Tales of a wandering lesbian

I’m posting a little later than usual today. Last night was a busy night. Sandra’s mom lives downstairs, in the apartment off the garden. When I first arrived, she was getting ready to move in with her son for a while, because of some serious work that needed to be done on one of the walls. And old, unused pipe was leaking. While that might sound like an easy job, it’s not.

In the US, I would have just bopped down and capped the pipe. Here, it’s taken a team of 3 or 4 guys over a week to do about half the job – banging and drilling every morning. The walls are made to last. They’re built of stone and brick and mortar and stuff. Many of the houses in the town are older than the United States as a country.  So, Sandra’s mom moved out for a bit while the work is being done.

Every day I try to take a little time to study one of the text books that Sandra has loaned me to use. I look at the pictures and try to pronounce the vocab words. Yesterday morning over breakfast, I was studying. “Tubo” stood next to a drawing of a pipe – the elbow of a pipe, to be precise. I thought this was funny given the work that wakes up the household at 8 am every day.

I had a great day at the studio, cleaning for 8 hours or so. It was good, but nothing really to write about, and I expressed that to Deb, wondering what I’d come up with. On the way home, Deb and I chatted a bit about the differences between Barga – the city on the hill – and Fornaci – the city at the bottom of the hill. I said how pretty Fornaci looked in the dark and mist, its lights twinkling in a friendly, seedy kind of way. Deb’s sneer made it powerfully clear that she preferred Barga and would be happy to be walking home to a place in Barga rather than driving to the bottom of the hill, regardless of how pretty I thought the view was.

When we got home, Sandra had prepared another fantastic meal. We joked about the tuna touching the mozzarella and all the cheese I eat. Sandra whined a little about how she’d rather stay home instead of driving up to Barga for a meeting. It was one of those misty nights that’s best spent in front of the fireplace. She drug her feet and stalled, and talked about playing Pictionary. Deb practically pushed Sandra out the door.

As Sandra and Deb were getting their jackets on to leave, there was a knock on the door. One of the neighbors calmly asked for Sandra to please come downstairs and have a look at something. About 2 minutes later Sandra was running up the stairs, telling us to collect as much water as we could, and mumbling something about a “casino” (a big mess). What the neighbor had neglected to mention when he so calmly came to the door is that, while prepping the wall for the next morning, he had drilled directly into the main water pipe that feeds the house. The pipe in the wall that runs through Sandra’s mom’s apartment.

It seems that there were a number of reasons this shouldn’t have happened, including that no pipe is supposed to be in the wall where it was. But It really didn’t matter. We gathered water in all the pots and pitchers and headed downstairs to help. “I think you’ll be able to write tonight. I think it’s going to be a really interesting night,” said Deb walking out the door.

Fortunately, the apartment has tile and marble floors, and has a series of rooms that step-down, eventually leading out into the garden. When we entered the dining room, we found 2-3 inches of standing water.

Tom and I grabbed brooms, and Deb went to find something to stick in the pipe (kind of like the little boy sticking his finger in the dike, but with a twist). When Deb handed the makeshift plug to the neighbor woman who was clutching a towel to the hole, the woman let go of the pipe, shooting the water directly into Deb’s face.  The water was shooting out of the pipe so hard that when Deb moved, it shot out the door and completely across the street, maybe 20 meters away.  Not letting this get her down, Deb scrounged around and came up with an elegant solution. When she came through the dining room with it, I laughed. She put together some tubing and a funnel, which she held up to the shooting water in order to direct it out the door and onto the ground in a slightly more controlled manner.

In the mean time, Tommy and I had cleared the dining room, put down sawdust to soak up residual moisture, and closed it off. That meant, however, that we had to stand in the hallway and sweep as fast as possible to keep the water away from the closed door and direct the ever-coming water into the basement, where it could make its way out to the garden. We did this for just about an hour. Nonstop. As fast as we could.

If you’re looking for a new workout, try this: turn a garden hose on full blast at the top of a playground slide that is pointing directly into your front door. Then, take an ordinary broom and try to sweep fast enough at the bottom of the slide to keep the water out of your house. Seriously, for you crossfit types, this is going to be an awesome oblique/lat workout.

In addition to offering workout tips, I’d also like to take this opportunity for a gear endorsement. My Vasque Blur Gore-Tex shoes are not only comfortable, but they held up in 3 inches of water for 90 minutes and were totally waterproof. Totally awesome.

In the end, someone who was able to patch the pipe showed up. We weren’t able to turn the water off, because someone had cemented over the external shutoff valve. Really great news. But, the guys who fixed the pipe rigged a compression patch from rubber sheeting and zip-ties.

