My Move to Italy and the House of Violets
The back of my house rests on Vico Fiore, loosely Flower Street, and so all the houses have (informally) been given flowery names. Mine is “Casa delle Violette,” or the House of Violets.
I’ve always loved violets and my favorite color is purple, but that’s certainly not what sold me on the house and living in Italy. Didn’t hurt though either.
I’m a believer in fate and destiny and all that stuff, and although I’m not one to wait for Signs From Above before I make a big decision, I do keep my eyes open for little clues that tell me I’m on the right (or wrong) track.
Looking back, it seems my path to Italy was, and is, paved in violets.
I came to Italy for the first time in the summer of 2002, eight months after the death of my Italian- American grandmother. Born in America to Italian immigrants, she had never even visited, and at that time, I was reaching deeper into our family’s history than anyone ever had.
And so, when I stumbled upon a falling down mess optimistically called the House of Violets in my family’s ancestral village, I was obliged to take a second look.
Anyone who knew her knew that my grandmother’s favorite color had been purple, which dotted her house even though the rest of the color scheme was firmly 1970s browns and rusts. I even wore a deep purple suit to her funeral because it had been her favorite of all my dreary lawyer-wear.
I had developed quite a fondness for the color over the years myself, going from my favorite pink as a little girl to blue as a young adult and now settling on a color that combined them–purple is as calming, solid, and safe as blue but mixes in pink’s playfulness and innocence.
After seeing the house the first time, I went back to where I was staying to record the day’s events in the journal my friend had given me before the trip. I laughed to myself as I saw what graced the textured lavender cover: a lone violet protected by a clear plastic, raised box.
So as the trip went on, I started to imagine what life might be like in a southern Italian village. I didn’t have very much time there on that trip, so I knew I’d have to return. And I did a few times before making the big move, which, to be clear, was not so big in my mind at the time–I was planning on a couple years tops.
But through all the thinking and evaluating, another incident stuck in mind. Upon returning from that first trip, I lugged my bags upstairs to my bedroom in my Philadelphia apartment. While I was gone, a friend took care of my cat and plants–yes, I’m anal enough that I drew a map of all the plants and a chart of watering frequency (thanks Sue!). All still alive downstairs (including Kudzu kitty), the last plant left for me to check up on was the one on my nightstand–my prized collection of African violets.
Well, to be honest, it was a collection of African violet leaves. Three Easters before, my Mom had gotten me three of them planted together in a flat, white basket. There were lots of pink and purple flowers when I got them, and although I had kept the leaves green and furry for years, I hadn’t seen a flower again after I snapped off the last dying one from its original bloom.
But there, upon returning from my first trip to Italy, with thoughts of transferring my life overseas floating around my mind, wouldn’t you know it? Three deep purple violets had bloomed in my absence.
The House of Violets.
Three rooms. Three flowers. Alrighty then. So here I am, probably pushed by violets (better than pushing *up* violets, eh?). And after living here for about a year and a half, I met P.
And just in case I was beginning to wonder whether life in Calabria is for me, whether I should be trying to talk P into moving to the States, a few months ago, P’s mom gave me…yeah, this is getting weird isn’t it? I saw the furry leaves one day at her house, and she told me that although the plant had flowers originally, it hadn’t bloomed since. So she passed it to me. I think the violets are happy here.
And for those who can’t get enough of this: the African violet is of the genus Saintpaulia. My grandmother’s name was Paulina. And a clever reader might take a stab on what follows the P in P’s name.
Remembering the Ghost of Christmas Past
I am a loyal reader of Petite Anglaise, and her December 13 post has been resonating with me for days now. Petite is separated from the father of her young child, and in this entry, she admits struggling to make Christmas special for Tadpole, as she calls her daughter.
If you’ve read my 100 things about me, you know that my parents were divorced when I was very young. And so, I’ve been in the shoes of Tadpole–having adults around me trying to make everything seem normal when, it turns out, I suppose it wasn’t (whatever “normal” means).
