumbling diesel motors, long  pipes and tangled cables,  all indecipherable to us.  We were amazed when,  punctually at 7 AM on the first morning,  there appeared a  three-wheeled Ape* truck holding just a man with a pick ax, a bucket, and a mission.

The only thing he lacked, to my mind, was a forked stick.  He assured us, as had the town whisperers, that he had never failed to find water.  But finding it, assuming that veins were plentiful and ubiquitous, was not the main problem when digging a well.  It was much more difficult to capture and not break through the falde*, which were tiny and easily destroyed  with one blow too many to the fragile sedimentary strata.  This was the main reason why  it was practically impossible to drill a decent well mechanically.  The drill couldn’t recognize, of course, a vein when it found it.  But a man could.

He produced a string from his pocket, and after a few minutes of contemplation and slow meandering steps around the area we had in mind for our well, staked the center of his circle and drew it in the dirt.  He then commenced the arduous task of picking  and shoveling out his meter-wide pit.  We watched, transfixed, as we soon lost sight of his ankles, his knees, his hips and torso.

The second day, he arrived accompanied by his son, a strapping twenty-something who helped his father to descend faster by hauling up the buckets and porting them away.  At lunchtime, after they had consumed the contents of their  small stainless steel buckets of wonderful delicacies brought from home, they set up a winch and pulley system over the deepening hole.  We could no longer see the man, but the buckets of soil and sand and rock came out fast and furiously, pulled up by his son hand-cranking the winch.  Peering down inside, we saw a  perfect cilindrical chamber had been created, the negative image of the growing pile of sand and rock which grew steadily at the corner of the yard.   It descended about twenty feet by day three, and began to cause us great concern as to the stability of its unsupported walls.

But our guys had a plan, and they brought forth two half-circle aluminum forms which would be employed, along with cement, to create the walls of the well.   As he burrowed further down, he placed these forms inside the cilinder and his son sent down buckets of cement which he had mixed in a small two-stroke diesel tumbler.  As each three-foot length of wall was created, he set to work picking away the ground underneath.  When enough earth was removed the rings would slide seamlessly down to the next level, and another cement fill was created.

Every time he came up out of the well, he would drop a pebble at the center.  This method, in the days before lasers, would indicate immediately if his vertical cylinder was perfectly symmetrical.  The eye is, after all,  always the best judge of space, and an artist’s eye especially.

Down and down, impossibly far down he went.  I experienced cold sweat peering down at him,  claustrophobia making my palms clammy, imagining myself in the damp half-dark tunnel.  He began to tell us that he was finding signs of water at about 30 feet, but the veins were too weak.  As soon as they were discovered, they bled out.  The missions was to descend to a point where three or more small rivulets would supply enough water to allow a submersible pump to be installed.

Looking down from above, seeing a vague outline of our man’s head at 75 feet, was eerily disturbing.  When he finally reached the depth he considered adequate, the final ring, slightly larger in diameter than the others, was installed.  There is no bottom to the well, just the natural sandstone layer.   With a strong spotlight, we could see three finger-sized streams of water as they entered the flat reflective circle of water.   It would supply only small amounts, but continuously pumped out and stored in tanks, this would be our drinking water.

Our well water was  full of calcium and had a rusty taste, but some of our friends came with bottles to collect what they assured us was superior to any treated water available in town.  We have since switched to “town” water and we do not miss the problems caused by calcium, nor do we miss the possibility that some small animal could easily fall into the shaft and end up a soupy flavoring in our drinking water.  But while it is closed and locked now, and mostly a visual addition to the yard with its wisteria vine growing above, we know that if we should ever need that water it will be there.  And every time I open the heavy iron cover to look down into 80 feet of perfectly round shaft, I think of one man and his pick and how he  demonstrated to us yet another  manifestation of a true work of art.

*chiangare:  flat sandstone formations formed by flowing water millions of years ago

*Ape:  Made by Piaggio, a three-wheeled motor scooter with a cab and hauling bed behind.  It is the vehicle of choice for those that have no drivers license, and they can be encountered crawling along the roadways stuffed to the gills with farmers, their wives,  produce and small livestock.

*falde:  small tributary channels of water flowing deep below the ground

Underneath

Traces of the past and clues to the present are hidden just below the top layer of the soil.  The surface yields clues to recent events as well, and because of this, I am always looking for more, eyes to the ground.  I might have been a tracker, and I know if someone, or something, has passed by recently.  Wet trails in the dewy grass,  small paw prints,  a pile of warm feathers left by a fox.  A darker patch of soil.  Trash and treasure are  both hidden,  but  near, waiting for discovery.

