Reading Literature (February 2010—4 Months to Go)
What do good Oregonians do when the winter rains really set in and they can’t go out in their yards to play? They sit inside and read. As I approached my and my twin brother’s 54 birthdays, I found that I was back into the obsessive habit of reading—a lot. At that time I had both Rick Steve’s “Florence and Tuscany 2010” and “Italy 2009” dog-eared for the third or fourth read-through and Alta Macadam’s “Blue Guide: Tuscany” by my leather recliner in the family room. I tried to drone out Food Network or HGTV chatter with some travel information. On my night stand I had Pete McCarthy’s “McCarthy’s Bar,” 2000; it’s a great book about rediscovering the Ireland of today by a Brit who spend summers there as a kid. After reading it, I either really wanted to go to Ireland or would avoid it all together—thanks to McCarthy.
And on the toilet I have both APA Insight Guides “Umbria” and the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides: “Italy”. “Umbria” has insanely gorgeous photos and wonderful history and insights into the “green heart” of Italia. Like all Eyewitness books, this one has great photos, detailed maps, and excellent cut away pictures of buildings, churches, etc. The Florence maps are so detailed that we could see the building where our apartment was located.
On the night stand there was “A Thousand Days In Tuscany” by Marlene De Blasi that Marianne had already read and found to be “poetic/lyrical”—which really was not my idea of a good read. The third one down was “A Small Place in Italy” by Eric Newby--recommended by Rick Steve’s --a book about building and renovating a house in Italy was more in-line with my interests, and it looked like a quick read before Mayes’ fifth Tuscany book “Everyday Living in Tuscany” arrived in March, just under “Piano by” Jean Echenoz (French) and Crichton’s “Pirate Latitudes” (why not--I’ve already read everything he wrote).
When our 54 birthdays rolled around, I got a pile of reading materials from Doug. He had included Frommer’s “Florence and Tuscany—Day by Day”, Lonely Planet’s “Tuscany”, and “Art and Architecture: Florence” by Rolf C. Wirtz. He also included things he had used while on his several trips to Italy: the ristoranti guide “Il gusto del viaggio: Taste Toscana”, two Florence maps, “Guida ai Sevizi Igienici del Commune di Firenze (Public Facilities)”, a guide to the Church of Santa Maria Novella, a business card for Trattoria Anita, a hand-out from “Dei Mori” Bed and Breakfast, a three maps--two enlarged color photo copies--of Lucca. No doubt every one of these treasures would come in handy, if I could actually get through them all. I also got a small book called “Italian Without Words” (Cangelosi and Carpini), a small humor book that our friend Molly thought would be so funny. Marianne suggested that I do not learn this kind of Italian, and I believed she‘s right.
When March rolled around, Frances Mayes book “Everyday In Tuscany” showed up in the mail. Of course I have read all of her books, except her novel “The Swan”.
And for some inexplicable reason I kept wanting to watch Diane Lane (it’s obvious) in “Under The Tuscan Sun”—a movie that basically used Mayes title, but totally changed absolutely everything about her life (except that she’s a writer) in Cortona, but the town itself. The cinematography in the film is outstanding, and I can identify all the locals of every scene, including passing by Tempio San Bagio (really outside of Montepulciano) with the sign for “entering Cortona” on the road beside it.
The movies’ creator-writer-co-producer-director, Audrey Wells, had some narrative lines that not only stick in your brain, but give insight into the land of the Etruscans and resonated deep in me. Every time I watch it, I know again why Tuscany is so alluring and enduring. The landscape and architecture are overwhelming in their beauty. The romantic, far-fetched idea of getting off a romantic tour of Tuscany (“Gay and Away”) tourist bus and stumbling into your own Tuscan paradise (your own ‘private Tuscany’) is so unreal, but so encouraging to the dreamer in us all.
Lines like: Salute to freedom! …How can you say no to Tuscany? …Inner voice that’s saying what the fuck are you doing! …At a crossroads an empty shell person …“terrible ideas, don’t you just love those”… ‘Signo di Deo’! …‘Living spherically’ “…built a train track over the Alps from Italy to Switzerland, because they knew that one day a train would be built that could make the journey… Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere, I would be different.
I feel that way all the time--that I am the total sum of my collected parts. My life being the whole and all my experiences, however shaped by myself, others, fate, God, or whatever, has put me here. Something has put me into a new phase of my life. I will retire in about four years and then what are we going to do with ‘our’ lives? I cannot see sitting idle and watching the last part of my life process by. If Italy’s calling, I am going to answer. It might be for just three weeks, but I need to find out why this place has affected so many people so profoundly. I guess I see my life leading us to this. I used to think I wanted Austria and France, but now Italia? A vineyard in Tuscany? That’s pazzo!
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