Tre (#3)

“If you ask me about history, I become serious. If you ask me about food, I become very, very serious”   -Gabriele, tour guide in the Tuscan town of Lucca.

Ingredients for this seafood soup, including a whole octopus, are placed in a ceramic amphora and baked in an oven. A specialty of Ristorante Belvedere on the beach, this dish was served and consumed in the Cinque Terra town of Monterosso al Mare. Monterosso is still rebuilding after severe floods rampaged through the town in October of 2011, with the water rising waist high in this restuarant. If the soup is any indication they're back, baby!

The Swiss Air flight lifts off and we leave la terra d’ Europa far below, heading back over the next 24 hours to our home planet in Hawaii nei. We have a few tangible mementos on board with us: In my lap is the International Herald Tribune, global English language edition of the NY Times with news of Sarkozy’s ouster by free election and Putin’s reinstatement by fiat and fraud. Our small fat suitcases resting in the belly of the plane carry Italian hill town alabaster, a small bottle of limoncello from coastal orchards, bookmarks of the statuesque David, and postcards of stellar moments in art and architecture. My carry-on is crammed full of Swiss chocolates purchased at the extraordinarily orderly Zurich airport, the stolen remnants of our hotel breakfast buffet - strong Swiss cheeses, a solo croissant, a whole grain roll, and a couple pieces of fruit - and a camera with 1,246 photos.

These are all trinkets, symbols, attempts to hold onto the almost indescribable depth and breadth of the past 13 days as travelers.  This remarkable, transformative, dream-come-true time will be slowly spooling out for many months as we sort, rummage and plumb this journey for memories and meaning.  For now, I hardly know what to say, what to make of it all. A question posed by Francesca, our insightful guide at the Roman Coliseum is still roaming round my head: “Why did you come here? You learned about this in school, read about it, and can see it all on the internet. What need brought you thousands of miles to experience this first hand?

Peter says his answer to Francesca’s question is simple: My wife wanted to go. “I would never have gone if not for you, baby…and now Italy is a part of me”. Yes, now Italy is a part of us. Of course, we have had only an assaggio, a taste of Italy, but it feels like a meal of many courses, like the traditional Italian meal. 

If you will permit me to try out the metaphor:  Florence was the antipasto (appetizer, pupu), the most delicious part, because all was new and fresh, consumed when we were most hungry having just arrived salivating at the scene. Ahhh, the tender Venus; Oooh, the delicious David. The insalata (salad) of piazza’s (plazas) and fountains, the Greek and Roman statues, the medieval and Renaissance churches.  The cliff-hugging seaside towns of Cinque Terra was the primo with their seafood pasta and hard-working people, the rainy terraced orchards of grapes, olives and limoni.  The Tuscan hillside towns of Lucca and Volterra was the hearty secondo, with their mercantile and mysterious pre-Roman history, their tragic losses and occupations, their new life as arenas for local artisans. Rome was a deep dark rich dolce, a giant layered tiramisu with caffe and a digestivo: The Vatican, St Peter’s Basilica, Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon at night under a full moon, the Roman empire’s enormous excesses in life and death. I’ve always enjoyed desert and Rome was surprisingly in some ways my favorite. 

Due (#2): When life gives you limoni and lemonade

Limoni grown in the Cinque Terra town
of Monterosso al Mare, Italy 
 

“Good fortune”.  So predicts the I Ching to remind us that good fortune is always there waiting for us to recognize its presence.  It is easier to notice, however, when luck arrives on the heels of near disaster.   

This is the theme of a single stellar day, the day before we were to fly off to Italy splitting the scene of our insanely responsible lives. This was a trip in the dream stage for many a year - a bookmark of David has adorned my desk for at least 10; and in the planning stage for at least two years, tearfully deferred last year due to job and family health issues.  And here we were on the brink of the much anticipated vacation with fingers and toes crossed that both mothers stay healthy and we get through the long last minute to-do list. 

The day began with a long distance call from a social worker reporting on a home visit with my 91-year old mother. In short order, she tells me my mom can no longer live safely in her independent living apartment.  Except for a recent 6-week stay in “Assisted Living” following a fall, my mom has lived in this apartment in her beloved Quaker retirement community for the past 11 years.  The conversation ends with this person revising her assessment when she hears the full story of the supports we have so carefully put in place to do what can be done to protect Mom’s safety, independence and wellbeing.  Shaken body and soul, I stuff this exchange into compartment #5 and return to the gazillion-and-one things on the list.

Mid-day, a disturbing call came in from Bank of America about “your mortgage” and “debt collection”.  After an array of communication, first to ascertain it is not a scam, and then to figure out why the hell they’ve sic’d debt collectors on us, it turns out that after 25 years of faithfully making monthly payments on our Aiea townhouse, the mortgage is paid off, and in fact BOA owes us money!

That same evening, a routine airline online check-in uncovered breaking news: the airline departing Honolulu is delayed 5 hours, which would get us into LA just in time to miss the 11 hour direct flight to Zurich on Swiss air, which of course efficiently departs on time.  Multiple late night calls and hours on hold listening to United’s loud and static-laden theme song lead us from yelling “agent”…”agent”… into the automated system, to a series of polite but disempowered young men in India, and eventually to their better-paid female  European-sounding peers in “International” who work their magic and get us new reservations on the last 2 seats on Hawaiian Air the next morning and into LAX with 3 hours to spare pre-Swiss Air departure.

Only at midnight, as we lay in bed, wide-awake and amazed, did the day’s pattern appear: disaster and rescue; lemons and lemonade; bad luck and good fortune. Two sides of the same coin? Ready to roll!