High Commission

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Italian hairdressers, Nuances, prima repubblica

Often I can be heard raving about my hairdresser who, for the purposes of this writing, we’ll call Pasquale. Pasquale arrives to his salon every morning from Naples, his native land. More than his native land, I’d go so far as to say Naples is his flag, the blood pulsing through his veins, the sly anything-could-happen-from-this-moment-on escaping his crooked smile. He embodies the mellifluous lament, the passion originating from the bite of the taranta, the beat of the Neapolitan tammorra omnipresent in all Neapolitan music (the good and the bad). He saches from sink to the client’s chair; the phone rings and he two-steps to get it while twirling slightly on the balls of his hand-sewn leather mocassins and reaching suavely for his cigarettes and lighter, all in one smooth move. And do not let the prose fool you; he does so in an entirely heterosexual way.

Pasquale is old-school. He represents the caste of Southern-Italian, self-taught, male hairdressers. He and his brothers have built an empire on the craft they learned as boys from their uncles, fathers, grandfathers. He will have had the famous stool to step-on when shaving one of his father’s customers and his own broom which will have been unceremoniously sawed off and taped up for his slight height and he will have been given the responsibility to sweep up after each customer swiftly and without getting in the way.

In his old-schoolness, Pasquale is also what we refer to as “First Republic”. To belong to Italy’s “prima Repubblica” was a distinction made in the nineties to refer to those who still hadn’t grasped the fact that we’d turned a page; that the political-religious-economic-social web woven by governments from the end of the Second World War until 1992 was untangling and that transparency and honesty would be adopted by all. Those of us who read the papers, marched in the marches, cried at the rallies and for the blood of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, to name only two, used the term (and still do) with condescending tones: “that’s so First Republic” of him”, “oh, we don’t go to that bar/pizzeria/school….they’re very prima repubblica“. Little did we know that the first would soon swallow the second transparent, honest, untangled, forward-thinking, upward moving Republic and with one big, 17-year-long belch, thus creating the third: Berlusconismo. But I digress.

Pasquale, alas, is very first and third Republic. He is, I believe, the only representative of that part of this country whose happy patron I remain. I shop at the organic, grower-to-consumer markets; I teach about corruption and its prices to society; I preach about entire neighborhoods built illegally only to be ‘condoned’ by the administration once they’ve been erected with no consideration for safety, water, waste management, schools, roads, bus routes. I am always reminding businesses that, yes, actually, I do need a receipt just as surely as they need to pay taxes.

But Pasquale. Pasquale can do no wrong. Pasquale is where vanity meets sanity and wins. His workmanship is tantamount to a Sorrentine wood inlayer or a Venetian lacemaker from the island of Burano. My professionalism is challenged as I search for a way to credibly herald Italian hairdressers the likes of Pasquale and his caste as Italian artisans in their own right.

As I make my way through the fourth floor of the 5-star, luxury hotel chain where his salon is located, I force the thoughts of fronts and illicit economies from my mind.

He greets me with a wink and a crooked, knowing smile. He has a connection with each one of his customers; he knows them, he understands their weaknesses and strengths and recognizes their beauty – however deep it lies. A kempt head, well-kept hands and polished shoes are all tell-tale signs of the dignity and poise that lies beneath, my grandmother would have said. I am here to tend to the first and second of those.

As I wait, a woman who I initially mistook for a famous Roman movie actress begins to whine in her annoying, Roman, flirtatious way. She is artificially tanned and her breasts are squeezed into three layers of stretch tank top concoctions of various colors and patterns, the last of which continues its squeezing around her disappearing waist, over her hips and falls just above her knee. Rolls abound everywhere and her lime green bra straps are revealed atop heavy, round upper arms which hearten me and my vain attempts to hide mine. The pedicured toes at the end of rather chunky, tanned feet, peek out of nine-inch heeled sandals. Her eyelashes, coated in three coats of black mascara bat up and down and her thick-lined lips in deep raisin tones pout: “Pasquale, I’ve forgotten my phone in my car. Can you please go down and get it for me?” He looks around the crowded 3-chair, 4th-floor salon. Women wait patiently, I have my head covered in henna and it’s sticking up unattractively looking a bit like Jimmy Hendrix in mud. We are all interested to see how Pasquale reacts. He looks at her. “Look at how many people are here. What do you need your phone for? Relax.“. “No, I need it“ she pouts, “I’m working“. (Oh, shock and horror, reader. Don’t tell me you don’t pretend you’re working while you’re actually getting your hair done. It’s practically expected by Italian labor offices. Besides, this salon is a probable front, ergo it doesn’t exist, ergo I can’t be here, ergo I am at work.) He looks around again. He catches my eye and sighs, as if to share a little “can you believe this woman?“. I love being drawn into his circle of confidence. I blush.