So the more I’ve thought about Petite and Tadpole, the more I’ve been thinking about my own childhood Christmases–and the more I’ve felt the need to write this post.
By Christmases (plural), I mean that we had two every year. If today were 20 years ago, this might have been the morning that I woke up at my Mom’s house, opened gifts, and then prepared for our Christmas dinner, which usually included my father and his family.
That’s because one or two weeks before the big day, we had “Mom’s Christmas,” a full celebration only a little early. More than the early gifts, though, the highlight for me was the unveiling of Mom’s cookies–chocolate chips, Michigan rocks, ricotta, kolaches, butter pressed, pizzelles. Of course, some time in the weeks before, we had decorated the cut-outs, which involved a couple of my girlfriends and a slumber party.*
Man I’m missing home (and childhood) right about now.
Anyway, some of the reason behind having two Christmases was that my mom is a nurse and always worked Christmas day; on actual Christmas morning, she usually came over to my father’s house for a little while.
But I’m sure the bigger reason was that with two full holidays, nobody missed out on a family Christmas experience. In fact, as kids, we were blessed to have to double the fun.
And the best part was that all of this seemed completely normal to me even though I knew the other kids at school weren’t having the same deal (suckers!). Now, as an adult, I see that this was the plan. And it worked.
Don’t buy it? My testimonial not enough?
Take Exhibit A, then, depicting what the two Christmas set-up made my normally curmudgeonly grandfather (may he rest in peace) do to himself one year:
See, Christmas miracles do happen.
*These are not the actual recipes my Mom uses. As you can surely understand, these are top secret and under heavy guard (in my Mom’s head). I did, however, try to find some that are close to hers.
Blogging Baptism
*Warning: Non-bloggers will most likely not give a whip about this rant. Neither will many bloggers. But it’s my blog, and I’ll rant when I want to.
Twelve days into blogging, and I’ve experienced my first bug. Actually two glitches, and they both happened early this morning. I think this means I’ve been baptized as a blogger. Maybe. Advice welcome.
The first problem was something I was readily expecting having read others’ blogs for months. My trusty Blogger in Beta (up until now) wouldn’t let me add pictures. How rude is that? But even more inconsiderate was that it didn’t actually say “We can’t add your pictures right now” or “Please try later.”
There was nothing out of the ordinary to even warn me. Instead, obviously in denial of its own shortcomings, B in B acted like nothing was wrong, like we were peaches and cream, like, well, you get the picture.
It let me put in the link, it let me click “Upload Images.” It even told me that the picture was added and that I could publish it to my blog by clicking “Done.” All the same stuff it normally says. Only there was no picture.
Can I add here that I’m on a dial-up connection, so it took a good chunk of time just to learn that I was wasting clicks? Because, of course, then I had to try sixty schmillion more times to be sure.
Even if it doesn’t seem so, I assure that I’m pretty much over this one now as things are back to normal. But this minor snafu *did* throw off my posting intentions. Now you’ll be a day behind forever! But moving on…
The other problem was much more disconcerting. I use Google Analytics to keep track of my number of visitors, where they’re coming from, etc. I clicked this morning and there was *no* data. I’m not just talking from yesterday or even the day before. All of the data that had been collected from when I started blogging was gone. Zeros. Donuts. My blog is a big fat nothing, and I have the columns of inadequacy to prove it.
Now, to be clear, I’m not very concerned with the number of visitors, but I do find it interesting to see where my readers are, where they’re directed from, and how many return. Thank goodness I now have that nifty map over on the right for partial backup at least. (Kudos to Katerina Fiore for the silent inspiration!)
So I emailed Google’s help desk or whatever, and I got back a form message of potential causes of the problem described in my message, which no one even read. One of the possibilities was that all those goose eggs may be because of routine maintenance, and that everything should reappear and be back on track within 72 hours.
Uh huh. Ci credo quando lo vedo.
So, fellow bloggers, I feel initiated now. I feel baptized as a blogger. But my question is this: should I? Or are there more “normal” problems I should be prepared for before I get my wings?
