Confession #3: Tutto or nothing

Posted on March 3, 2011 by The Daily Cure

Sooner or later, you learn that ultimatums aren’t good for relationships. You realize after painful trial and error that your life in a couple isn’t helped by a Bushian sense of axes, “you’re either with me or against me,” or anything resembling an all-or-nothing stance. And yet it is precisely all-or-nothing that tripped me up early on in my Italian adventure. More specifically, it was the Italian word for “all” that did it—tutto.

I was still in Amsterdam preparing for my romantic leap into the Milanese void. I was trying to teach myself Italian from a book. Italian for Dummies would have been an apt title. I was practicing the innocent little word tutto, and to impress my then-boyfriend/husband-to-be (though I didn’t know it yet), I concocted some sentence using it. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, because it’s fairly close to the truth at the time: Voglio tutto. “I want everything.”

Instead of saying, “My darling, you’ve spoken your first words! Congratulations! I love you! Our future is indeed bright,” he said in response, “That’s not how you pronounce tutto.” Then he pronounced it properly. I repeated the word. He said, “No. Like this…” If you’ve seen the “monkey”/”minkey” scene in The Return of the Pink Panther, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Long (repetitive) story, short. I was livid. I was hurt. I was discouraged. I felt misunderstood and mocked, when in actual fact, all he was trying to do was to help me. And I almost gave up the whole thing—affair, idea, plan, love, project—right then and there. I was this close to turning that tutto into absolutely nothing. Because I was incapable of laughing. Incapable of accepting that I wasn’t fluent-in-a-day. Incapable of so many things. Thank God, my primate brain was capable—though just barely—of seeing that it would be a mistake to give up so much over so very little.

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Luna Park: A kick in the seat of adulthood

Posted on March 2, 2011 by The Daily Cure

There it sprawls, among the leafless trees at the foot of the Castello Sforzesco: the Luna Park. In stark contrast to the arthritic bend of bare branches, stand the makeshift rides and booths, festooned with lightbulbs and neon, stars and flags—the makings of a childish perfect day. During the morning hours the amusement park sleeps, its bumper cars and trains tucked under plastic sheets to protect them from the damp. But in the afternoon, when the children spill out of school, it comes to life. Vibrant, tacky, irrepressible! Step right up…


Step right up! Get your tickets here! Bright, plastic tags that fit in your pocket or on a bracelet around your wrist. Fly to the moon in a rocket ship! Risk whiplash on the caterpillar roller coaster. Scramble your brains in a bumper car. Shoot the red balloon and win a plush tiger. Then up you go over the bare-limbed park in the ferris wheel, up into the quiet air then down again into the mêlée. Fly back in time to carefree days and yellowed photographs when a dollar (or 1000 lire) in your pocket went for ride after giddy ride.

And fly, if you dare, on the madcap Calcio-in-Culo (Kick in the Butt), a rickety contraption that spins you around in a seat attached to two chains attached to a hook! Safety codes be damned, as you careen madly around, taking bumps in the rear every now and then from the person behind you. This is insanity! This is what it feels like to be ten again! Wild and weightless in every sense of that beautiful word.


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Seductive is the night

Posted on March 1, 2011 by The Daily Cure

I won’t mince words here. Milan, at night, is a sexy place to be. I’ve always loved the nighttime, though certain changes in my life (read: offspring) have changed my relationship to it. But the draw is always there. The magnetic darkness. The being out of doors when the majority of domesticated folk are “safe” inside. The feeling that something in the air is alive, something is going to happen.

Here, it starts on the street. Wherever you are going after dark, getting there is part of the seduction. The city closes around you in an architectural embrace. The street marks your passing with the rhythmic percussion of cobblestones under tires. Car lights, street lights, balcony lights—all assume a warm, alluring glow that speaks of something slightly naughty. Or if not, at least very intimate. The bars wait for their patrons, bottles aglow in an array of jewel-like colors. Night comes on at its own pace.

There are the broad avenues with the cars passing too quickly, bouncing on their suspension systems across uneven intersections and tram tracks. The distortion of a radio flying by at too many kilometers an hour. People going in all directions in the darkness. And then there are the small streets. The truly irresistible places where your own footsteps echo against ancient walls, and who knows what could happen with whom in the shadows. These are the hidden places for kissing and mind-reading.

And above it all, the moon—or is it a streetlight?—hanging, witness above your head. And what time is it? What year? Of what century? It doesn’t matter. Your secrets are safe here. No one’s looking, no one cares. Because everyone else has lost themselves in the velvety nighttime as well.