It totally held all night. Until they started banging away again at 8am.
When we finally walked back upstairs, we sat down for a cup of tea. “You know, this is your fault. You wanted something interesting to write about.” “You’re not blameless. The house knows you want to move to Barga.” “Well, Sandra, you didn’t have to go to your meeting after all, but there was no need to make the pipe explode.”  We spent time blaming each other for the event, truly believing that we were responsible for the evening’s entertainment.

It was nice to affirm each other as powerful women (donne potente) capable of creating our worlds, but we decided that next time, we’ll be a little less passive-aggressive in our creating of things and use our powers for good.

Today’s vocab word is “tubo.” It means “pipe“I learned it yesterday morning.  By the end of the day I’d heard it about 100 times.  Here it is in a sentence:

“Il tubo è esploso e l’acqua spruzzata ovunque.”

True story.  More to come…

Happy translating!

Usually, I wake up in the morning, make a cappu (or have one made for me by one of the wonderful women I live with). I catch a ride with Deb into Barga and spend the day writing, walking, eating and repeating.

This morning, when we reached the studio, I changed my plans. The studio, which is full of beautiful, passionate art, is an unqualified mess. The studio consists of four rooms. The front is a great cavern of color and shape, the place where tourists and locals can wander in and view the paintings and photographs that Sandra and Deb have on display. Through a curtain to the right is the back room where the artists work: studying figures, editing photographs, consulting with clients. Bright overhead fluorescent lights and photographic equipment dominate.

Behind the workroom is an alcove that has been walled off with drywall – something completely strange in this ancient space. The alcove houses a workbench, paint, mats, shelves of paper, drawers of miscellaneous hardware, and a collection of years of partial drawings, sketches and paintings.

A small ground-level window opens onto a lovely garden, but is obscured almost completely by a side-table crammed with more papers and mats.
The fourth room is a bathroom, hidden behind a plywood door, and completely unexpected.

Along with the toilet and sink, this room houses boxes of plates, forgotten frames hanging from the pipes, a baker’s rack full of baby-food-sized jars of paint, and the cups liberated from cafes and restaurants in the town.
I remember the first time I walked into the studio. I was blown away with the power and beauty of the images in the space. The passion of the women who own the studio washed over me as I sat on the small sofa against one wall. I was excited to think that these women could make a living with their art – that they had carved a little space in the world where beauty and passion were primary and sufficient.

Things are rarely that simple, but this studio gives me hope.

So, today I changed my plans. “Will you let me clean up the studio today?” “Assalutamente, si,” came the response – almost before I had finished asking.
I spent the first hour just walking from room to room, assessing the situation; snapping pictures, sweeping, taking stock of the stacks. After that, I started rearranging. Sandra is prolific. I was totally amazed at the variety of subject-matter, style, and materials. One moment I was sorting through canvases, then wood panels, then round wooden boxes, then pottery, and even a piece of marble. There are probably 100 pieces in the 20×20 studio, hanging from the walls, stacked in the corners, leaning against furniture.

My marketing background kicked in, and I started by rearranging the intimidating entrance from one flanked by huge bins of prints, to one that beckons to passers-by to come in and look at the beautiful postcards that feature the works of Deb and Sandra. On the little table in the middle of the room, I arranged information about their wedding photography business.

The studio began to open up. I really enjoy arranging spaces, whether it’s furniture or artwork, it’s therapeutic for me. While I’m often unable to do this for my own space, I’m able to help clear the physical surroundings of others. I’ve found that when I’m arranging a space, it will talk to me, letting me know what color or shape should go where. The gallery talked to me today, but it also fought me a couple of times: once when I tried to hang a painting of a flower too high, and then when I moved from paintings to begin hanging photographs. That’s when the studio kicked me in the gut.

The workspace houses some of the most striking works, in my opinion. A bold, large painting of a nude hangs high in one corner, while the opposite wall is covered in photos of partially nude figures portrayed as angels. Among these photographs is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. I don’t say that lightly and it’s not meant as flattery. It’s simply the truth. I was so stuck by it last time I was here, I wasn’t able to look at it for very long.
This photograph was propped against the wall where almost nobody saw it. So I made a space, found a chain, and hung the beautiful figure high on one wall where it could be enjoyed by all.

Yes, I know the walls in the gallery are old. Yes, I know large photographs with glass are heavy. Yes, I know. However, it wasn’t that heavy, and the chain hung on three nails – for about a minute. It was quite beautiful for that one minute. Fortunately, I had cleared the area below so that when it came crashing down to break on the marble-tiled floors, the other beautiful photographs were out of the way.

