ITALIAN JOURNEY
Couchsurfing in Assisi-Italy
A short story about two strangers and an Italian town
Roberto, “like Roberto Benigni,” was the first thought that came to my mind as I got off the train. There he was, a stranger in a faded blue blouse, bargain jeans, and windblown hair. I waved shyly but with a smile on my face. It was sweltering, so getting off the train on the right foot in Assisi and feeling the wind, even if warm, was pleasant.
We spoke in my crude Italian, full of walking sticks and patches but noticeable to anyone who has ears to understand. How lucky was I to have someone come there only for me? The train station was still a reasonable distance from the city itself, standing on a hillside. The visitor either walks towards it, under the scorching hot sun of that August day, or has to wait for some transportation to the town.
The good man led me to his little Italian FIAT car, and then he welcomed me by saying that I had arrived in the land of peace.
And coincidentally or not, little time passed after these words were uttered as we approached a curve with an intermittent signal with luminous words saying “citá de la pace.” I do not call Assisi a city since it resembles more a village carefully cherished by those who inhabit it, a small nucleus of souls who esteem each piece of stone as if it were their own body.
And how well the Italians treat themselves, with such beauty in life, divine food, water that springs from every source, history that we breathe on every piece of the land we step on. Those souls feed themselves and take good care, with the blessings of the Gods, for being born in such stunning land.
I have to admit that there was a certain reluctance and a slight fear of Roberto’s kindness, but after a short conversation and letting my instincts warn me, I realized that I would be safe with him. He led me to one of the highest points of that hill blessed by the angels and promptly filled me with maps and small pamphlets illustrating history and stories, indicating the best routes I could take in the town. At the end of the afternoon, he would wait for me at the back gate of the city, a little way from San Francesco’s Cathedral.
When he left me for my lonely walk in the town, I was invaded by shorts and sandals, white hats, faded caps, and dark skins that gave me the immediate perception that I would be in the presence of speakers of the same language, though from another country. My intuition was evident because it was not long before a sweet “você” or “vixi” echoed in my ears — those are words coming from Brasil.
I just smiled. I would have spoken and started a conversation in any other phase of my life. I would have sat there also remembering my memories of when I shared a good life in their country. But me being there was a search for peace. And in my deep desires, I dreamt of staying there for months, maybe in a convent, to exorcise demons and auto-correct me. To be free of people, accents, and everything nefarious that had previously struck me in my tour guide life.
It was from that I tried to escape: society and everything superficial that it entails, intending to seek peace and, with luck, some people with kind hearts.
Innocently I thought that I would find few people there. As I entered through those curved paths carved between secular stone houses and steep churches that sometimes left little sunshine to reflect its shine on the streets, I thought that tourism still arrived slowly in Assisi. Still, down the first street on which I walked and met one of the city’s main squares, the innocence soon faded, and so I faced once again the selfies, the flashes, and all the futility which made my mind dull.
I sat down, suddenly tired of people who did not stop moving back and forward, and patiently I tried to abstract myself from their existence. I did so as I sat on some stones that unfortunately did not speak the language of the present humans, and I watched the buildings while taking advantage of the shadow created by them.
The stones were light brown, and the houses were arranged. Some balconies were well-adorned, with live orange geranium flowers hanging from the top, almost touching the floor. From there, to those whose sight was clearer, they would also see Roman columns and their white marbles, which had been carved by man and by time itself, and their details fading in contrast with the more recent heavenly pink marbles of beautiful churches, only awaiting the time to, also, gently fade away from their existence.
In front of me, around a fountain filled with water, ceaselessly flowing, children refreshing themselves happily, filling their hands with laughter that echoed throughout Assisi and spread happiness. August in Umbria is synonymous with intense, suffocating heat.
Envy, a gentle one, was what I felt when I saw the smoothness of those children and their acquired happiness in such simple ways. Quite possibly, all of us would be as happy as them, so easy to throw water to us all, run barefoot, wet our robes, and then let dry ourselves against our bodies. If we had not told ourselves that there is a time to stop being a child, adulthood would be more leisurely.
I focused on those laughs and the baby beside me rejoicing on his mother’s breast, a joyfully tired mother who leaned against me, trying to reach a slight shadow. I gave her my place, and I searched for the next street in peace. Flapping my imagination, I placed myself inside that map, a small leaf that showed me all the steps, only wishing everything would be that easy in real life.
But there everything was marked, and to my right, there it was, placed since the 13th century, the “Basilica di Santa Chiara.”
Who had been this woman? Chiara later called Saint. A woman, a charitable soul, similar to her countryman Francesco. What a fertile land that gave birth to such extraordinary people, beauty in body and beauty in soul!
A woman who voluntarily deprived herself of material comfort, to be dedicated to a life of chastity and to give help to the neediest. Madness for some, more substantial need and reason to live for more restless souls. Clara, born Chiara Offreduccio, faced men holding a hallowed piece of bread in their hands running this way from Assisi borders. She was sanctified. by her actions, perhaps.