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Your lucky day

Posted on February 28, 2011 by The Daily Cure

Last Monday, just back from Liguria, I walked out onto the sidewalk to run my errands, and I was hit by a missile from a pigeon passing overhead. Fortunately, her aim was bad, and my head was spared, but the right knee of my jeans was thoroughly soiled, and I had to go back inside to change for a fresh start. Did I say, “Oh, shit!” Well, yes, I did. But inside, my honorary Italian said—

“Porta fortuna.”

Porta fortuna literally means “It brings luck.” And, yes. Being shat upon by a bird brings you luck in this country, as do a host of other unsavory experiences. Which is, I guess, the whole point. It’s karmic balance, no? A bird ruins your beehive, but you have the satisfaction of knowing that destiny will heretofore smile upon you. Ditto, if you step in a pile of dog-doo. People may pass around you at a wide radius, but you have the last laugh: You are lucky! You will have great good fortune! The very soles of their Jimmy Choo’s may be spotless, but who knows what lurks behind the next corner for them. It is foretold…

But my favorite superstition by far is the one that equates spilt wine with good luck—Attention!—IF it is dabbed behind the ears. Whenever we spill anything in the wine family at the table, all present—children included—are dabbed post-haste behind both earlobes with the wasted liquid. You may not be used to having the aroma of Barolo emanate from your most intimate pulse point, but believe me, it’s better than the unlucky alternative. So walk breezily under telephone wires and through dog parks. Pour your wine with jovial—even careless—abandon. The worst that can happen is that you get through your day luckier than you started it.

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Closed/Week in review—5 days in Liguria

Posted on February 26, 2011 by The Daily Cure

Monday
“Thing #1: The sea”
In which we are helplessly
drawn to the Mediterranean.
(Read this.)

Tuesday
“Thing #2: Hanging out”
On the beauty of not
using an electric dryer.
(Read this.)

Wednesday
“Thing #3: The time of day”
On telling time with
the help of the sun.
(Read this.)

Thursday
“Thing #4: The backdrop”
On the trompe-l’oeil
walls of Liguria.
(Read this.)

Friday
“Thing #5: Last look”
In which we take a final walk
along the edge of the sea.
(Read this.)

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Thing #5: Last look

Posted on February 25, 2011 by The Daily Cure

In Italy they say, “If you look back, you’ll go back.” So today we’ll take our last walk on the lungomare (the boardwalk), breathe in our last deep lungfuls of sea air, and spend our last coins on frivolity and lemon soda.

I find it difficult to leave the sea behind me. As I said on Monday, it gives my childhood—and every glorious summer since then—back to me, and who wants to walk away from that? It’s the same when I drive away from Manzanita, Oregon or from Pawleys Island, South Carolina. This melancholy is in no way unique to Italy. It belongs to oceans and seas everywhere. So we soak up every last drop until we have to get in the car and leave it, as the Italians say, at our shoulders. Come with me—


We walk arm in arm down the bricked boardwalk above the beach and the lazy tide. We toss a 50-cent piece in the binoculars and look west toward the marina then straight out at the horizon where a bird dives for a silver fish. We feed another machine—against our better judgment but just for the fun of it—that tells us how much we weigh. And whether or not the results are accurate, we laugh, because here, now, we know it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all. (Besides, for those of us used to pounds, it all looks so harmless in kilos.)


It’s almost time to go, so we use our last euros for a couple bottles of lemony gazzosa, the Amalfitano lemon soda, even though chinotto would be the more local choice. Then we sit facing the water because it’s there, and because there’s nothing more magnetic than that constant horizontal line. We don’t have much to say. It’s easy to read each other’s thoughts in such moments. And words would only spoil it anyway.

Goodbye, Liguria.

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Thing #4: The backdrop

Posted on February 24, 2011 by The Daily Cure

Here we are on day 4 of a virtual work-week spent in Liguria. A weekend in Varazze fueled me with material, but next week I’ll get back to Milanese business as usual. Back to winter and real life in Italy. But for now, let the fantasy continue…

Time is short today, and too many words can be cumbersome when the eyes and the brain want to be left to their own devices. So I leave you with these images of the painted walls of Varazze in which almost every thing which appears to be in relief is nothing but an illusion. Everywhere you look the real and the unreal bump into each other, giving the whole place the feel of a backdrop to an ancient and ongoing drama in which you, walking along, become a modern day player.

Even where two properties abut, the illusion is intact.


The truck is real, but just barely.


Even the street number is part of the game.


From ground to sky—trickery.


The electrical chords play the straight man.


"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."

