What else is there to do?

Posted on November 3, 2010 by The Daily Cure

I admit that I went a little crazy yesterday with the iPhone’s application “Hipstomatic” set on “random,” shooting whatever caught my eye like Dustin Hoffman’s “Rainman” character on a roadtrip in Europe. Colors aren’t true. Images aren’t in full register. Things are just out of whack (which is, of course, the whole point of the software). But every now and then, the camera, in all its filtered frenzy, tells an amazing Truth. It captures not reality, but the exact emotional quality of the moment. And such was the case yesterday.

Inside the Mont Blanc tunnel, heading in either direction, we always play a game. Everyone in the car must predict what the weather will be like on the other side. As weather forecasts in France and Italy have been full of Biblical rains the past couple days, we all said, “Gray. Heavy skies. Deeply and disturbingly overcast. Raining. Cats and Dogs,”—all of us, that is, except my youngest, who cheerfully intoned, “There will be some clouds with patches of blue sky.” This comment was lightheartedly dismissed as meteorological immaturity, but the little bugger was right. When we emerged from the tunnel, the world was wildly bright and brilliant, dramatic and surreal. The wild upward tilt of the mountain against an unsettling blue sky paired with the gaudy colors of autumn was more than we could have hoped for. The “Hipstomatic” released its fake shutter with a self-satisfied chirp: “Leave it to me. I’ve got this covered.”

For the skeptics out there, I’ve desaturated the image with this rather “documentary” result. It lacks the appropriately psychedelic exuberance of the first image, but it gives you the raw graphic ingredients so that you may interpret them as you wish with your own mind’s eye. Suffice it to say, it was, as it almost always is, the kind of stunning that no camera can really do justice. All you can do is see, marvel and cling to the memory which is instantaneously distorted by what you “think” you saw. I leave you with two lines from one of my favorite poems, “Here in Katmandu” by Donald Justice: “One looks up at the mountain. / What else is there to do?”

[If you enjoyed this post, you might also be interested in “The Other Side.”]

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Postcard #6: Merry-sur-Yonne

Posted on November 2, 2010 by The Daily Cure

[Yesterday. Overcast. Beautiful. Autumn colors as intense as a drug addict’s dream. We went for a walk while Roberto fished. Me and the girls and the dog. And there again, that feeling of peace—even if fleeting—and so much gratitude.]

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The return

Posted on October 31, 2010 by The Daily Cure

In my last post, I was dreaming of “going anywhere,” getting out of Milan, fleeing the stresses of the daily grind. And yesterday, that’s exactly what we all did. We’ve come back to France for the long All Saints weekend (Tutti Santi). And it feels like crawling back into the womb.

Retracing the exact steps, every time, is magical. Turning off the highway at the Nitry exit and paying the final toll after nearly 7 hours of driving. Curving through Nitry and Sacy (unfortunately I forgot to whip out my telephone and preserve this part of the ritual), riding through forest and field, where we are frequently surprised by the appearances of wild boar or deer, reaching the smaller route toward our house, taking the right through Vermenton, and finally crossing the bridge into our little hamlet, Accolay, which sits hazily on the other side of the Cure River like Brigadoon. The knots of muscle and nerve are already relaxing. It is so peaceful to be here again.


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The train for anywhere

Posted on October 28, 2010 by The Daily Cure

For D.L. who dreamed of riding the rails.

There are days, no matter how happy you are, when you just feel like going. Anywhere. Every plane that crosses overhead represents a possible escape and a potential surprise destination. “That person, looking down weightlessly from seat 14A—that person could be me,” you think.

The spirit is a restless thing. Sometimes it just needs to know that there’s an evacuation route, a road to adventure, even if, in the end, it never buys the ticket to ride. So my soul is grateful to Italy for its ubiquitous trains and tracks, its stations and platforms—all those physical reminders that if one needed to run away, if even for just a day to clear one’s head, one could.

Meters from our house under the road that takes us to the baker and the butcher, the veterinarian and the pharmacy, the schools and the park, lie the railroad tracks. I cross them numerous times a day, and every single time I look down their seductive parallel lines, diminishing hazily toward someplace else. And often, my reverie is interrupted by one or more passing trains, their speed seeming to accelerate as they approach the space under my feet. There is a moment, as they fly beneath, that time seems to stop. A moment in which a rumbling invitation is instantaneously issued: “Are you coming?” they ask. “Not this time,” I say. “But maybe next time.” And then, if I’m lucky, there is a low whistling, quickly fading response distorted by speed, and the train is gone.

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My central park

Posted on October 27, 2010 by The Daily Cure

Back in the dark ages of my life in Milan, when I’d just come to the city and was anything but happy, a Romanian healer told me that I needed to “hug a tree” to absorb the positive energy of the city. I scoffed at this notion, unable to call to mind anything other than the dirty, long-suffering trunks I’d seen lining Via Vincenzo Monti from the tram. “I’d hug a tree if I could find one worth hugging,” I’d thought bitterly.


Little did I know at the time that, a mere kilometer or two away from me, spread the beautiful Parco Sempione, Milan’s Central Park. It’s much smaller than New York’s sprawling landmark, but has some of the same features: gently curving paths, rocky rises, meadows, laghetti (little lakes), bucolic vistas, and the required views of the surrounding city.


