Dear Hearts and Gentle Visitors

APPARENTLY they were concerned about ‘being like fish’ (you know, going ‘off’ in three days), but my recent visitors from Oz arrived at just the right time. I could hardly believe I was really seeing them here, in this small medieval village of my dreams that even many Italians don’t know exists.

Just when the novelty of living in Anghiari was wearing off and the struggle to communicate took on a certain weight, here were these lovely, good-humoured (despite the weather) friends to brighten my days. What an absolute joy to speak English at length, get to know them better, to be understood, to laugh and cry.

None of us will forget The Heroic and Determined Hilarious Rescue of the Precious Vino Bianco episode. In a valiant attempt to open the bottle with a sub-standard corkscrew, Susan broke the glass at the top. Her first rescue effort, aided by two equally keen assistants, involved sieving the wine through a paper towel to capture invisible shards of glass that might cause A Terrible Case of Internal Bleeding Best Avoided. Then she came up with a more efficient method, donating her pantihose to the cause. We were saved.

It was impressive, a clear demonstration of the importance of Honouring the Pasta I had made for lunch by accompanying it with a good Tuscan white. Salute!

I’ll miss Susan and Kate (above right), perfect guests who stayed for six nights and insisted on taking the three of us to dinner each night and on washing up after every breakfast and lunch. They also left chocolate in their wake. I'll admit it’s a bit tedious now to have to wash up for myself.

Thanks to them I also spent a day and a night in the frenzy of Firenze, a treat (despite all of those, you know, tourists). By the way, why do we English speakers translate Firenze into “Florence”? I’ve never understood.

Susan and Kate were flying back to Australia from Firenze and invited me to join them there overnight. Luckily they hadn’t already been to the awesome Santa Maria Novella cathedral, which is just a bit special to me, so we went there soon after dropping our bags at the hotel. In this place more than three decades ago, overcome by a piety possibly unusual in a non-believer, I asked the gods for a healthy baby girl. It worked – what can I say? (A small glimpse of its interior is shown below, on the left.)

Coincidentally a friend I hadn’t seen for several years was in Firenze the next day, so Jiselle and I caught up with a longish lunch on the rooftop of a department store with an excellent view of Il Duomo and the surrounding hills (below right). Brilliant.

Quanto Imbarazzante (How Embarassing)

Back in Anghiari, at the lavanderia, I’m doing my translation homework while my washing goes around in the machine. Explaining that I am learning Italian, I ask the only other person there if I have used the correct word. In retrospect, I don’t think he completely understood.

Here is the sentence: “Ti telefono non appena arrivo alla casa.” The English was: “I will call you as soon as I get home.”

What would you think if a strange woman showed you this on a piece of paper? It was the “ti” (“you”) I was questioning, so I underlined it. A look of alarm passed over his face for just a second. I quickly clarified what I was asking: “La giusta parola?” (“Is that the right word?”) Relief, and the penny, dropped. Yes, “ti” was the right word, but I should have written “a casa”, not “alla casa”.

Suddenly I had to go for a walk. I tossed my laundry into the dryer and took off, trying not to imagine just how many other excruciating errors lay on the path behind me.

I have reached some kind of plateau with my learning of Italian. I enjoy it but feel it’s time to pause, review and absorb – apart from just communicating every day, of course. My head is spinning. (As well, given the considerable drop in the value of the $A against the euro since I arrived, one-on-one lessons seem more and more of a luxury.)

Undoubtedly I have learned a great deal and speak a lot more (very basic) Italian than when I arrived, but it only goes so far, which can be frustrating. I can’t get to the next level of a conversation, often due to plain fatigue or embarrassment about being so obviously struggling. I remind myself that this will take many years, not just a three-month immersion. “Piano, piano,” the gentle folk of Anghiari always say encouragingly. (“Slowly, slowly.”)

Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 2

June 1 marks the start of my last month in Italy and the prospect of another bout of homelessness back in Australia while I figure out where I am going to live. May it be a long month. I feel untethered, like a rowboat that’s lost its moorings. Since my separation I still don’t know where “home” is; a big part of me yearns to return to “normal”, but “normal” no longer exists. It seems late in life to be creating a new normal. I’ve discovered I'm quite courageous. At the same time I acknowledge that this courage is in part bolstered by the strength of my relationships, not least my friendship with my husband. Ironic, no?

More reasons to be cheerful:

• Anne with an ‘E’: Given that everything on the telly is in Italian, and I get plenty of that during the day, Netflix on my laptop is very important to me. Lately I am thoroughly enjoying Anne with an ‘E’, based on Anne of Green Gables, which I didn’t read as a child, or ever, but I can now see her great influence on a good friend of mine who did. Anne and this friend (you know who you are) both love books, enjoy being original and creative, and think they’re too freckly, not “pretty” like some. They are both inspiring, and I love them. I also love Anne’s best friend’s aunt: “That’s all you really have to decide, Anne – to live a life with no regrets.”

• The good fortune to see a concert by the Drake Choir and Drake Chamber Choir at the San Filippo Neri church in Firenze (pictured above, centre). Wow. Just by chance we picked up a flyer at our hotel and went to the performance at 5pm. From Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, the 60 or so students were on an international tour taking in 12 churches in the USA, Italy, France and Austria, and they had us mesmerised. Very uplifting, joyous.

• Books: My recent visitor Susan and I enjoy a similar taste in books, so while she was here she read the slim volume, Dear Hearts and Gentle People, by Ruth Park, that I had borrowed from a friend before I left Sydney. Susan had also just finished The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, so she left that with me. It grabbed my interest immediately on the train ride to Firenze so I was bereft to discover on the return journey that I’d left it in my hotel room. I now have it on Kindle. It’s a beauty.

• The opportunity to see the studio of a wonderful heartfelt artist, Fabrizio Ruggiero, who was invited to mount an exhibition of his work at the United Nations headquarters in New York in 2015 and has also shown at the Venice Biennale, in Paris and in Firenze. I was lucky enough to meet Fabrizio at the home of a mutual friend in Anghiari not long after I arrived. He has developed a method of creating freestanding frescoes that have an extraordinary sense of movement and life. Among the works he showed in New York was a set of portraits of people important in the human rights movement. A picture of his studio is below. I could have stayed there all day – it's a bit magical.

Just part of the studio of artist Fabrizio Ruggiero in the countryside near Anghiari.

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