“Where is it parked?“, he asks, visibly irked. “I gave the keys to the little black boys at the entrance.” I choke. My fresh-squeezed Sicilian orange juice almost comes out my nose. Not one other person in the salon bats an eye. “with whom?“, he asks. She repeats it. More audibly, “You know, the little black boys who park the cars.” (Mine is a loose and generous translation of the still quite frequently-used Italian term negretti, the diminutive impossibly implying anything but diminution. Many Italian friends and family will dispute that nothing is meant by it. Well, then, I say, don’t use it!) I’m reminded of a similarly batty tv personality who once said on a popular talk show, “oh, I’d love to adopt a child. Maybe even a little negretto.“. My reaction in the salon is similar to the one I’d had on my living room sofa that time. I cannot believe my ears.

In the time it took me to take that little foray into modern, social linguistics, my heralded artisan of hair took the keys from bimbette and went to get her phone and was back. She blew him kisses in the mirror with both of her manicured hands almost touching her painted lips. I texted a friend and described the scene. Having mistook her for this famous actress, I thought I was witnessing a scoop.

Pasquale continued to glance my way through the mirrors each time I looked up from my Blackberry; I, unlike some, was working!

After Bambi left and the wizard of hair was rinsing out my henna, I asked him if that really was Sabrina Ferrilli. He said many people mistake her for la Ferrilli but she’s not. “She’s the Police Commissioner.”

“Oh” was all I could muster. “Annammo bene“, the Romanesque catch-all phrase succinctly implying “well, if this is the state of affairs, I hate to think what might come next“,  was what I thought.

As I paid Pasquale in cash which he quickly put into his designer pocket, I promised to make no more notice of the lack of register or refusal of credit cards. I made a deal with myself that this is my one oasis of sin where I am spoiled with fresh cookies and tea or fruit platters of every exotic color with champagne. Where the wizard once took one look at my overworked self, wrapped my head in a mask, drew me into a room where a young woman handed me a towel and invited me to take my champagne and fruit into the steam room for fifteen minutes while the mask worked through my hair. I made a pact with myself that I would ignore the constant reminders of backward thinking, ill-fed economy, dubious dealings and corrupt officials. And I do it all in the name of my love for Italian art and workmanship.

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Italian Gender Relations in the Cramped Space of an Airplane Cabin

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Facebook, gender relations, italy, London, Nuances, rome

On a plane to London, an extended Roman family travels for the long weekend. I happen to be seated next to the younger members of the group; at first glance, they seem like young high school sweethearts but soon it is evident they are a married couple. It seems they are traveling with his parents and other family members. As we prepare for the take off, the voice over the loudspeaker (in Italian) repeats over and over the necessity to turn off all electronic devices before take-off. They are specific, knowing how attached to their modern devices Italian people are and how stubborn, too, when it comes to following direction, and they list all imaginable devices by name. At that point, a tiny voice near the window suggests her bolder partner heed the advice and turn off his i-phone. Every time the loudspeaker repeats the order, she timidly reminds her husband. At one very uncomfortable point (for me and for her, that is), he turns sharply towards her, “insisti?”, he grits. He says it over and over again, a typical Roman goading mechanism, drawing his face closer and closer to hers each time. She’s near the window, there’s no further back she can go. Each time she tries to reply with her feeble tones, “they say it interferes…” or “but they said…”, he won’t let her finish and, in his extreme braggadocio just raises his hand and sticks his face in hers, repeating, “o! allora? insisti!?”I wanted to turn to him and say, “look, you little bully, she’s right. Turn your fucking phone off and get out of her face.” But I know as well as any woman who has ever been in that belittled and intimidating position that it would be of no use. And so the little schmuck’s phone stayed on. (As an aside, we took off and landed without incident which proves to me that this turning off of phones on planes really is a debatable topic, but that’s another story.)

As I listened to them during the flight between my intermittent, deep sleeps, my heart-strings pulled. This beautiful, young woman continually put herself in positions of powerlessness. She’d feign fear at every bump along the way. She’d look at her husband as if to say, “what was that?” She knew what she was doing, she was giving him opportunities to show her up, to feel strong and all-knowing, to protect her. It’s not uncommon, it’s not new, it is a tradition handed down through the generations. Mothers to daughters to granddaughters: make them feel important, never show your ability, your intelligence, your independence. In fact, never reveal any of that even to yourself. Bury it, hide it, let it fester or wilt away. What do they want to eat? How would they like that cooked? Sunday plans must include the game (whatever the game may be), and so on and so forth. It’s a web of deceit and design; difficult, demeaning and disheartening. And, contrary to a conversation I recently had with colleagues of mine, this is not a step backwards for young women for whom we (and those who came just before me) paved the way; for many of the women I see subscribing to the long tradition of standing in the wings, are direct descendants of the same patterns. There may be a certain tendency to revert to the old objectification of women in the media and in our Anglo-American cultures but the women who fought for a fairer Italy in the 60s and 70s raised women who still fight. They are not reverting. It is those who were oblivious to the change due to their working class and often starving status, who continue to take a back seat. They hold down the hearth and manipulate the husbands, fathers and sons in their life in a co-dependent frenzy which will assure them a constant flow of neediness to feed their own until the day they die.

There exists, as a result of this commonplace game, among a certain social set of the masses particularly in Central and Southern Italy, a suspicion of strong-willed and independent women. The opposite of needy becomes humiliating to men who are used to supplying the answers and quelling all angst: A woman who rises above them humiliates them. I listen to women like this one next to me or mothers who complain their sons “just don’t want to sit in their car seats” when they’re babies and “just didn’t like to study” when they drop out of school and sleep until lunchtime, their every need catered to, as long as they continue to need their mother, and I cannot help but think they are actively assisting in the repression of fellow women; that the insults and liberties suffered by women, as men lash out against them, are, in large part aided by the mothers and wives who allow and, indeed, abed the repression. There are girls who grow up coached and encouraged by their fathers and mothers to stand alone, excel, speed and speak up. I cringe at the thought of the fears we witnessed and felt as children in honor of the frail, male ego.

Before landing, the young woman’s feigned fear reaches a point where she actually asks how a plane lands. How is it that it doesn’t just crash face first? She gives him the perfect opportunity to chuckle at her lack of knowledge. Perfectly crafted, almost scripted, they imitate the scenes of inequality between husband and wife to which they’ve always been exposed. Patronizingly, he responds, “No, amore (as if to say, you silly nitwit), it doesn’t go straight down like this” (he used one of the airline magazines rolled up to simulate an airplane in landing phase and her tray table which was down, despite the order to put it back in place, to simulate the runway). His own lack of knowledge and vocabulary was so painfully evident as he purported aeronautical prowess, it was almost comical if not for the power dynamic which had long been established between the two. He held her hand as we landed, her eyes and expressions continuing to convey little, lost girl syndrome; she gave a yelp and a smile at touch-down and immediately reached into her purse where the i-phone lay. The plane still braking, she dialed her in-laws, back in Rome.
“Si’, si’, we just landed. We’re still on the runway. It was so funny….how’s the baby? it’s cold and cloudy here, what’s it like there?” and, then to her husband, “your father says it’s 30 degrees and sunny there but it’s so cold here, how can that be?”

And she was not being facetious. I was quietly thankful that I didn’t have to witness yet another lesson, this time in meteorology. All of this was taking place as the other members of their family and a handful of other Italians applauded the landing, a tradition which is becoming a rarity. Occasionally, especially on the Italian national carrier, one can still bear witness to the raucous applause upon landing which baffles and amuses the other, non-Italian passengers. Others were standing, many others still, mostly businessmen en route to important meetings, on their phones: “mamma” rang out through the cabin, “si‘, sono arrivato“. All of this as the purser was telling everyone to remain seated and keep all electronic devices off until the “fasten seat belts” sign was switched off. Repeated attempts were necessary to gain control again of the unruly passengers at which time the “fasten seat belt” sign was switched off and all those called to order, in unison, raised their hands in a gesture loosely translated as, “so, what was the big deal anyway?”

The young woman next to me calls back a few rows to a family member, “ma ti funziona Facebook?” “is your Facebook working?”. Her husband shoots her a glare “sei in roaming, non e’ attivato”. He’s pleased as punch not only that he knows what roaming is but that he can use it correctly in a sentence and tell her that hers is not activated. The excitement, however, has gotten the upper hand and egged on by her cousin/sister/sister-in-law in the back, they fool with their phones until, Eureka!, it works! “You’ll end up paying un leasing”, he states, using yet another English term to indicate the massive amounts of money international roaming will cost her in order to use her Facebook. This time, I have to agree with him but I secretly rejoice in the idea of his having to pay onerous amounts of Euro upon his return to Italy just for the sheer pleasure of his wife.

Rome is Burning

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italy, Nuances, rome, Summer

In Rome, one doesn’t just “take the heat”, she absorbs it, assimilates it, becomes it. I describe Rome as a sexy, gritty city all year round but in summer, like much of the Mediterranean, it becomes even more so. Skin glistens dark bronze to deep ebonies; the showing of skin allows a glimpse of soul.

Summer in Rome reveals the soul.

Yesses flow more freely than during the less-scantily-clad year. We find ourselves in one hot and steamy locker room after a really good, endorphin-building workout. Stares linger. The very fact that this decidedly non-athlete can conjure such an image is testimony to the fact that our very atoms are shaken-up and turned around in summer heat.

In my primer years, before becoming fully Italian, I would roll around naked on the ceramic tile floors of my newlywed apartment in a small bowl of a city in Tuscany, framed so closely by the Apennines so as to prohibit the passage of air. My soft, white, New England flesh would absorb the cool from the ceramic tiles. I’d weep for the heat, rolling from one row of tiles to the next. I’d pine for a New England chill.

It has not gotten any less hot in Italy, in fact, conventional wisdom tells us it is getting hotter. And yet, like most Romans I know, I come to life in summer. The stream of warm air flowing through the city of Rome, not dissimilar to an eager lover’s warm breath on your neck, is a welcome change to the lack of air in the bowled Tuscan cities of the Apennines.
It is so hot as to defy the ordinary; high heels of slim sandals sink into the sidewalk; technology flits and wanes, the electrical system in my car only works at night. My eyelids weigh, my breathing slows, I become a slightly southern drawl-version of my former self.

The post-sunset life of summer in Rome brings promise and promiscuity. Promise of promiscuity. As my fiery Sicilian friend says, it is a time to throw out the seed without giving it too much thought and then, come fall, harvest whatever grows! And it takes no prisoners. We all, for a time, become as sultry as the air that invades our very being and every corner of every room. There is something to be said for the adjustment to climate and seasons on the part of the human race. Adapting to nature, in and of itself, affects our inner being in a humbling way, adding an element of perspective, deeper meaning and, well, proportion to our livelihoods and daily routine. How important can that deadline be in the face of 105 degrees in the shade?

The earth tells us to slow down and rearrange and when legislation, private and public enterprise follow the earth’s suggestions, even those of us with an innate puritan work ethic feel validated. We adapt without guilt. We are molasses by day and crisp, white wine by night. We revel in the evening breeze until the wee hours.

We wake early, too, with few hours’ sleep but with that vigour from the night similar to that which a new flirt provides. Our endorphins rise to the occasion and we adjust. It’s mating season.

With bedroom windows open and heavy, dark, louvered shutters ajar, the city’s couples turn to each other in the deep of the night. One becomes accustomed to the love-making schedule and rhythms of one’s neighbours. At first I pummelled the mattress and held the pillow tightly on my head. Now I simply let the sounds lull me back to sleep with a tiny smile on my lips. Slightly embarrassed for them and with a blush, I allow myself to hear their peaks and valleys which seem, from a comfortable distance, to utterly satisfy. I imagine they fall into a deep sleep, the cooling night air streaming in through their shutters and over their spent bodies.

As I fall back asleep, I think of the thousands of juxtapositions facing me daily in this, the sexy, gritty, holy city; the city of the sacro e profano. Just as the Pope will address thousands of worshipers this morning, the day of Rome’s Patron Saints Peter and Paul, at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, those same pilgrims will be back at the Feast of Saint Paul’s tonight drinking, eating, dancing and making merry until the wee hours of the morning when the festivities culminate in fireworks for all to see and feel and emulate. Every night this summer there will be a saint’s feast somewhere in the city of Rome and at every feast the explosion of color and spark and sound. And in every corner of every room an explosion of color and spark and sound.

Stellina

Tags

Living abroad, Nuances, rome, the way things were

The other day I went to my doctor. When I moved to our new neighbourhood, I changed doctors for my daughter and me. It’s not mandatory to do so but my daughter had outgrown her paediatrician and I was not particularly attached to my last neighbourhood doctor. A dear friend of mine (also a doctor) referred to him as my “Al Qaeda” doctor. I know that wouldn’t be considered necessarily appropriate at home in the US. Political correctness to the extreme would probably find something wrong with that. But here we can (and do) say anything we want.

