A fresh outlook

Okay everybody, it’s time for a change in tone:  I’m starting to bore myself with being sad in such a beautiful place.  There are so many things to love about being in Siena (and Italy in general) that I want to share some of them.  Since it is difficult to describe it all in words, I decided to carry my camera around with me on Friday to provide a little photo tour. I hope the stories and pics can do the city some justice, although nothing can be the equal of sitting here on my bed on a Sunday morning listening to the bells of the basilica ring. I like this habit so much I think I’ll plan on updating the blog every Sunday so you guys can anticipate new entries with a little regularity.  In any case, here’s my best attempt at sharing what I love about being here – godate (enjoy)!

To start, I just love being greeted with a kiss (on the cheek).  When I arrived at the Scuola Leonardo da Vinci, the director greeted me with a kiss.  Yesterday morning, I stumbled out of my room to find my landlord bringing pastries and coffee for all of us and he greeted me with a kiss.  My new friend Lyndall (whose adventures are being chronicled in her own blog, more on that later) and I met on the Campo and we greeted with a kiss.  As we left, our waiter, Pino (who knows another friend of mine very well), said goodbye with a kiss.  There’s no affection involved, but it’s really nice to be recognized and remembered every day, especially in a new place so far from home.

I also love Italian sayings.  There seems to be a proverb for everything, long spoken for the situations we all work through.  To me it feels like the proverbs reflect an understanding that although many of these experiences are universal, they are serious in the moment, especially to the person involved.  For example, instead of good luck, the Italian saying is literally translated “in the mouth of the wolf.”  This saying is always responded to with a particular word that means “may it die before it bites,” a serious response to a perilous situation – even when it is spoken in jest, which I’ve heard a lot.  Comforts are more intentional, too.  In English we say, “when one door closes, another one opens” while in Italian, one uses specific words for the size of the doors:  “When one small door closes, a big one opens.”  Now that’s comforting.

Speaking of comfort, or food for the soul, another thing I love about Siena is that art is everywhere.  This is where the pictures come in handy.  I live in Piazza San Francesco, and this is the building where I live:

If you look up when you walk in, this is the ceiling:

If you walk out, this is the piazza, which (along with the basilica) is a work of art in and of itself:

Ever complain about sidewalk “art?”  Here it’s no joke: a man recreates a classic painting on the street every week:

Just look at her face:

In Siena there’s rarely a detail that isn’t breathtakingly beautiful.  You have to keep your eyes open as you follow your feet through town…it took me three days to notice this not especially modest lady who watches me walk to school every morning:

See what I mean?

Of course, no entry about things I love would be complete without some mention of the food.  It would be easy to spend thousands of dollars (and possibly gain thousands of pounds) during this year, but eating good food here doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated.  In fact, most Tuscan dishes are fairly simple.  I don’t have the budget to eat many “real” Italian courses at my meals, but I’m not suffering at all.  For one thing, Pino always brings something wonderful (fresh mozzarella with rucola, mortadella stuffed with ricotta, pastry filled with chicken, sliced sweet tomatoes) with the prosecco in the evening.  For another, fresh food just isn’t expensive.  This morning I ate yogurt with a nectarine I bought for a few cents.  I purchased it from the octogenarian couple who own this little shop a few steps from the apartment:

And most days for lunch, I spend two euros on a piece of pizza that looks something like this:

Getting hungry?  I find that I can say yes to that question here and not worry so much.  Since I usually cook in my own kitchen, walk everywhere (another thing I love about Italy), and everything is so fresh and healthy, I just don’t worry about how much I’m eating.  Neither the pounds nor the cash seem to be a problem yet.

Just so I can include an element of the absurd, have I mentioned Italian space-saving strategies?  Everything is much smaller here:  cars, refrigerators, washing machines...and bathrooms.  The space saving measure in my apartment is the toilet in the shower stall.  Not kidding, hope the photo gives you a laugh:

I know it’s been a long entry, but I want to end with one last Siena-focused love  - and a word of warning about Siena’s most famous event:  Il Palio.  I’ll add details later, but this week the entire city is celebrating the race.  Horses and images of horses are everywhere (well, the actual horses are mostly in the Piazza del Campo).  The contradas are having parties almost every night and there is pageantry surrounding the major happenings, including marches through town featuring medieval dress, the contrada flag, and repetitive drumming that reverberates off of the city walls.  It’s amazing to see traditions that have been passed on for hundreds of years.  These are not tourist events, not performed for those of us who are visiting.  We are lucky to watch, but we are not invited to join in – this is Siena at its best and most real, and for me, it’s a gift.  But here’s the word of warning:  the events are happening around the clock, including early in the morning.  If a person, say, copes with listening to a new friend’s dating dilemmas by trying Siena’s famous spritz (prosecco and aperol on ice) in addition to her glass of prosecco, and if that same person is not accustomed to drinking such a thing, and if she happens to live on a piazza where the giraffe contrada practices drumming before it begins its Sunday morning march through town, this person should purchase ear plugs because these guys will be her wake-up call:

I hope you all consider yourselves warned and maybe a little enamored of this wonderful place.

