Detours, Stop Signs, And A Pandemic

DETOURS

July- October/luglio-ottobre 2019

I’m writing in reverse, over a year after the next 10 or so stories begin.

As I mentioned in my Fertile Ground post, I decided to go to Italy for three months to bring Tre Sorelle to life by preparing two rooms to rent for the 2020 season. I imagined sitting on my land among all of the commotion, writing about the transformation, while eating figs from my tree, practicing yoga and learning to speak Italian from my daily walks to the nearby town of Sora and inspiring dinners at the Farm. My son Paddy and I left our family home for good with our pants on fire to the airport and barely made our flight to Italy (again). I’d not even closed on my house, but we had an opportunity to meet up with Paddy’s sister, Elaine, in Rome and travel for almost a week together, so off we went in a trail of dust, as usual.

As we peeled out of the driveway, an absolute angel, Jerry Drew, stopped by to see if he “could help” on his way to work, knowing I’d be pushing it. I’ve known Jer since he married my BFF Liz right after college, so let’s just say he’s accustomed to my wake. He literally saved me, and, to this day, has my grandmother’s bathtub in his warehouse because who doesn’t save their grandmother’s clawfoot tub? He gets it. Or acts like he gets it. Unless Lizzy drags him to my Moon Dance party. Count him out on that one!

STOP SIGNS

Italy is well known for its slow pace. Riposo (afternoon break/rest) is very much a thing, so you’d better get with the program if you plan to visit. It’s incredibly charming—unless you have purchased abandoned property and put your real life on hold for three months to begin restoring it. From the start things did not go well in terms of my restoration plans, and, while that was not surprising, I was not finding it funny as I usually do. I had a deadline this time. I was leaving at the end of October, and I had three months to pull off a partial restoration.

I was shocked by the absence of a timeline with contractors and wildly unprepared for the process of doing business with anyone in Italy. Getting bids for work took weeks—in one case over a month—and they were so far apart in price that it was impossible for me, as a foreigner, to discern what that meant. There was no sense of urgency for work, and not one person was concerned about the timeframe. They would come and go to work when it suited them with no notice either way. The goal shifted from finishing two rooms to one, which was disappointing, but I still thought I’d be able to spend at least the last week in my own little home in Italy. Antonello took me to shop for tiles and plumbing fixtures, and he could not understand why I struggled to choose materials quickly as it would lead to “progresses.” I, on the other hand, could not understand how he did not see the irony in rushing me to make decisions about my Italian home juxtaposed with the snail’s pace that is “just Italy.”

To be fair, it was not Antonello’s fault. He was helping me with this project, but it was also the busy season at the farm. He’s not a general contractor paid to oversee the work. Still, it was incredibly frustrating, and I began to question my sanity. Really, what in the hell was I doing alone in Italy spending money with no regard to an end game and no home or job to go back to in Kansas City? My Irish temper, a constant companion on this trip, was the guide I followed, and that meant leaving Forcella often, hopping on a train to Rome, and figuring out where I wanted to go since I was “in Italy” and might as well make the best of it.

As it turns out, travelling aimlessly around Italy, pissed, has its benefits. The more I leaned in to the stop signs, the more I was rewarded by the pauses. It was the best education I could have made. From Ischia to Rome to Pisa to Florence to Milan to Bologna and so many places in between, my summer restoration story turned into an epic travel story whose cast of characters included my recently deceased father, pickpockets, strangers at the U.S. embassy in Florence, a Thai masseuse, a beautiful Italian woman and her son who became trusted friends, my historical scholar friend and tour guide extraordinaire Massimo, a reunion with a cousin in Positano, Francesco our boat captain, beautiful yoga teachers, and. always, Antonello and his parents Giuseppe and Maria.

CASTLES + COVID

The stories will follow, appropriately out of order, the way most memories unfold anyway. The gallery below is where I left Tre Sorelle weeks before a riposo for the ages was about to hit the world via Covid-19. It’s difficult to thread the needle. It’s all so intertwined. But if ever there is a time to bounce around chapters, then this is it.

The Castle Room, as I’ve come to call it after Massimo pointed out that the Vicalvi castle is visible from the window, is the only room where “progresses” have been made, but you can see where we are headed. Massimo ended up helping me find a contractor, which I should have done a long time ago to take the burden off of Antonello. He did a lot of things that were helpful like going to the municipality to get the official lay of the land and codes, which he sent to me after I returned home. We didn’t have time to do anything else because of Covid. To this day, the enlarged window is still exposed to the glorious elements.

Such is my life in Italy. A shit show with castles. No wonder it’s my happy place.