I don’t like to expect the worst, but I do like to be prepared.
For now, though, I just kinda feel like doing this:
Il Braciere: Warm and Toasty, Calabrian Style
The braciere is an old contraption used to help keep these old stone houses warm in the winter in Calabria – and which holds special memories for me.
Read on...Love Thursday: How a Jean Jacket and Some Wind Can Change Your Life
Let me confess that I have a bit of a jacket/coat fetish. I love them. All. If I could afford to have a different jacket/coat for every day of the year, for every kind of weather, I would. Hooded, traditional collar, zipper, button, cropped, ankle-length, sporty, any color, any time.
So imagine my excitement when, the last time I was in America, I found a spectacular jean jacket at the Gap–on sale! Jean jackets are particularly difficult for me–must be the exact right length, right color, right level of fittedness. You see the issues. Well this one was it. So it came back to Italy with me, and I treasured it.
But then one exceptionally windy day in May of 2005, I carelessly rested it on my shoulder bag as I walked from the piazza to my house, about a three minute walk. In my defense, I was also carrying my friend’s cat, who I’d be watching that weekend. When I got to my house, I set down the little guy and took the bag off my shoulder. No jacket.
Now, when I say that it was exceptionally windy, we’re talking hurricane force gusts. We get powerful winds from all directions, but this one was the scirocco from the Sahara (they tell me), and it was ridiculously fierce. We’re far enough away that we don’t get the sand too, but my friends in Sicilia often aren’t so lucky (they tell me). I actually had doubts that my jacket was even still in the village.
I went back up to the piazza and began walking around kind of aimlessly, looking for cornered spots where the jacket may have landed. I was interrupted by one of the guys from the village. We’ll call him #1. I had seen him around and we had exchanged “ciao” many times, but we had never actually met. Next thing I knew, he had rounded up a group of young boys and they were searching high and low for my jacket; he even sent one down into the vegetation just over the ledge of the lookout point of the square.
In the meantime, another young man from the village–let’s call him #2–began chatting me up. A bunch of smalltalk, nothing special, but noticeably not even a mention of the missing jacket. So I’m standing there, and I’m nodding to whatever it was he was blathering on about, and what I’m really thinking is how unbelievably nice it was of #1 to organize a makeshift search team and actually *do* something for me rather than just hit on me. And wasn’t he kind of cute after all?
The fruitless search ended soon thereafter. Dejected, I walked home on the main street. About halfway down, I heard “Signorina!” from a woman on her balcony. Turns out she saw my jacket fly away, and she was keeping it safe and sound in her house the whole time. Reunited!
That evening after dinner, I put on my beloved jacket and took a walk into the piazza. I noticed #1 in the doorway of the bar and thought I should at least tell him that I found the darn thing. So I walked up there and did just that. He asked if I wanted an amaro (a digestive liqueur). Here I should mention that #1 had asked me if I wanted a coffee or other beverage, oh, probably 20 times before–but that’s not an usual thing here as even the old geezers are always offering. Or maybe I just always look thirsty.
Anyway, usually I respond to such questions with a quick “No, no,” wind up the conversation, and skadoodle. But this time, before I had chance to think, I had already accepted the amaro. And I don’t even like amaro.
We spent that evening walking and talking, getting to know one another, and have been together ever since. Yes, clever readers, #1 is the infamous P, and this was our first official meeting. It was love at first flight! Sorry, couldn’t resist.
But now you know the story of how a jean jacket and some wind can change your life. Or at least mine.
But if you’re waiting for pic of P, or of P and me, sorry to disappoint. He’s still blog shy and despite the fact that he doesn’t read English, pictures are the universal language.
Please note that Chookooloonks, the founder of Love Thursday, has ended her written journal, but you can find her photography journal (with a fabulous Love Thursday photo) here.
Happy Love Thursday everyone!
Michelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived.
Calabria Guidebook
Recipes