Evidently, the gallery wasn’t ready for the photo to hang there just yet. As the glass shattered and scratched the beautiful image, I wanted to scream. This great tribute to my friends. My contribution to the display of their passion – broken and scratched. (Okay, I know it’s really dramatic, but it sucked – big time.) I seriously wanted to hide and cry. Instead, I got the broom and Deb found a box for the glass. There are people who make you feel horrible when you break their junk. And there are people cheer you up when you break their art. I really do prefer the second kind of people. Whether she knew it or not, Deb made an effort to cheer me up over the next hour.

Yes, we’ll get the picture reprinted. Yes, I’ll finish cleaning the gallery. Yes, these things happen. I’m not so sure I’d have been as generous and kind, but I’ll remember to try next time.

—

When we got home, we found Sandra in the kitchen cooking dinner. Vegetables. And soup. I’m pretty sure that before I got here, there was a good deal more meat eaten in the house. But Sandra worries every night whether I will have enough to eat and cooks accordingly. Tonight we had a fabulous mixture of baked fennel, potatoes, carrots, peppers and onions, prepared lovingly by Sandra. Her mother made the soup (fabulous as well). Her mother, it turns out, also took care of my clothes. She brought them in from the yard where they were drying and folded and ironed them – even my underwear. For real.

Then, as we sat down for dinner, I saw something out-of-place at my setting.

Tommy, who knows I like Harry Potter, spent the day carving a legitimate kiwi-wood wand for me. Evidently, he’s not very handy, but he did a great job with this thing, even carving my initials in the handle.  Wow.

After dinner we all sat down for a game of Italian Pictionary ®. We use this as my vocab lesson, me guessing in English and Sandra, Deb and Tommy guessing in Italian, explain the words as we go.

It was a very full day. More than usual I am struck by how giving the people I am staying with are. They have a person they met for one day six months ago sleeping on their floor and sharing their table. It’s amazing how well it has worked for the last 10 days. We all give what we can and it works.  What more can you ask, really?

I have a special kinship with children. In almost any social setting, if there are children present, I find myself in their company. I’m not sure if this says more about them or about me. It’s not clear who seeks out whom.

This year, as I’m in Italy, I spent Halloween in an Italian town. Sandra, Deb and I took Deb’s eldest nephew, Luigi, who is maybe 8, into Barga for the Halloween celebration. It wasn’t trick-or-treating, but rather a celebration in one of the squares of the town, complete with music and sweets and performances.

We stood for a while, on the edge of the scene, observing; picking up the bits of skull-shaped confetti, collecting treasures in a vest pocket.

After a time of wandering through the square, we headed out to search the streets of the town. Children in masks and capes trotted along with excited voices. The selection of Halloween costumes in this small town must have been sparse. Each child wore one of three masks, with various cloaks and capes, making the whole evening even more surreal (as though I needed that, walking through an Italian mountain town on Holloween).

Just outside the walls we found a stand selling freshly roasted castagne (chestnuts). We ran into our friend, Frank, who noted with a tone of amusement that the nuts had been brought in from a neighboring region, though Garfagnana is known for its castagne (this is rather like being in Idaho and having Oregon potatoes). The nuts, however, were excellent, owing mostly to the fact that they were being roasted in front of us over an open fire in a great drum – on Halloween night – In Barga.

After a while headed back into the town, where bands of children were knocking on the doors of vast, empty “palazzos” (palaces) and running away squealing. Luigi expressed a little fear about the ghosts that he might see that night, and Deb, in a fit of gallantry, handed him her flashlight so that he could shine it on any fantasma he might see and make it disappear. He spent the next hour shining the light on practically everything, systematically determining what was real and what was ghost.

We returned to the square to find hoards of children filing in behind four men carrying a coffin. I’m not sure exactly where the coffin and the children went, but Luigi stayed by Deb’s side. About a minute later, screaming children flooded back into the square as firecrackers exploded somewhere out of sight.
Luigi is fairly new to the area, his family having moved back to Barga about a year ago. He has just started learning to speak Italian, and has a Japanese father – not so common in Barga. He is a beautiful, self-purposed child, intelligent and, at times, over-confident. (The first day I met him, he told me he had just built the kitchen chairs that I had seen his father assembling earlier.) On Halloween, in a dark piazza, surrounded by children who knew each other, and who were talking in excited Italian, all of his confidence melted away. While the others ran forward to play a lottery game, Luigi moved to the back, closer to his auntie.

I bent down to arrange some of the Halloween confetti with Luigi. There’s something about bending down to the level of children that makes them pay attention to you. Within about a minute I had 5-10 children helping me with my creation.

Quickly, the quiet moment dissolved into the chaos of the evening, and the children started running, playing, chasing. Luigi caught the attention of a boy from his class. Without words, he engaged the boy. We watched as the boy first ignored Luigi, then dismissed him, physically pushing him away. Luigi came back to Deb to be reassured just by her presence – then he tried again.