One spring, as I marked out rows in the garden, my heavy hoe kept bouncing back up at me instead of sinking in the soil.  Strange.   I spied a pinkish smoothness, and hooked my hoe under it to pull it out.  A root?  It was a scary thing to find underground, and my thoughts sidled spider-like toward all things Mafia.   It was about three feet long and rubbery, fresh.  The dogs were suddenly attentive as the cow’s trachea came into the light of day.  How did it get there?   A canine trophy, carefully buried, to be enjoyed later.

I found a five-cent coin, dated 1885,  in my vegetable  garden.  It was  badly corroded and hardly legible.   The Lira was originally divided into cents, with one hundred of these comprising one Lira.   At the twilight of the currency, fifty-thousand Lire might  fill  half your car’s gas tank.    I thought of the poor farmer who lost it;   it must have been disheartening, so long ago.

A tractor pulling a large  plow scraped up some terracotta tiles;  roof tiles, larger and flatter than the curved kind used in recent centuries.   I know from my experience with excavations that where there are roof tiles,  there are often tombs.    In fact, Greek tombs were commonly made from  these.     The countryside where we live was divided into neat plots of land in 500 B.C., and people often buried their dead close to home if they weren’t grand enough, or near enough, to be included in the organized necropoles closer to the ancient town center.  Up the hill from this  area there is a large area of  rich  dark soil, and an extensive  jumble of broken pot shards.  It represents the farmhouse that belonged to the occupants of this parcel of land, and so it would follow that family burials would not be far away.   Around  the broken tomb  I found a beautiful and simply-painted lebes gamikos, as well as pieces, broken long ago, of other ceramic objects.    The pot is not nearly as old as my lithics are,  some of which  date back as far as twenty thousand years,  but it had been lying in its forgotten grave for five hundred years by the time Christ was born.  It is a sad fact that  the advent of mechanical farming has led to a swift and relentless  fragmentation of all antiquities which lie  in the uppermost layers of soil.  A large plow can reach as deep as five feet and damage or obliterate all it comes in contact with.  And there are also bulldozers, and a thing which is called a ripper, which describes its effect poetically.

River stones lie beside the roads, this having been the site of swiftly-moving water  millions of years previously.  All of the stones are rounded and smooth, but once in a while I will find one which has the shape of a cork from a wine bottle, larger at one end and narrowing in a pinched arc toward the other.  I imagine how it was shaped, trapped in an eddy of the stream, turning dizzily, rubbing continuously against its brethren which surround it on all sides.   Ground to a distinctive shape over years, these stones are an illustration of persistence, and movement, and transformation over time.

One Spring day as I was hacking out crab grass, I moved my wedding ring onto my smallest  finger, the better to grasp the handle of my hoe.   As I was throwing the weeds away I accidentally tossed my ring away as well.  Hours of searching produced no results, and within the week my husband and I went and picked out another one for me to wear.  Years later, again pulling weeds, I found it again, shining in the newly-turned earth.  Now I have two, should I ever need a spare.

This is the dwelling place of giant toads, some as big as broiler chickens.  They are reserved and single-minded, as they search for insects in damp places, and often hide in corners of the yard where weeds have grown tall.  We are careful when mowing the grass not to tip the machine up and lower it onto these weedy islands, as two have come to a tragic end in this manner.  One day I found a dead toad, poor soul, and I buried it in  a secret corner of the compost pile.  A year later I  gathered its bones and bleached them white.  I keep them for use in my art, and fondly  remember their original owner.

Following the sheep paths which criss-cross the edge of our  fosso,  there are bits and pieces of ceramics and glass, rusted iron agglomerations and bones.  You must watch your step close to the edge because you can fall twenty feet to the stream bed below if you are careless.  Along this edge I spied a small crusted object, a glint of blue and yellow paint.  Pocketed, carried home and washed, I found  I had two joined pieces of a century-old puzzle,  pieces from a vase which had been broken a hundred years ago.  Mended carefully with strips of lead, these were threaded through small holes in both sides of the break,  metal laces in a ceramic shoe.   It must have been a favorite, and the loss of it must have seemed unacceptable to its owner, such a long time ago.

My shelves have space, openings available to display new finds.   I often wonder what random bits of our lives,  hundreds of years hence, will be carried home and treasured by our descendants in their wanderings.

“untitled,”    wood, paper, bone, shell, Mylar, beeswax, oil, brass   11 x 7 x 2 inches,  2009

(above)  “Sotto San Costantino Albanese,”  oil on canvas,  14 x 14 inches, 2004

Critters, chapter three: Buster.