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Thing #3: The time of day

Posted on February 23, 2011 by The Daily Cure


Two down, three to go on “Five Things About Liguria” based on my recent weekend there. Yesterday’s post was about living without clothes dryers. Today’s does away with another modern convenience: the wristwatch.

“What time is it?” you ask. According to my watch, it’s 9:03 a.m. According to the cherubs on the light green wall it’s—look at that!—exactly the same time. Weather permitting, we can do away with digital read-outs and mechanical hands, because the sun doesn’t make mistakes. Practice has made it perfect.

The more I walked around Varazze, the more sundials, or meridiane, I saw. Some were elaborate, others primitive, still others painted to blend in perfectly with the trompe l’oeil architectural details of the host wall.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the time of hand-wound clocks clicking loudly on various bedside tables, or because I now live in the era of plasma screen displays driven by complex digital technology. But I find the silent and—here’s the thing—accurate creep of a shadow against a wall absolutely magical.

Every time I saw a sundial last weekend—and they were popping up every where—I felt as if I’d stumbled upon a secret. Or at least another silent reminder that I don’t need all the things I have. Or maybe it wasn’t reminding me of that but this: It’s nicer, sometimes, to look up at a blue sky or a beautifully painted wall than down at a handheld device. And as for telling the time, if the sun is out of commission, your stomach, most likely, is not.

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Thing #2: Hanging out

Posted on February 22, 2011 by The Daily Cure


I spent last weekend in Liguria at a typical little seaside town called Varazze. And as it’s not my intention to turn this into a travel blog, I’m simply going to tell you about five things that struck me while I was there. Here’s the second thing.

When I moved to Italy, my husband-to-be didn’t have a dryer in the apartment. I thought this was the ultimate in backward thinking and female servitude. Instead, he had an antenna-like contraption that extended over the half bathtub in the laundry room. We hung our laundry after washing, flung open the courtyard window, and waited until our undies or sheets were dry. Now, thirteen years later, I hate our dryer, recognizing it for the energy-hog and clothes-destroyer that it really is. We hang things whenever possible, relying on the heat from the radiator to do the trick. Funny how some people change…

…and how others stay exactly the same. Apparently, in Liguria, they never suffered this lapse into wrong-headed modern thinking. They knew all along that the place to hang your once-dirty-now-clean unmentionables was outside your window where everyone could see them. With good reason. Italian underwear designers like La Perla and those crazy Dolce & Gabbana boys are always creating beautiful underwear for just the occasion. Furthermore, with whitening products up to the standards of the Italian house-keeper on the market, laundry hanging all’aperto elicits oohs and aaahs of domestic jealousy not of thinly-veiled disapproval.


And let’s be honest. A good line of long johns (or what have you) displayed in front of your house adds a certain “je ne sais quoi.” One feels that the air must be fresh and safe to breath. One is happy to see that all parts of life—even the most privately banal—are worth appreciating in the public arena. (As for secrets: in towns so small, who really has them anyway?)

Assuming that you, like me, do not have the pleasure of owning an ochre-colored villa with weathered, green shutters four steps from the singing Mediterranean Sea, but would like to try on the Ligurian mindset for a test-drive, I’ve included a “Ligurian Window Kit.” Until the next installment…happy hanging!

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Thing #1: The sea

Posted on February 21, 2011 by The Daily Cure


I’ve just spent the weekend in Liguria at a typical little seaside town called Varazze. And as it’s not my intention to turn this into a travel blog, I’m simply going to tell you about five things that struck me while I was there. Here’s the first.

“Thing” doesn’t seem the right word to describe the sea. Forgive me. It is a being, a living being. I watched the waves roll in and out on Saturday as they have done forever and ever, and I wondered why it is that this thing, this being—the mass of water that is our oceans and seas—draws us to it. And I wondered, too, how it is exactly that it gives us back our childhoods and reminds us of our mortality all at the same time.

This is not me. It's my dog.


This is what we were looking at.

I was sitting on an enormous piece of driftwood, just behind a dune of sand and Ligurian stones—round, polished black-and-white veined pebbles that make music when the water rushes over them. The Mediterranean was alive with diamonds. Nothing else happened. I felt happy and sad all at the same time. But, this is what it is to be alive, isn’t it?

This vast reminder of life and death and childhood and everything is the constant thrumming backdrop to the candy colors and the open-air card games and the desperate kisses and the gelato-stained children—all those things that add up to the uniquely colorful life that thrives on the Italian Riviera. You eat and drink well, love the people you love, sit without striving, follow the sun, and allow yourself to be dazzled by the brilliance of one more day on this planet.

Posted in ITALY, OUT & ABOUT | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments