Love Thursday: Another Heart from Marnie
Do you remember when I featured a gorgeous water lily heart here a while back?
It had been sent by Marnie of Country Fried Stitches, and, well, it seems Marnie can’t escape the love — lucky her! Here is another from our esteemed LT correspondent:
Happy Love Thursday everyone!
Where have you seen love lately?
Remember you can always send me your love photos, and I’ll post them here!
Introducing Carmelina: Another Kid Joins the Herd
Today should rightfully be a Going Green post according to my schedule, but I’m under several deadlines and simply couldn’t do the planned topic of water conservation justice this week, so please try to suffer through these adorable photos of Carmelina, our newest kid, instead.
Yes, we have a new girl around here, this one via a friend of P’s who couldn’t keep her. Lucky us!
And in an interesting turn of events, the guy who originally had Carmelina (before P’s friend) seems to think she may already be carrying a new little kid or two. We have to get a blood test from the veterinarian to find out, but fingers crossed that there will be kids in a few months! Yay!
All the girls are getting along swimmingly and can often be found playing around and being silly with one another. I tried to get some video of their hijinks but my camera is acting up, jumping around, losing color, generally being disagreeable. I’ll keep trying though because it really is adorable to watch.
See more photos of the girls (and some other fun shots of our tomatoes, figs, grapes, a lone pomegranate that couldn’t, and more!) on my Flickr page–and feel free to friend me if you’ve got a Flickr account! That way you can always keep up with my latest photos, and I can keep an eye on yours as well.
Ah, and if you’re still in a goatish mood, check out this goat and dog pair that were wandering around Norristown, PA together (thanks Megan!). Too cute!
Buon weekend!
Oggi Sciopero!
Adesione all’appello di Diritto alla Rete contro il DDl Alfano che imbavaglia la Internet italiana.
P.S. For those who don’t speak Italian but want to know what’s going on, there is an English explanation at Diritto alla Rete.
Bloggisti unite!
Love Thursday: William’s Orgasmic View Lives On
William the Englishman (or l’Inglese as he was called in the village) had a house in Badolato with an “orgasmic view” of the Ionian Sea, as he called it. He came to stay here every year from April to October.
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During the early years (we both arrived in the village around 2003), we were the only two English speakers, so we’d meet for cappuccino in the piazza before William took the bus down to the beach. Along the way he’d stop to chat with just about everyone, trying out his ever-improving Italian, helped by the years he had spent as a bar owner in Spain.
William always joked that everyone knew him, but he most certainly didn’t know everyone. The young children on the bus especially enjoyed him as they relished the chance to practice their school-learned English.
I always felt like a surrogate daughter for William, whose own precious girl was about my age back in London. When William’s house needed “a woman’s touch” as he put it, I helped him pick out dishes and other little accents. Every couple weeks, I’d set up his cell phone ring tones, phonebook, and other settings he’d somehow managed to change. Paolo and I even had him over for a very impromptu Easter dinner one year.
William called me “the Unamerican American” because I had what he considered a rare curiosity about the world and desire to live abroad–Unamerican for an American, according to William. And he never did quite understand how I was able to work via Internet in this mountaintop village and actually make a living; I must have tried to explain it a hundred times.
Lest you think he was anti-American, though, William always rang me on Thanksgiving and was always sure to pay for my cappuccino on the 4th of July.
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Soon after William bought his house here in Badolato, he was the victim of a hit-and-run back in London, and although he survived, he did so just barely. He suddenly had a long physical and emotional road to recovery ahead of him–not made any easier by all the steep hills and steps in Badolato.
And so, William considered selling his beloved casa with its “orgasmic view,” but I got the feeling that was never going to happen. He just loved his piccolo paradiso (little paradise), as he called it, too much.
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In 2008, William died in a house fire in his flat in London. Paolo had gotten word when I was away on a trip, but he waited until I got back to tell me.
At that moment, on my balcony looking out at that same orgasmic view of the Ionian (my house was on the same side of the mountain as William’s, only higher up), all the memories of William came flooding back, bringing mostly smiles and, admittedly, also quite a few tears.
Then came an overwhelming sadness with the realization that not only would we never have cappuccino again, but also our connection was completely gone. Even though I had heard many stories about William’s family back in England, I had no contact information for anyone in his English life.
But then one day a few months ago, I opened up my email and saw what I knew to be his daughter’s name in my inbox. She had found me through this blog, not even realizing that I knew her father, only that I was an English speaker who lived in this mysterious medieval village that William had loved so much.
I met William’s daughter in person last week for the first time when she and her fiancé came to Badolato. She looks so much like her father and has precisely the same English sense of humor, or “humour” I suppose.
I know she was pleased to find out how many people enjoyed the company of l’Inglese, and that he didn’t simply come here to live as a hermit. I introduced her to quite of few of William’s acquaintances, each one saying he was “bravo” or “un grande amico” or something similar.
After initial thoughts of selling the house, she and her family have decided to keep it, rent it out, and otherwise offer it as a place of refuge from the real world for family and friends–much as her father used it when he was alive.
And I like to think that somewhere, William is smiling. His orgasmic view has been passed on to a new generation–and so have some of his friendships.
For William, “Tears in Heaven” by Eric Clapton,
the man he called his “God”:
Happy Love Thursday everyone.
Adjusting to Expat Life in Italy
I’m finally getting around to answering more of your questions from way back when. After today’s answers, the only questions that remain, I believe, are blogging-related, and I’ve answered those in my FAQ page. Have you seen my new FAQ page by the way? Go ahead, click it! And let me know what you think!
OK, back to today’s post, which answers some questions about adjusting to life as an expat in Italy.
1. Janie (whose blog seems to have disappeared! Aiuto!) asked how I was received by the residents.
Actually *really* well. Sure, many wondered why I would choose to move here and be (gasp) so far away from my mother, but the villagers have always been really helpful and kind, even before I knew P.
I’ve mentioned plenty of times that it’s not uncommon to be given bags of fruit and other edible gifts, but the villagers are also always up for a chat or to help carry packages as well; in general, I have to say the people here are just nice, or at least they have been to me.
2. Knowing that I’m a lot addicted to reading, Franca asked about buying books here.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m *really* spoiled when it comes to books. People (including my mom) send me them rather often, and I also get quite a few review copies through the blog.
I very rarely order books, but in the past, I’ve just ordered through Amazon; you can use the UK site if you’re worried about shipping issues. There are also some Italy-based sellers such as IBS.it, Webster.it, and LaFeltrinelli.it that carry some English-language books as well.
3. Franca also asked about dealing with being away from family.
Hmm. Well, that’s something that is undoubtedly different for everyone. I consider myself extremely close emotionally to my family, but I haven’t lived physically close to them since I was 17 (except for a few summers).
I’ve had to rely on phone calls, letters, e-mails, etc., to keep in touch for quite a long time, so I suppose in a way I’m kind of used to being away from them now. The holidays and certain special occasions can be difficult, but how do you get through anything tough?
Me? I cry or I don’t; I keep myself busy or I don’t; I reminisce about the past or I don’t; I plan trips home or I don’t. You know, I don’t know. It’s really hard for me to give advice on this because what works for me won’t work for everyone–heck, what works for me one day may not work the next.
I guess my best advice is that you do your best to work through the feelings of missing your loved ones in your home country, and if you really feel like you’re unhappier here than you would be there, you move back.
Or at least that’s what I would do. I think.
Fellow expats or those who have moved away from “home,”
what are your adjustment tips?
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
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