Soon enough, the boy was chasing him. Luigi crouched and then charged, swerved and darted around the square as one, two, three others joined in. Deb and I watched in apprehension, aware of the power dynamics of one-on-many, and yelling out when the play got too rough.

Luigi was clearly pleased, if a bit unsure, as he ran from the boys. Then his foot caught on one of the centuries old stones that pave the piazzas of the town. Down he went in a spectacular crash, his knees, hands and cheek hitting the cold ground. Everything stopped. While Deb ran forward and the kids moved away, Luigi picked himself off and walked away. Debbie jogged over to him and steered him to a bench away from the crowd.

There were no tears. Just a bruised lip and skinned hands. We regaled him with tails of the battle, his bravery and skill, and his confidence snuck back. As he cleaned his red hands with my cherry blossom hand sanitizer, we agreed it might be time to finally head home.
Watching this brave little boy, I felt a powerful connection. Stripped of most of the tools we use to make friends, he headed into a crowd of strangers, and doggedly pursued one until he had a friend. I often feel that I’m running up to people I meet, testing to see if they will play with me. Hoping against fear that my efforts won’t leave me pushed away, on the ground with skinned knees, but knowing that, when they do, at least I’ve done my part. At least I’m sure that I haven’t missed an opportunity for something beautiful.

And now I’ll have the image of Luigi, picking himself off, dusting himself off, and cleaning his hands with my cherry blossom hand sanitizer. Grazie, Luigi.

When I packed for my trip to Italy, I wasn’t sure exactly where I’d end up.  I knew I’d start the trip with my friends Deb and Sandra, but from there, I didn’t know if I’d be in homes, hostels, or five-star hotels.  So, I packed light and deep.  Warm clothes that I could layer and other items that would make life easy.  I agonized over which electronics could share cords, and which jackets to bring (settling on one light jacket and one technical, winter coat).

There are a few things I’ve taken grief over.  Yes, it’s a little strange that I packed toilet paper and tampons, but as I said, I wasn’t sure if I’d be backpacking around.  Plus, I brought a big suitcase to fill with treasures for the return trip, so I had room.

There are other things that really make my friends laugh.  My headlamp, for example, isn’t something everyone would have brought, but it’s dead useful.  It’s good for reading at night, and can save you from being squished when walking at dusk.  However, it also might make your friends act like they don’t know you.

Also, for some reason, only “professional cyclists” – the ones wearing brightly colored team jerseys and riding fancy, fast bikes – only they, wear helmets.  I noticed this last time I was here.  I also noticed how American drivers tend to run cyclists off the road.  Thinking I might like to pick up a nice used Italian bike and ride around a bit, I decided to pack my helmet.

Every day, I assess the weather, select a combination of clothing, jacket, electronics and books that will get me through the day comfortably, and pack up my little messenger bag.  However, when I packed yesterday, it was with the assumption that I would be back at the house before I headed to Lucca that evening.

Bad assumption.

So, I started the day with two layers of icebreaker, my light jacket, sunglasses, my laptop and camera, and an array of books to help me plan my Italian itinerary.  Heavy bag, but lightweight clothing.  Good for bumming around Barga on a glorious day.

After a fantastic, surprise lunch with a new friend, I met up with my ride to Lucca.  Lucca is a really cool walled city.  The walls are hugely thick to withstand cannon fire.  Thick enough to ride bikes on the wide boulevard that sits atop them.  We got to Lucca (which is having a huge, international comic festival) just as the sun was setting.  Fortunately, I had my little wool hat, which I happily pulled on.  The 80 degree day was settling into the high 40s, and my light jacket was not so warm.  It was black, however, as was my hat.  Super.

As it got darker and darker, we stopped to turn on headlights that some of the bikes had.  I reached into my little messenger bag to see if I had my headlamp.  Nope.  But I did have a laptop and about 8 books.  Bonus!  Here I was, wearing black, riding around in the pitch dark cold with no helmet, no light, no warm coat and a bag of books and electronics, through an insane crowd of wandering people who were dressed like comic and video game characters.  Well done.  I probably should have put on my sunglasses and snaked some of the electronics cords through my hair.  I would have fit right in.

When we reached the restaurant after our harrowing ride, we all gathered around the fire to warm ourselves.  It turned out that the adrenaline needed to keep oneself upright through all the twisting, turning, swerving insanity provided exactly the right amount of warmth in the dark city.  Also, books are really quite insulating.

At any rate, the ravioli was some of the best I’ve ever had outside my mom’s kitchen. And I had my camera with me to capture it.  Va bene.