La casa al mare (The beach house)

Tuesday, October 20, 2015 5:02 PM

This past Saturday, the entire family (including me, because I am now an adopted chickpea) traveled to nonna’s beach house. I loved it there. I didn’t want to leave.

This beach house placed a wonderful Italian spell over the entire family. Nonna was the happiest I had ever seen her, the children joyfully played outside for seven hours ignoring the mosquitos that were devouring them, the rest of the adults reverted to the personalities that that house witnessed years ago, and I was transported to a frozen time in the Piergentili family life.

I could see the love radiating from nonna’s eyes as she handed me her fiori di zucca to admire, mint basil to smell, pumpkins to look at, and strawberries to eat from her tiny little garden. As she lovingly trimmed the dead leaves off the plants hanging from her balcony I told her she was the happiest I have ever seen her and she responded by saying that her wish would be to stay here forever but the solitude would kill her. I can’t imagine how difficult it is going to be when I have to say goodbye in two months.

Later that night I decided to study in the living room for a bit while I listened to nonna and Emmanuela cook in the next room. Nonna came over and turned on the fireplace, filling the entire room with the smell of burning wood and the sound of crackling fire. The glow of the embers enveloped the entire house in a feeling of tranquility and transported us to the days of nonna’s past. I closed and put my laptop away because it felt out of place; it was the only thing that reminded me of the present and I’d rather it stay in the future. Nonna sat in the rocking chair next to me and I asked her to tell me about her life. She complied and spoke about her life with her husband and the struggles of post-war Italy. Her warm voice mixed with the crackling sound of the fire until they were one and it felt like the woman before me was nothing but a quiet fire in the darkness.

When it was finally time for dinner and the entire family gathered nonna asked her son, Stefano, to bring out the wine because tonight she could feel the spirits calling for her. My little, wine-filled heart jumped up and down with happiness. I don’t know if it was the effects of the wine, the tranquility of the fire, the sound of the crickets, or a combination of the three, but I began to sense a feeling of serenity rush through me, my entire body relaxed, and my mind came to a silent halt. I looked over to nonna’s flushed face and couldn’t help but smile while remembering her telling me that the she can feel the effects of wine after just one glass. I can attest to that, because when I tried to fill my glass with water after drinking two glasses of wine she got up, took my glass, threw the water out the window, and refilled my glass with wine (thanks nonns).

I looked from face to face, listened to every sound, every word, trying to consume the moment. This house was filled with treasures, six of which were sitting at the dinner table with me.

After dinner I went out to the balcony and looked out on to the quiet, little ocean town. I took a deep breath and could smell the salty scent of the sea mixed with the fragrance of nonna’s dying roses.

Tornando a casa (Going back home)

Friday, October 16, 2015 11:00 PM

The entire LSA group got this past week off (how great is that?) Dartmouth should really make this a regular term thing because it was such a stress reliever after midterms. I ended up taking a train with a friend to Tuscany (two days in Pisa and three days in Siena). My week in Tuscany was beautiful but this blog entry is not about my time there, it is about the feelings I have experienced afterwards. All I will say about my trip is, you only need to spend a max of 5 hours in Pisa, buy your bus tickets and skip the 40 euro fine in Siena, it rains a helluvalot in Tuscany during autumn, medieval Italians were tiny, laying down on piazza floors the night after a rainy day is amazing, and the Michelangelo sculptures in the Siena church are smaller than they appear in the Wikipedia page.

Now on to the good stuff,

I didn’t realize how much I would miss Rome and how much this loud, crazy city has come to mean to me. As I boarded my usual crowded 70 bus to head home from the train station in Rome I felt a wave of tranquility settle over me. I was home.

I never thought I would be able to truly feel at home and not just like an overly zealous tourist in Rome, but I have. After over a month of traveling up and down the streets of Rome I have finally settled in to my fourth home (Mexico, Texas, and Hanover being the first three.) I had to leave for a couple of days to be able to appreciate my time and experiences in Rome.

I arrived to Rome during golden hour; the sun was beginning to set and was laying a blanket of gold over the entire city. As we drove towards Piazza Venezia I could feel my little heart jiggle with happiness because it was home.