So, I changed doctors. Now, all I have to do is go down the three stories to street level from my apartment and turn left onto the sidewalk. Between the door to my apartment building and my doctor is but one storefront: there sits a woman behind a shatter-proof glass partition offering to buy gold from those in my neighbourhood jonesing for new hair extensions or the latest 10″ heels, those who need to pay for their cable sports subscriptions and tanning salon appointments.

My doctor sees her patients on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. She prefers them to call first and make an appointment but this, more than any other, is a place where old habits die hard and doctor’s appointments are a foreign concept. Going to the doctor’s office is a right and a rite. It is neither where I grew up.

Every day the elderly gather in my doctor’s waiting area (tiny, not geared for comfort and, with its eight rudimentary chairs, five along one wall and three facing them, does not even try to be). One of my first visits was on a cool, sunny morning in February. In the sun it was probably 65 degrees; in the shade still in the 50s. In came Stellina, accompanied by her husband. All 38 kilos of her was wrapped in a heavy wool coat whose buttons had been moved to the point where they buttoned nearly along her side. She wore a kerchief on her head and tied under her chin. She looked to be about 130 years-old as much as she looked ageless. She was elegant and frail, spry and slow.

“Stelli'”, the lady behind the desk cried out. “Buon giorno, Stelli’! What brings you out so early?That husband of yours should know better than to make you go out in this cold!” It was not cold out, like I said. Maybe chilly. Not cold. Then she turned to the husband “what on earth were you thinking? Or were you?” There’s a hierarchy at the doctor’s office in Italy: if you are working-class, elderly, young (as in someone’s child), uneducated or otherwise lacking in the pecking order, the person manning the phones at your doctor’s office will talk down to you. The doctor will talk down to her and to you.

If you’ve studied or travelled or can otherwise hold your own in a conversation using the proper verb conjugations and more or less complex sentences while being succinct and to the point, the doctor will tolerate you and even, over time, coddle you. Seeing as illiteracy still laces those aged 60 and above and low-level schooling laces the younger generations, the cycle will not likely break anytime soon.

And yet the receptionist was lashing out in a most affectionate way. Stellina walked over and stroked her cheek before patting it before, finally, gently pinching it as she would have her own great-grandchild’s. The husband threw his hands up and started to justify himself to all of us: “We have to come here, go to the pharmacy, collect our pension, pay the bills, all before 1:00, how could I come out any later?” Yes, in my neighbourhood, as in all of Italy not sold out to tourists, siesta still begins at 1:00pm, so, one must get one’s errands in before lunch and rest time. We all looked at him forgivingly, he sat down again and opened the paper, Metro, handed out for free in coffee bars and metro stations every morning. Stellina pressed her hands along her tiny hips, smoothing her skirt down where the elastic waistband (a necessary afterthought) caused it to bulge slightly. Her husband folded the paper and stood to help her out of her heavy coat and loosened her kerchief for her. “Vieni, siediti, Stelli’. ” She turned right in front of me and made to take the three steps between her and the chair. Then she turned back. Gave the receptionist another smile, patted her cheek again, turned away and went to sit down with her husband. The receptionist, beaming and calling her “amore ” , encouraged her along to her chair.
Stellina and her husband sat hand in hand as he read the paper and held her coat on his lap. He told her the news in a voice loud enough – no, actually intended – for us all to hear.
When it was my turn, I told the doctor how happy I was to be in this new neighbourhood and how pleased I was to meet her. She confirmed it was a pleasure but had less favourable things to say about the neighbourhood. She began to complain about her patients, the rudeness, the crassness of them. I said, “but Stellina and her husband out there ” … “They, my dear Signora, are one of the few exceptions. ” My romantic heart was temporarily crushed. My neighbourhood, famous in all of Italy for its 1920 architecture, built for the families evicted from the Roman Forum by Mussolini who wanted it all for himself, unlike any other, full of artists and old Roman families, a cacophony of sound and colour, was snootily under attack.
In contrast to the other case popolari in Rome, Garbatella preserves a fighting spirit of the evicted, the displaced. While other spots of Rome were granted Council Housing in the great master plan of the urban redistribution under Mussolini, here gratitude for Il Dux has always been lacking. The homes are quaint and artfully crafted by three architects from just as many different parts of Italy and the neighbourhood winds and climbs like a maze over hills with pedestrian paths from one project to the next, overflowing with flowers, trees and shrubs, interspersed with parks and cobblestone. Ok, and laden with graffiti, social activists’ clubs and hanging laundry. Yet, as quaint and desirable as a 21st century ex-pat finds it, just as detestable the original families settled here by force once found it. For them, it was repatriation. The 5 kilometres from their original dwellings to this would have been like 15 kilometres today. While we are now considered central, they would have been relegated to the countryside back then, a fate of untold hardship. While other council settlements of the times let their gratitude then form their political views today, this and a couple of nearby settlements let their anger at being displaced form their very fighting spirit today. One breathes the air of strength in masses and feels the camaraderie in every street, piazza and coffee bar. Never in gratitude to Il Dux, Garbatella remains a place of open minds, hearts and, well, every so often, purses and desk drawers.
The other day I went back to the doctor to pick up a couple of prescriptions. The receptionist was being brutally scolded in very formal Italian. She couldn’t find the doctor’s “stamp” with which she validates all of her prescriptions. I thought it odd that in such a bare, tiny office they could lose something with such ease. “I tell you always to lock it in the drawer when you have to turn your back! Now look, it’s gone again! And I’m full of appointments, how will I get to the Carabinieri before 1:00?” (Actually, while the 1:00 lunch and rest holds true for most, one can still go to the police at any time, really, but one wouldn’t unless it was a dire emergency.)
When she called me into her room, I said hello and, in my naiveté commented on the event which was clearly impossible for anyone not to overhear. “Incredibile”, I said. “what an odd thing to go missing”. The thought of someone forging prescriptions for drug addiction was still furthest from my mind. “Odd? You know how many times it disappears from here, Signora mia?” She gave me a knowing smile. “What did I tell you? It may be a fashionable neighbourhood but don’t believe it quaint for one minute! I can’t wait to retire from here!”

