Notizie Dal Mio Cuore - 37
I love hanging my laundry out the window to dry. I don’t know if, in all my months of living here, I have ever mentioned that. At first… in my old home on via ardiglione… there was a sense of embarrassment. Not of hanging my thongs and bras on a string for all my neighbors in the courtyard to see, but of doing it correctly. Because, at the time, I thought there was a bit of an art to it that I certainly would know nothing about coming from the land of dryers and fabric softener sheets and static cling. And there is a bit of an art to hanging huge sheets that are seven feet by seven feet onto a three foot wide string. But I’m not a dumb woman. I watched. I learned. However I did keep trying to do it at times of the day when no one would see me. When they wouldn’t have an opportunity to laugh and think “guardate alla questa straniere…. lei e’ buffa!”….. but that was my own insecurity of coming to this strange land and not understanding some simple pleasures. Like hanging laundry out the window to dry. Since I got over my self-inflicted insecurity I’ve found my own way to hang each item so the drying time is quickest. And I love my little clips that hold each piece. And I still do pray I don’t drop anything of great value (I did loose a sock recently but the lady at the shop downstairs is very kind and so it’s back in my drawer where it belongs with its mate). I don’t know what it is about doing laundry. I prefer doing it here in Italy. When I was home in August I tried to avoid using the dryer. Which of course is not possible. I’ve become a bit like the Italians…. I think dryers are bad for clothing. They wear them out quicker. And they use all that electricity! And they take away the freshness of the air having played through the fibers of the fabric. And then there’s the ritual of it. Of course I’m saying this right as winter is setting in. As the grey skies arrive to linger longer in Florence and the rains threaten to come and the cold is wrapping itself around the walls of the city so crisply that you can’t tell if your clothes are still wet or simply cold. But it is a small thing I love doing.
Like making coffee. And schiuma. I do love making schiuma. Well, actually, I love making better schiuma then Aaron. When he comes for our weekly AD meetings (Artistic Director Meetings) on Mondays we have a strange competition as to who makes it better. I think I’m winning with the last attempt…. you could make shapes out of it! Oh, sorry, schiuma is foam…. that stuff that Starbucks wants all of you in the states to think is a part of the cappuccino you drink. Ma, purtroppo, e’ non vicino la realita’…… schiuma is a joy of living in Italy. It’s another of those rituals - like drinking espresso after a meal, or turning a light on when you walk out of a room, or thinking “do my boots match the color of my scarf and purse?” or eating all parts of dinner in separate piatti one after another with salad at the end….. these and other little habits are what I have come to absolutely adore.
I forgot that I adored it so much. It took being locked in my apartment with the flu for five days to remember. I had forgotten really that I even lived in Italy during the last several months…. running around with my face forward looking for theatres and then, after making the choice to begin at the BeBop we pretty much lived in a basement. We would rehearse in the BeBop for several hours, become starving, run up the stairs into the fading light of day with a quick glance down the street at a revealed section of the Duomo between buildings, stride across the street to the local Kebab shop, eat cheap but good Turkish food and then get down into the cellar again to make art. I kept telling Aaron that I missed living in Italy……..I remembered I had moved to Florence…. in some… distant… recollection….
In my illness here during the festive holiday season I have had the pleasure of time. This is something very new for me of late. I’ve used it for something I adore doing …. reading. I don’t think I ever mentioned the abundance of Australians who live in Florence, have I? There’s so many Australiani and I’ve come to know several who are really marvelous. Mostly women I have to say. But, then again, most of the ex-pats I meet here are women. But that’s a discussion for another day. We have been greatly supported by the “Australian Group” with getting the word out about FITC and coming to the shows. At one of the performances I met an interesting woman named Lisa. We spoke for quite a while and then, about a week later, I received a book from her in the mail. It’s called “The Promise - an Italian Romance.” The book is about her time here and her love here. It deals with the struggles of finding a middle way - an authentic way - of bridging two cultures into one relationship. It was the perfect thing for me to read at this point in time. You should all read it, actually, it’s a story beautifully told.
Unlike Lisa it wasn’t a man who called me to Florence. Or that keeps me here. It is Florence herself. I certainly do see our cultural differences and the difficulties of making this relationship work. We both can be very stubborn sometimes. But it’s the little things….. the sun setting over the hills surrounding the city which catch your eye as you cross Ponte Santa Trinita to go to a meeting, glancing up at Neptune’s tushy (my favorite in the city! - stone or otherwise!) as I walk through Piazza della Signoria to meet a colleague for caffe’ or even pinching salt between my fingers to season my food instead of using a salt shaker…. these things can’t be forgotten or taken for granted. They are a part of the life Florence and I have together and are to be celebrated and built upon. And I am grateful to Lisa’s book and my illness so I could take a pause and remember some of the small reasons I began this relationship in the first place. With Florence I wear some of the freshest smelling clothes that have ever touched my skin and I sip cappuccino victoriously at my meetings feeling quite confident that Aaron is seething with envy of my schiuma abilities……..
well, maybe not seething……
Buon anno ragazzi! Auguri, tanti, tanti auguri!
Bari