Sometimes things happen in different places, for different reasons, and move  inexorably along an invisible line toward an unexpected conclusion.   We had this experience, with a horse, and a dog, and two open gates, far distant from each other.

Buster was our first Maremma sheepdog, a large, sweet-smelling snowball of an animal,  who was  maturing,  healthily,  towards his retirement.  He was an excellent guard dog, most of the time, but if there were female pheromones in the air he could climb an eight foot fence as if he were Spiderman.   Always attentive to any changes in his surroundings, we counted on him to alert us to arrivals, especially those people, animals,  or automobiles that were not included in his repertoire of acceptable objects.   We were his flock.

My son attended an elementary school far from here, on the opposite side of town.  It was the same building to which my husband had trudged every day as a child.   There is a distinct possibility that  some of the desks  were the same ones he  sat behind on those  days when the classroom windows mocked the children with  their tempting views of grass and sunshine.   At the back of this school building, there was a fenced area on the edge of the valley below.  Even now, the fenced area is used to keep livestock; sheep, goats, the occasional cow.   On this day, a horse.

A moment of distraction, a latch not properly closed, and this horse found it was suddenly free.  But freedom in town has a different countenance than  freedom in the country, and the streets are in constant movement.  Cars, people, bicycles, motorbikes, and above all asphalt and noise conspired to alarm the horse to the point of panic, and it began to run through the streets.  It galloped away from the school, around the road which rings the town, and on towards imaginary pastures, despite the best efforts of some to slow it down.

Two kilometers, four, six, and the horse continued its gallop until it came to the long gravel road leading eventually to our house.   Our yard is fenced, and we have a large gate which normally keeps the dogs in and intruders out.  This day,  because we had been  doing yardwork, it was standing slightly open.  I heard frantic barking, and inside the house I felt a pounding rhythmical vibration.  At the window there was  an incredible sight, a large horse furiously throwing up divots of earth as it raced around and around the house in circles.    Buster was close on its heels and the animal was becoming more agitated, spooked  by his attempts to nip its lower legs as it ran.   It continued to circle madly, ignorant of the open gate by which it entered, and which  would allow it to tear off down the road, away from the dog.

I used to be a horse owner, so I know a little bit about how to behave around them.  But a panicked horse is anything but rational, and it is dangerous.    Not having the means to calm it, I opted for guiding it out the gate by creating a diversion.  I ran to grab a hoe, a towel, anything to wave in the air and cause the horse to change trajectory.  Suddenly I heard a crack, the unmistakable sound of  a bat hitting a baseball hard enough to send it hurtling out of the park.   But this was not going to be a home run for the team.  I turned, dodging as the horse ran straight toward me and the open gate, to see Buster sitting, dazed, pawing energetically at his muzzle.  Blood poured from his mouth.   It was one of those moments when disbelief gives way to knowledge that things have changed, and for the worse.

As the horse pounded out of the gate and back up the road,  I prepared myself for what I would see.  The horse had kicked Buster with such force directly in the teeth that his entire boney upper jaw,  teeth included, had been detached from the front of his mouth. It was still attached by the muscles and some of the gum, but it was no longer a viable part of him.  The vet was called, antibiotics and pain relievers were administered, the injured area was removed, and we waited.  At the time our small town vet, who was occupied primarily with livestock,  made housecalls only.  He did not have any walk-in facilities, so we had to do without major operations on our animals.  Buster had been neutered in our own garage on a picnic table, with the aid of some kitchen utensils and a massive dose of horse tranquilizer.

After a time, poor Buster healed.  He required softer food, and his fighting days were over, but he got along comfortably enough.  I keep one of his enormous canine teeth as a memento of that day.  He has long since passed away and moved on to that other place where good dogs dwell.   We never had any contact from the owner of the horse, assuming that an unhappy accident is no grounds for exacting any payment or apology.   Another horse has never arrived here unexpectedly, thundering down our road with evil intent.  But I often think of Buster when casual circumstances  seem to align, improbably, and give rise to a  momentous event.

“At Pasture”, oil on wooden block,  4 x 6 x 2 inches, 2011

(above)  “Rusty Gate. oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches, 2010

Fostering a tradition

My children, who will shortly have both feet planted firmly in adulthood, always had to make do with my accounts of celebrating various festivities in the United States.  They never had the chance, until recently, to experience an American Halloween, or Thanksgiving, or a Fourth of July  in the United States.   It isn’t easy carrying on a tradition in isolation, but I did my best,  and I am confident that our bittersweet memories of my attempts to instill American memories in absentia will be fondly remembered.