Flanked on one side by Il Castello Sforzesco, on another by l’Arco della Pace, and on a third by the Triennale (Museum of Contemporary Design), the park is the perfect place to while away the weekend hours or to regain the semblance of sanity in the midst of another hectic week.

This morning the park was beyond beautiful. Unusually quiet—except for a Chinese wedding (involving the occasional firecracker) and a very few nannies strolling with their charges—it seemed to be holding its breath. Listening. Waiting. Giving itself over to quiet meditation.

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The mark of the city

Posted on October 26, 2010 by The Daily Cure

Every city has its way of reminding you where you are, letting you know that—in fact—you couldn’t possibly be anywhere else but there. As if the golden Madonnina radiating her spiritual brilliance from the highest spire of the Duomo or the ubiquitous fashion models criss-crossing the city in search of hire aren’t reminders enough, Milan, like a woman gone a bit mad with her jewelry collection, has covered herself with her own seal.

Officially, a silver shield bearing a red cross, crowned by an eight-turreted, crenelated wall wreathed by laurel and oak, and resting above a tricolored ribbon—this symbol with its roots firmly planted in the history of the city (Napoleon himself had something to say about the graphic design) is spread like buckshot across the surfaces of the modern metropolis.

I’m fascinated by the many iterations of this emblem and by the places, often undignified, where it can be found. Public water fountains, man-hole covers, garbage cans—each wears its ornament proudly, even as it is camouflaged by the more visible signs of urban grit and the daily grind.

How strange that this coat of arms, lo stemma, leaves such a strong impression on me. Or maybe it’s not strange at all. This is, after all, a city that has adopted me as much as I have adopted her. What impression, then, will I leave, what sign of my having been here? Maybe these humble writings and images are it.

[If you liked this post, you might also enjoy “Milan Color Story #2:Gray Lady” or “Down (halfway) under.”]

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Brutta ma buona

Posted on October 25, 2010 by The Daily Cure

Ugly but good. A perfect description for the beet, that brute of vegetables. When young, I despised beets, and there is inside me still today a vestigial revulsion. But this feeling has evolved into a well-rounded love-hate tending mostly toward love, as I continue to experience new and exciting preparations of this ruddy root.

In Italy, this time of year, barbabietole, as they are called in Italian, are available at the fresh fruit and vegetable vendors’ already oven-roasted for your convenience. There they sit—between sprigs of mint, lumpish Jerusalem artichokes (topinambur), and turnips—hideously appealing in their ashy, crackled skins.

My favorite way to prepare them—I find myself actually craving this dish—is to slice them and cover them with a sauce of the following ingredients swiftly blended in an herb mill: olive oil, the juice of half a lemon, one teaspoon sugar, a handful of shelled pistacchio nuts and a mixture (to taste) of fresh flat-leaf parsley and mint. Bright and citrusy, nutty and sufficiently salty, surprising yet earthy—this is one of those rare dishes in which each and every ingredient exalts the others. And it starts with a vegetable that resembles an oversized clod of dirt. How miraculous is that?

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Never on a Sunday

Posted on October 23, 2010 by The Daily Cure

Thank you, Chordettes, for that useful refrain. “The Daily {French-Italian} Cure” is closed for the weekend. As the Milanese say, despite the fact that we’re talking two days here, Buona Domenica. Have a good Sunday. Come in, poke around, leave me a note or two.

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The Street #2: Via Sangiorgio

Posted on October 22, 2010 by The Daily Cure

Life on the street is one thing. Life above it is something else. I have to remind myself, when charging off to complete some errand or other, that looking up may be every bit as gratifying as looking straight ahead. The exteriors of Milanese buildings are often adorned with elaborate decorative patterns just beneath the overhang of the roof or with balconies heavy with wrought iron and sculpted turnings. Some wear penthouse gardens like plumed hats or stacks of satellite dishes like multiple hearing aids.

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As many of the buildings were constructed when curves were most definitely preferred over straight lines, and roads followed the lines of radii instead of grids, their four exterior walls fall along trapezoidal paths instead of rectangular ones, making for spectacular negative and positive spaces when one looks skyward. This morning’s sky was electric, backlighting the palazzi with a relentless blue. There was nothing to do but look, admire and pass it on.

My thanks to Ann Moore for copy-editing this post.

[If you enjoyed this post, you might also like: The Street #1: Via Palermo.]

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The Daily Cuppa

Posted on October 21, 2010 by The Daily Cure

Ah, those objects of every day, those inanimate friends—or are they slaves?—that serve us thanklessly before the sun has even brightened the horizon. What can possibly give more comfort than a favorite coffee cup? And a favorite coffee maker to fill it?

Usually these objects tell tales and fill in autobiographical gaps, reminding us of who we are, how we came to posses them, and how together we and they ended up “here”— wherever here happens to be. Perhaps that’s why we like so much to hold them in our hands before we’ve even encountered ourselves in the morning mirror. They know us but don’t judge us. We know them and love them. Where would we be without their humble presence?

In this house, the things in question are two Alessi caffettiere (coffee makers) and two French pottery mugs. The large Alessi makes two good-sized espressi or one very abundant caffè lungo. The small one makes a single serving. They are designed identically—their tops separating from and re-attaching to their bottoms with a satisfying, well-engineered click of the handle. Their Milanese sleekness is perfectly balanced by the rusticity of the blue French mugs. City meets country. Italy meets France. Stainless steel meets clay. Coffee meets coffee cup. And thus, the long shadow of sleep meets the light of a new day.

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