A Colosseum gladiator boarded the bus after a long day of scamming innocent tourists into taking 20 euro pictures with him. He looked so out of place; his plastic abs, red cape, and hairy legs contrasted against the Mercedes bus and his earphones made for a hilarious combination. I stared at him and let out a small giggle. This is Rome, you’ll never know what you’ll find on the bus.

Next, a pair of siblings around the age of 8 boarded the bus and sat directly in front of me. I sneakily turned the volume of my music all the way down in order to listen to their conversation that was bound to be entertaining. It was. I am always amazed at how amazingly fast and proper Italian children speak. Can I just speak like an eight year old Italian boy already?

After I arrived home and had one of nonna’s amazing meals I remembered why I didn’t want to leave in the first place. No one cooks like nonna. The grandchildren came over so of course we had a very interesting and loud dinner with Princess Elisa and Martina the Sassy Tween. We had a karaoke, dance party directly after dinner and I didn’t have the heart to tell the children to leave so we continued this party for about three hours until my laptop died and could no longer play their Italian rap videos.

I’m so glad to be home. Home cooked Italian meals, clean sheets, regular sized toothpaste, and my beautiful little Italian family.

This is my life.

Un baccio da me a voi e ci vediamo tra poco!

Aneddoti brevi (Short anecdotes)

Swimming in the Mediterranean Sea - Sperlonga
Sept. 25 2015

In the stretch of four weeks I have swam in the Mediterranean Sea twice: the first was at Napoli and the second at Sperlonga. Both were beautiful experiences but I had, what I can only describe as, an out-of-body experience while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea at Sperlonga. It was late afternoon, the sun was gleaming on the waves, the rays were warming the water around me and as I swam deeper into the sea I could feel my body and mind relaxing. I closed my eyes in an attempt to fully grasp this blissful feeling. I let my body be completely engulfed by the sea and as I relaxed my muscles I could feel my body swaying with the sea. I was no longer swimming in the sea, the sea was cradling and rocking me. I felt a chill travel through my entire body and leave through my fingertips. At that moment, my body was no longer mine. I was part of this immense body of water. I was a tiny floating spec slowly dissolving into the Mediterranean. 

I had to resurface for a breath of air and the spell was broken: the Mediterranean returned my soul and sent a rolling goodbye kiss down my entire body as I walked out of the sea and on to her sand.


Saturday afternoon bus ride
Sept. 26 2015

The Saturday afternoon after arriving back to Rome from Sperlonga I decided to hop on a bus headed for Trastevere to buy a new sketch pad and charcoal. My nonna (Italian grandmother) decided to accompany me and as we walked out into the streets and towards the bus stop there I could sense a glowing blanket of tranquility over the entire city. There was a golden light radiating off the streets and buildings. We stepped on to the 23 and as I sat down in front of nonna I could feel the warm rays of sun caressing the side of my face. The sun was creating a halo of light around nonna and as I stared at the serene look on her face while she looked out the window I was finally able to think of the word to describe what this afternoon felt like: dream. I turned my head towards the window to look at the flickering lights on the pavement of Viale delle Milizie but my trance was quickly interrupted by a tiny old italian woman waving her finger around and refusing to take the seat that a young man offered her exclaiming in a tiny but furious italian voice, "Rome has gone to shit! This place used to be beautiful and now it's full of crap on the streets and..." She added a dramatic gasp to her monologue as she saw a man with two dogs get on the bus. "SEE! Back in my day there weren't any damned dogs allowed on the buses! ROME HAS GONE TO SHIT!" To which the man with the dogs replied, "Things change, lady..."

I looked to my nonna with a perplexed and incredulous look on my face and said to her, "how? How did this afternoon take a drastic turn from blissful tranquility to Roman chaos?" She smiled at me and said, "È una passeggiata particolare." Oh, and peculiar it sure was! Right after she said this a man walked on the bus with his eight year old son and as the father validated their tickets the little boy (who was wearing a fanny pack btw - figo!) accidentally stepped on a lady's foot. The woman reacted by screaming at the top of her lungs and proceeded to give the boy the stink eye for the remainder of her bus ride. 

Just like that, the picturesque Italian afternoon transformed into the everyday, hectic, Roman bus ride.