As Halloween neared every year, I would begin seeking out a pumpkin to carve.  Most pumpkins in Italy are the type which are flattish and have loads of thick flesh, and are therefore  difficult to carve.  But at my special request,  the greengrocer would eventually procure me a round one, maybe two, on which  the boys and I could practice our creativity.  Messes were made.  Candy was furtively purchased.

With approaching dusk, we would prepare, letting the boys dress up as they saw fit; a cowboy, or a ninja, or some hybrid version of a soldier.  I used  a small bungalow which served as my studio, about forty yards from the house,  and I would position myself there with a bowl of candy while my husband stayed at the main house with his bowl.  Lights were turned off, and the jack-o-lanterns glowed as the boys rushed breathlessly back and forth in the dark, gradually filling their bags with candy and treats.  The doorbell must be rung each time!  What a surprise to find mom or dad again every time  the door opened, and my boys were nothing if not sporting about the absurdity of this little farce.  After all, there was candy!   Of course this artificial creation of Halloween filled me with a kind of desperate nostalgia, because during these years I simply did not know if they would ever have the genuine experiences which, for me, had been such a memorable and integral part of my childhood.  And they were growing up fast.

There was general consternation among our friends because back in those years, most were not  familiar with Halloween.   In the  early nineties, when the idea was beginning to catch on, the few kids who dared to ring buzzers and ask at condominiums and apartments around town were often met with scowls and outright hostility.  Children would have to be careful that their requests of “dolcetto o scherzetto” weren’t met with a shower of profanity, a swinging broom,  or even pebbles thrown from a balcony!  Kids were often chased away by angry old-timers, scandalized by the encroachment, yet again,  of America on their sound Italian traditions.

This is changing rapidly today, as Halloween is celebrated with great gusto.  The population of the town is divided unevenly between the many who love an excuse to party for any reason, and the few who resent “commercial holidays which exist only to make money” being foisted upon them by stores.  The tremendous rise in Chinese imports may also have played a role in the speed at which Halloween was introduced.  And of course there is America, ever present,  always ready to offer another “americanismo” for no good reason.   St. Valentine’s day has been borrowed, repackaged by American culture, and re proposed complete with cards, heart-shaped chocolate boxes, and petulant girlfriends expecting to score something shiny.   If I could express my point of view simply, I would say that their  resentment is equaled by my own at having  had “my”  traditional holiday  hijacked for these very same, highly commercial,  reasons.  I cannot easily accept the idea that the festivity was somehow forced upon an innocent culture.    Now, the festivities of  Halloween play a bigger role every year in Italy, with themed parties, invitation-only balls,  and children ringing doorbells.   It has been adopted in record time, and yes, sales are good.    Fewer die-hard traditionalists object every year to its observance.  Jack-o-lanterns shine from windows and the balconies of apartment blocks.

It is a strange feeling, as an isolated American, seeing the adoption and growth  of a traditional holiday,  as it morphs into something similar yet different, tailored and modified to fit another culture.  I suppose Thanksgiving is safe from being franchised, as I don’t think the Italians could justify celebrating the survival of Protestants in the New World, although the Cristoforo Colombo connection is always a possibility.   Hundreds of thousands of immigrants to  the United States must have a special feeling in their hearts about it I am sure.    Every year I have prepared my best version of turkey and dressing, pumpkin pie and whipped cream.    It is amusing to me that there are friends in Bernalda  who insist I make them up a plate of this Thanksgiving food every year because they love the unusual flavors.  At Halloween, I have been consulted about pumpkin carving and the best methodology for covering the most territory during the evening.  My sons instructed their friends about how gaining entrance to one large condominium could make or break the night’s haul.

I think my boys have absorbed these traditions seamlessly, and they happily participate now as if they had been living as Americans  all along.     I suppose I can say that having done my best to instill these family traditions in my kids, it will be up to them now to carry on, wherever they may decide to live.   I foresee them bringing the Befana to Christmas, celebrating their saints’ name days, and  observing  April 25, the liberation of Italy from the fascists,  as an important date for both their cultures.  Along with Halloween, Thanksgiving, Saint Patrick’s Day, Easter’s various manifestations, all are important to a solid understanding of our cultural traditions.  Hopefully strong roots make  for a sturdier tree.

“Out of the Cage”  mixed media on paper, 2000

Traffic

I tend to praise the behavior of American drivers while I am in Italy, and yet I am amazed at how badly some people drive when I am in the United States.  Greener grass I suppose.

“Mixed Signals”  mixed media on paper, 2000

Driving in Italy is interesting.  I mourn the way it used to be before the European Union began tightening its iron fist of bureaucratic restrictions in all areas, but especially regarding the roads.  Back in the good old days it was every man for himself,  which,  if you were young and agile with excellent reflexes,  was a magical world for drivers.   Old people in small three-wheeled vehicles that require no license were above the rules, and the rest of us were well-aware that the hares needed to avoid the erratic and oblivious turtles.  Lights flashed,  horns blared and fingers were displayed,  two-lane roads magically morphed into six-laners.   If you needed to be somewhere in a hurry, you could press the accelerator to the floor and hurtle along at breathtaking speeds.  At 110 miles an hour  you could be there in half the time!   It was fabulous.

Now, things have changed.  Speeds have been reduced as technology has been developed to monitor behavior.  Since the introduction of scale-able points on  drivers’ licenses,  all the fun is over.   The highways are no longer raceways, and everyone inches along at or below the designated speed of 130 kilometers an hour, about 80 MPH, wary of the “Tutor” system of monitoring all drivers’ speeds between two random points.  You never know where this monitoring starts or where it ends, and amusingly folks who don’t understand how it works will hit the brakes as they pass under the highway-wide  signs announcing that their passage in fact is being spied upon and recorded.  Small towns have discovered the Midas-like potential of speed cameras for producing revenue.  You will never know until months later, when a crisp picture of your car and you shows up in the mail with a hefty fine.  The speed limits on secondary roads are often ludicrously slow:  warning signs will suggest slowing to speeds which will get you killed if you observe them, and drivers learn quickly that they travel at these speeds at their own peril.   Of course the overall effect is that occasionally there is a warning sign which should actually be heeded, and accidents will inevitably occur.  Curves are rarely banked, which is incredibly dangerous, and is in fact my number-one pet peeve.  Just look for the flowers at the side of the road telling you that the curve is deadly.  Other curves,  such as highway access ramps,  often will be  inconsistently-shaped and morph from a large and comfortable cloverleaf  to a hairpin suddenly and without warning.   Most roads are totally flat, so if it rains,  you can count on them being covered with inches of water in no time at all.

The best place to practice your driving in Italy is the supermarket.   Get yourself a cart on a busy day before lunchtime and learn to maneuver the aisles.  People will not make way for you.  They will stop and block everyone else for no reason.  They will leave their cart parked in the center of the aisle and wander off to chat.  They will veer off suddenly at drastic angles  and back up without looking.  They will play a subtle game of chicken,  poker-faced, as carts pass and nick each other’s wheels.   And yet…the ballet of  people and objects is wonderful to behold.   No one gets angry, the flow is constant and everyone ends up in a formation similar to a line at checkout.   This is how we drive here.

I have to thank my long-time friend Ann for her metaphor about driving in Italy; that it is amoeba-like, a constantly changing formation which adapts to itself and flows over the road.  Each driver takes into account all other drivers, everyone is constantly vigilant and prepared for unexpected movement.  Lanes are only suggestions.  I think of American roads, with everyone gripping the wheel and blithely staying within the lines of their lane, confident that if they adhere to the rules all will be well.  Wouldn’t it be better, on the highway for example, that  if someone needed to move out of the first lane into the second, that you should anticipate and move into the third?  I am convinced that an accident, even if caused by “the other guy,”  is everyone’s fault.  If the final goal is to avoid contact with another vehicle, then why wouldn’t this be the case?

I will admit that I am always ready to criticize the fast cars which pass me with two wheels in my lane, and yet I understand not to take this personally.  Almost everyone here will drive on the center white line if there are no other cars near, and often even if there are.  And I do hate it when I come around a curve and find one lane blocked by a clot of stopped cars, a group of daytrippers munching on sandwiches, conferring with each other  and smoking.  And my favorite annoyance, someone out for a drive on a narrow road, scrawny elbow out the window—the glass rolled halfway up to avoid drafts—crawling along at fifteen miles an hour.  It might appear that they have never noticed their rear-view mirror, but I can assure you that they not only know that there is someone behind them, but they are enjoying this small moment of megalomania.  I have known people to hang a white cloth out the window of their car, a universal sign that someone is on their way to the emergency room, in order to bypass slow traffic.

So my theory about driving is as follows:  If everyone is constantly vigilant, there will be fewer problems on the roads, wherever you find yourself driving.  If you know that there may be unexpected occurrences ahead,  you will be better- prepared when they happen.  Yes, that is a goat up ahead.  No, I don’t believe that group of people standing in the road are planning on moving out of the way.   Isn’t that guy in the three-wheeler going the wrong way?  If everyone followed the rules and stayed within their designated lines,  oblivious of the organic nature of traffic flow,  wouldn’t their smug complacency eventually lead to more  rather than fewer accidents?

“Navigate”  oil on canvas, 2008