Ciao ciao

The Ridiculous and the Sublime

Siena.  Nothing can describe the sameness of this place, the sense of tradition, even the color of the brick at every turn.  I know all of the clichés, and in fact I know I am one:  a forty year old, recently divorced American woman on her own, looking to find herself (or in my case, rebuild herself) in golden Tuscany.  I know all of it, but I also know why they are all clichés.  There is something healing here in the light, in the brick, in the traditions, in the sense of being an outsider because I am supposed to be.  I like the idea that I’ve put myself here with a purpose instead of being left on the periphery by someone else’s choice.   I may be a fairly classic Tuscan cliché (think Eat, Pray, Love), but I’m not here to fall in love with anyone but myself.  I’ve got a lot of healing to do.  Somehow it’s easier when I’m surrounded by the beauty of this place.

On the other hand, as I write I’m sitting in my three hundred year old kitchen, drinking prosecco and nibbling slightly overripe pecorino cheese, I’m also unintentionally listening to Italian karaoke drifting up from the contrada party in the park below.  The current song is U2’s “One,” being performed by what sounds like a drunken Italian teenager with a cold.  It used to be one of my favorite songs.  But that’s another thing I love about Siena:  the contradictions.  Earlier tonight my walk home was interrupted by a procession from the Piazza San Francesco, where I live.  It was sunset, and the entire town, with representatives from every contrada, was walking in a blessing for Il Palio.  It took my breath away:  priests, then men in medieval dress carrying the flags of their contradas followed by more priests, then the people - hundreds of them - praying together and singing.  Nuns in their habits, children in robes, men I’ve seen arguing in the streets, the woman from the pizzaria, la ragazza from the cell phone store: everyone walking slowly together, knowing the prayers, knowing each other, (oh god, now they are singing “Yesterday”) and knowing they are home.  Most of us will never experience anything like it.  Strangely enough, that’s what I mean by the gift of being an outsider:  I can be a part of these traditions by watching them, appreciating them, and then building my own life with a deep sense of place, of relationship, and of home.  Even knowing the possibility of so much connection brings me hope.  That’s why I’m here.

I swear I’m not exaggerating, but the current song sounds like it’s a dance track from the Italian equivalent of an Elvis Presley film.  There’s a lesson in this too, somewhere, I’m sure of it.

So that’s my Thursday in Siena: Italian class until noon, a quick trip to the grocery store (where once again I forgot to weigh my fruit – but no one shook a banana at me this time), a long nap, check-in at the internet point, and what was supposed to be a short walk home “interrupted” by the procession to il duomo.  Yes, sometimes I’m a little lonely with so many people kissing in the streets, but mostly I’m just happy to see it, I’m just happy to be here, and oh, la musica!  La musica!  Another experience I just can’t describe.

Oh, Alitalia

In case you were worrying, at  2:30 on Friday afternoon, an envelope arrived from the consulate with all the documents I was hoping for:  visa, passport, and letter of permission.  Finishing pony camp, grading papers and running last minute errands, I was too tired to even cheer (but not too tired to curse a time or two; so much for being graceful in the process) when the visa arrived.  Saturday morning, after staying up half the night to finish my work, I hopped on a plane for Philadelphia, waited through my three-hour layover, and finally caught the flight for Rome.

For weeks I have been worrying about the journey.  Not the flight, but how in the world I would wrestle my backpack, overnight bag, and two suitcases from the airport to the apartment.  I hate the Rome airport with a passion I reserve only for…wow, well, the Rome airport.  To be fair, I should say it’s really not the airport I hate, it’s the transportation system.  There are no buses or trains out of Fiumicino where the airport is located, so you have to first find your way through the inaccurately labeled hallways, avoid the fake taxi drivers offering to take you into Rome proper for twice the price of a legal cab, drag your bags to a shuttle (10 euros) crowded with a mix of lost tourists and pickpockets, then find an overpriced (45 euros to Siena) train to wherever it is you are going.  This is still preferable to finding your way to the bus station, which is located in sort of a parking lot under a freeway and has to be reached by cab (40 euros).  To prevent the loss of time, money, and possibly luggage I booked an additional leg to Pisa, counting on the easy bus access to Siena (around 14 euros directly from the airport). I decided I could survive on the bus since the bags would be stowed for the trip.

You can see where this is going, can't you?

As we taxied onto the runway in Philadelphia, the pilot came on to let us know there were mechanical problems but it would only take a minute to fix them.  The mechanical problems triggered a panic attack in a passenger who then had to be removed from the plane, so two hours later – and I had only an hour between my flights from Rome to Pisa – we took off, making up time as we flew.  I should have missed my connection, but with the final leg being on Alitalia, my flight to Pisa had been delayed and the gate agent held the entire plane so I (and two other people) could make our connection.  If we ran, he said, we could make it.  So we ran.  At the gate (of course), no one had ever heard of us and sent us upstairs to check in.  Then (also of course), they proceeded to close the flight and took off before we made it up the stairs.  My landlord was supposed to meet me at 3:00 and the next flight to Pisa was at 4:30, so I decided to brave the Roman gauntlet and asked for my luggage.

