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December 19, 2013 Stars burn. Leaves whisper. The village is waiting for Natale, waiting for 2013 to run out. You can sometimes catch a glimpse of a Christmas tree behind shutters. Boxes of panettone crowd out everything else in mini-markets. Poinsettias shimmer red on the piazza. But otherwise, no hoopla in the village. Just a quiet wait.
December 5, 2013 A whirlwind two weeks of work (read: hard labor) in Republika Srbija is over. As we rolled from one misty town to the next, the slate-gray sky spewed rain, sleet and snow. There were mutterings of discontent: We’re waiting for more war, someone said. There could be revolution, another whispered. Coal dust fell from chimneys. I felt dim. Everywhere I drank cappuccino, but nowhere did it taste anything like it should have. I looked for cornetti where there were none. Only the brilliant eyes of 450 teachers kept melancholia at bay. Today I had real coffee on my very own sun-dazed piazza. Hot rays hit my cheeks and I yanked off my scarf, then my jacket and sweater in a kind of joyful frenzy. My impish pal Salvatore sat across the table. It’s the scirocco, he said, pointing south. From Africa. Later, sitting with my cutting board in the blue air, I snip off rosemary and bay leaves from the clay pots. I set a tomato sauce to burble away on the stove and turn up Bocelli, who belts out an old Sicilian tune, E vui durmiti ancora. I guess you could say I’m undergoing a metamorphosis. Back to Sicilian me.
November 19, 2013 Somewhere deep in the heart of Sicily, there’s a moment of pure peace.
May 1, 2013 Tumble out of bed at dawn and meet me for a wander about town.
*** March 2, 2013 After three days of dreary downpours and hellish winds–during which I worked so slavishly on a translation that getting out of my PJs completely slipped my mind–Saturday dawned sunny! I put on real clothes and clickety-clacked my way down to the piazza with Marcella Hazan in my bag. I dropped into a chair, leafed through Marcella, and wondered: will I EVER be able to cook like an Italian? I am studying this 1973 book–bought for a buck at a library sale–as if it were the Bible itself. I’m trying one recipe a day and have loved every one. (The updated version is Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking).
Then I looked at the palms waving overhead and wondered: Will you survive, dear friends? Horrible winged black bugs are eating palm trees to death in Sicily. Our piazza has already lost one. I mourned it like I’d mourn a best friend.
I looked to the right and I saw a gaggle of guys. I got up and asked for a photo. They were a little shy, especially when I spoke to them in English. They wore braces. They were sweet sixteen.
I remember the braces I wore at that age, gap-toothed and horribly shy. And I wondered: Would I like to be sixteen again? Would you? *** |
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