——————————————————————————–

I ran into Stellina at the seamstress’ shop the other day where my daughter was having the dress we’d bought for her cousin’s wedding remade to fit her torso and imagination. The dress had cost us thirty euro; to have it custom fit would cost us fifteen. The shop, with no room for two slender people to stand next to each other, forms a line from the street to the counter. It is flanked with embroidery kits, yarn, pins, needles, bras and underwear all displayed vertically, making the best use of tiny space and high ceilings. Stellina came in and was standing behind another couple of ladies who deftly made room for her to move to the front. There is a stool in the corner, wedged between the measuring counter and the curtain leading to the tiny storeroom where my daughter was slipping into her strapless bra. Stellina was lowered onto it and presided over the viewing.
As the seamstress pinned her dress, others voiced their opinions and one, apparently once famous costume seamstress in the Dolce Vita era of Italian cinema, came up with an idea and tried to convince my strong-minded, teenage daughter to go with it. She did not and our young seamstress-shop owner stood up for her. The veteran dressmaker eventually huffed and made her scorn obvious as she slinked her way past others all the way to the door. I felt awful. Had we offended her? The young seamstress said it was she who had overstepped her bounds; this was not her model and she should not have interfered. The spectators agreed. She went on to compliment my daughter on her firm resolve; I realized again how much I’ve been a pushover to please others and how proud I am of my daughter for sticking up for her own will. Once she was all pinned, Giulia beamed. She loved how this was going to come out and felt perfectly at home with her close circle of nonne voicing their opinions, giving her advice and talking about the event. Stellina stretched her arm out and smoothed Giulia’s dress from the waistline over her hip and ended with a kind little pat on her bottom. With that, my daughter was excused; she could step out of her dress and back into her clothes. The neighbourhood nonne who by morning meet at the doctor’s and by dusk at the seamstress’ merceria, approved and accepted her. She’d brought light to their evening and they’d brought nurturing to hers.

Ok, ok, I’ll do it

Tags

italy, lifegate radio, Nuances, rome, Toiling in Rome

After, well, nearly thirty years in Italy, I have finally decided to take the advice of many and begin my own blog. I feel slightly like that other Julia in last summer’s big hit, “Julia and Julia”, sitting here in my Roman – not Brooklynese – sottotetto, listening to my favorite radio station (Lifegate – 90.9 in Rome and on line at http://www.lifegateradio.it/).
On this space, I will share some of those quintessentially Italian, Roman or some other regional moments which I witness in my very busy day-to-day. In doing so, I  hope to reveal some of what makes Italy so fascinating, so mysterious, so frustrating, so maddening, so chic, so apparently unruffled yet so animated and, at times, suffering.

The words “watch this space”have all of a sudden taken on all new meaning!

A prestissimo, allora….