Assured that my luggage was someplace in the airport, I agreed to wait the few minutes to find it since it had to be handed off from USAirways to Alitalia.  After an hour I was reassured that the luggage had not gone on to Pisa without me.  Italian law states that luggage cannot travel without a passenger, and since I never checked in for my flight, really, there was no way my luggage had left the airport.  Really.  After another hour, I was sent to the baggage retrieval in T3 (that would be Terminal 3, which can only be reached via boat ride through Hades, or something similar, with directions like “turn left after you pass the Gucci store and descend the stairs” – there are no stairs - and “the police will meet you at the door – there was no door - be sure you have your documentation.”) where, after finally finding the correct passenger assistance window – a different one for Alitalia and USAirways – I was told that, yes, my luggage was in the airport, but there was a strike and no one could handle it for me.  I just needed to file a complaint and they would deliver it to Siena.  Problem solved!  I could still make it in time to meet my landlord and NOT have to wrestle the bags on a train!  I happily filed my complaint and navigated the train to Florence, walked across the street to the bus station, and caught the Siena Rapida to my favorite city on earth. 

Oh, Alitalia.  If only the phone hadn’t rung in the middle of my first Italian class with an irate woman at the other end berating me for not picking up my bags in Pisa (illegal since I wasn’t there, impossible!), then berating me for not filing a complaint (which I had done, in triplicate), then berating me for not having the number of my complaint (which had no number on it) then…let it just suffice to say that I found myself on three trains to Pisa yesterday since the irate woman insisted that I bring the bags through customs myself.   At this point, you can probably predict that in fact, I did not have to take the bags through customs as they had already been checked.  After charming the irate woman with my terrible Italian and baggage claim papers, I did catch the bus home and, despite having to take the Siena Normale from Florence (which stops almost directly on the horse trainer’s doorstep and at the castle where he put me up last Fall), I made my way home with my luggage and no breakdowns.

So now I am here in my beautiful room on the Piazza San Francesco. Pino, my landlord, met me on Sunday with a bottle of local wine and sat with me on the balcony for a taste.  I slept through the night for the first time in months.  Last night I drank prosecco on the Piazza Del Campo with a colleague from home and today I was awakened by the church bells at five, staying awake to listen to the cooing of the thousand pigeons that live in the walls of the basilica outside my window.  There is so much more to tell: the classes, new friends, new experiences, but for now, know I am safe, that the journey was worth it, and I am at home in Siena.

Waiting

From the 24-week mark, I have been waiting for this adventure in Italy to begin, dividing the weeks into segments, counting the days until departure, and tracking the tasks that have to be finished before I go.  I am almost done, with riding camp (fourteen small children and seven ponies; what was I thinking?!) and closing out my two summer school classes as the only tasks I have left.  Oh, and I still don't have a visa.  I contacted the appointment line, I planned, I gathered, I traveled, I met, and I left my precious materials behind. I even kissed the envelope for luck.  I did all I could and now it's completely out of my control.  Out. Of. My. Control.  That's the problem. 

So, waiting.  Nine days left and my passport is still in the hands of the Italian consulate in Philadelphia (note to self:  next time apply on the first possible day, work schmerk). 

During this anxious countdown, a wise person in my life stood by as I agonized about the wait, berating myself for my lack of patience.  She listened carefully and then observed, "It's not about patience, Anna, it's about trust.  You have to believe that good things are coming into your life." 

Trust.  Trust?  I asked myself where that comes from.  And how do I trust a bureaucracy that is known the world around for its lack of concern about time?  After days of thought I realized that it's not about trusting the Italian consulate, it's about trusting myself, and the Creators.  Trust is knowing that I can go from Plan A to Plan B with grace and without pause, that no matter where I end up for the next year, I will be free to complete the work of rebuilding my best self and commiting to her. 

Right now, trust is about knowing that a delay in departure is not the end of the world.  It's about believing that reality works to make life better.  So far I can see it:  patience isn't needed when I like where I am and assume the timing is perfect for the next thing.  I am beginning to understand that the potential for having to accept unexpected change is not about compromising my plans, it's about letting go of control and knowing it's all okay.  Mostly it's not so bad, and how much control did I really have in the first place?  So what if I sound like a walking cliche?  This is an important lesson to learn.

So here I am, in High Point, nine days from departure and without a visa, getting ready to go talk about hope and healing in my Understanding Eating Disorders class.  I'm also waiting for the phone to ring.  I may be learning to trust, but today I called the consulate's "urgent matters" line.  Getting my visa is urgent, right?  And sometimes reality needs a push.  ABP
_______
PS:  So I only have to write it once, here's a brief note to those of you who have asked about the horse trainer in Italy:  it's been over for a while.  Without exaggeration I can tell you that he dropped me for his poodle.  Arf.  AP