Life in Italy — A Diary
III. Hubris
Like hens nesting on pointed eggs, getting situated in Italy is challenging. Mundane activities become complex in a bewildering system, attempted in a tongue not yet my own, muffled from behind a mask (two). Transactions require multiple visits; offices more than a stone’s throw from our rural life over meandering localitàs. Mounds of paperwork clog my drawers, in duplicate with a stamp. Bureaucracy is a monster without eyes.
Living out of the same six suitcases for two years, our belongings in storage in a distant village, our small house continues to be built. When first kicking the Italian Pirellis, trying on different regions and lifestyles to see what fit, we saw too many half-finished houses dotting the countrysides, all bellwethers of difficulties that lie ahead.
The hubris of ego.
Most evenings, just after dusk, I step out for a smoke and listen for the Little Owl. Inhabiting much of the Palearctic (Europe, Asia north of the Himalayas, and Africa north of the Sahara), the compact bird’s kiew-kiew echoes through the forest, encouraged by the mimicking callbacks of this unrequited lover. Only partly diurnal, I scan the leafless canopies on afternoon passeggiate, as they will perch prominently without fear. Subsisting on insects and small mammals, the Little Owl is in-residence year-round, nesting in cavities, often living more than 15 years.
Little Owls are associated with Greek goddess Athena and Roman goddess Minerva, representing wisdom and knowledge. The bird appears on a Greek coin from 500 B.C., and lore has it the bird’s call preceded the murder of Julius Caesar. In Italy, trained and docked Little Owls were used for cottage hunting, nabbing skylarks for their keepers. While this tradition has been banned, this is Italy, where exemptions reign like the Pope, and there remains a breeding center for Little Owls in Tuscany, maintained by hunters.
The pandemic shows no signs of slowing. And while a hermit’s life suits me fine, the Mrs. misses people. And for sure, Italians are wonderful people: kind, generous, and not coin-operated, although it takes time to peel back the layers of the Piedmontese reserve. I’m still looking forward to a long life here, working in our garden, exploring the country. I continue to grasp at threads of hope, but they’re tattered, almost transparent. For the first time, any understanding of how my life might unfold has become as hazy as the polluted, foggy skies over Milan. My fingers are crossed tightly, but the reins of expectation loosely held.
Shotgun blasts ring out over the hills from dawn ’til dusk, echoing and reverberating long after life has expired. Wednesdays and Sundays are designated hunting days in Piemonte, a serious and time-honored pursuit in this rural culture. Curling smoke from burning cuttings sends signals to inhabitants of the woods, “Hide your children!” The barking deer, their loud yelps heard throughout the hills, invite the hunter’s rifle, their calendars set to a different urgency of nature; the bucks so longing for love they’re willing to announce their position. How does one shush the forests? But the pangs of sadness I feel for the culled woodland creatures are dwarfed by remorseful waves the size of those at Nazaré after passing a truck loaded with livestock enroute to slaughter. There are not enough tears to cry for an animal raised on a feedlot.
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Old Pandas with empty dog crates dot the roadsides, their occupants deep in red and orange woods. Piemonte’s famous heavy fog (nebbia = Nebbiolo) drapes Valle Belbo late Sunday afternoon, the last gauzy light catching on the yellowing leaves. At the elbow of the road nearest the Belbo River sits an old cascina, its large metal doors flung open to the cool air. Lights inside illuminate a dozen men, decked in camouflage, and four cinghale hanging from hooks on the ceiling. Aside from a young kid standing outside smoking, each person was occupied cutting entrails, separating the valuable liver and heart for frying, and pulling and cleaning the ropes of intestines to stuff for sausage.
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Every inch of me wanted to pull the car over and approach the group, view their work, check out their knives, take pictures of their considerable efforts. But I didn’t. My language skills are not yet ready to explain such an intrusion by a (female) outsider on such a ritual; even from a new neighbor. Provincial rural life is not like sitting at a bar and chatting people up. There are protocols to be followed and introductions to be made for most every encounter.
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So I continue to practice the language, sharpen my knives, and stay out of the woods two days a week.
A beeswax candle freak, my spaces resemble churches, opium dens or bodellos, depending upon your predilections and my mood. Like hive haute couture, their hue and perfume change with the seasons. My Italian teacher told me about a beekeeper, an acquaintance of her mother’s, who might have candles. Leaving messages in my best Italian, he must have thought me a third-grader with a husky smoker’s voice. He returned my calls in an unhurried manner, the urgency of his labors taking precedence over commerce.
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We drove through valleys tapestried in farmland, much of it industrial. His address was situated at the end of a long, winding, unmarked località; the kind of road in rural Italy where navigation can’t pinpoint location, and you’re sure you’ve gone too far but there’s nowhere else to turn. As with much in this country, one operates on faith.
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The house was pink, overgrown with vines, and dotted with projects in varying stages of completion. He sat under a scraggly pergola out of the midday sun at a table littered with the remnants of a simple lunch, wrapping candles in paper for transport. The sight of our masks provoked an outburst of Italian, punctuated by forceful hand gestures.
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His girlfriend, a Chinese-Italian artist, offered us tea and a tour of the garage-cum-honey-cellar while he eyed us up and down. Like most Piedmontese, it took awhile for him to warm, but after he ascertained our authentic interest in his work, he was vocal in his opinions about the pandemic (not real), and the world’s ills (rooted in chemicals). We talked about climate change, the horrifying state of the world’s bee population, the evils of industrial farming (interestingly, the Italian word for farm is fattoria). Unkempt, unwashed and unshaven, he reminded me of a Charles Shultz cartoon character, but instead of trailing a cloud of dust, he was encircled by pollinators: bees, wasps, butterflies. Newspaper and magazine clippings highlighting his work lined the walls.
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The production was astounding: dozens of honeys made from a vast variety of flowers, pollen, creams, comb, and candles. Like kids in an (herbal) candy store, we filled a box while shooing bees from our haul.