A beggar sat on the stairs of the Church and received advice from a Franciscan, with very young-looking but long-bearded pretending otherwise. A simple backpack made him demonstrate the side of another normality on his back, perhaps the youth that was hidden by the use of the brown habit and the white rope hanging from his hip.
What words would they have exchanged? Would it still reign over there, the actual purity so atypical of these days that we live? And would those words give any consolation to the beggar? Or would he see this as the mere arrogance of a priest? There may lie the devotion to a humble life, perhaps, trying to speak the same language as those who they were trying so hard to help. Maybe.
Wandering on the streets of such a fascinating place is experiencing a piece of paradise. In the distance of my eyes, a landscape showed green fields where my eyes quickly lost their focus among Italian cedars disseminated through small peaks of land, and the typical Italian hay caught and curled scattered across the fields as if it had been purposely painted for a whole picture where harmony and aesthetic balance ruled.
Alleys, wider streets, curving streets that rise and fall, large churches, and tiny holy houses. Traces of an ancient civilization to Christianity in every detail lost among stones. Franciscan friars and nuns from all over the world pass by laughing, giving themselves away to the delights of an ice- cream that suddenly melts, falling into their habit and making them laugh, even more, an improbable but real scene. Other sisters immortalize their image in a digital photograph made by an Asian friar.
The day ended. The air changed. The torrid sun gave way to wind from several parts that seemed to frighten the skies, bringing clouds that were already black at a distance and that brought the night. I ran to the gate, and there began the first drops that did not overwhelm me. On the contrary, it refreshed me on that hot summer day, and my soul relaxed while I breathed the smell of rain when it touched a hot summer floor, smelling like wildflowers and earth. I glimpsed at the road, and my host arrived.
The day, thus, gave way to an unexpectedly early night. Higher than the city was, at what my eyes seemed to be, an ancient castle and old walls which would have defended God knows who. It did not matter either, not at the moment.
Guided by the car, we crossed roads while I listened to some romantic personal stories from my host. And who is the human who doesn’t have love stories to tell? Worse than to suffer for love is not to live it at all.
We left the car, and the rain thickened every minute, and there it was, the magnificent landscape from the top of the highest mountain, and at our feet, Assisi and Umbria as if we were owners of it all. However, as they beautifully say in Italian, the “fra tempo” the wind was already blowing with its lung power. The rain came joining it, combining as two unbeatable forces. We ran to the car, and we quickly descended the slope.
Could I take you to Perugia, what do you say?
Roberto asked me. But the small plan had to be postponed, perhaps for another time, because an apocalyptic sound came from the heavens without pity. Thunderstorms ripped through the sky as if all the gods invented in the history of humankind had gathered there to make fun of us all, bringing with them water-filled clouds that were soon crying all over us.
I had not seen it raining as hard as that evening. The roads gave way to rivers, and the steepest ones formed chains, dragging everything from above. Roberto stopped his car on a bit of hill trying to spare us from a tragedy. The water probably did not stop for more than an hour, beating all the time on the car’s plate, from above, from below, from the sides, so violently, cruel and nervous, shaking the little vehicle and reminding us of the mere ants we are, lost in any galaxy among so many thousands. Talking was difficult, and there in silence, we listened to the ruthless rain that ran without giving time to the earth to penetrate it.
The rain eventually stopped, and everything around us seemed like the typical armistice after any storm. And so Roberto drove to his little favorite Italian ristorante, passing on a road where the intermittent lights from the public lamps seemed to blink at us, giving us a narrow view of that dim road.
“Vengo sempre qui” said my host.
Two pizzas “senza carne per lei,” and Roberto laughed. “una vegetariana en la terra de la carne,” I smiled.
Beautiful and delicious arugula on top of melted mozzarella and plenty of vegetables, that’s what he kindly got for me. Roberto, the generous man, refused me to pay for one of the pizzas, even though I wanted to offer him dinner. We left, the rain ceased, and the clouds dissipating opened the sky and let the stars shine in the middle of a summer moonlight. The boxes heated my hands, and the smell that emanated from them made us impatient, waiting in a hurry for dinner time.
Roberto lived alone in an immaculately clean house. Here it is something so Italian, neatness, care, and perfection. It has to be this way, making perfection their aim. Or Michael Angelo would not have twisted his neck and blinded his sights while meticulously painting the ceiling of the blessed Sistine Chapel.
So neat it seemed like no one lived there. Nor was it far from true, Robert lived alone, a gentleman but with a sad look of those who live only from good memories of a distant past, forgetting to build new ones, so were the eyes that looked at me with kindness. At dinner, he told me that the only companies he had in his life were people he welcomed at home to stay overnight.
He told me of the friendships he still had with some guests and how others took advantage of a mattress and a ceiling to sleep without any interest in knowing who was hosting them.
“This isn’t living life,” said Roberto, a romantic like me. Poor people who don’t seem to notice the interest in this type of lodging, and to meet people with whom we can share stories.
We talked about music, and I tried to see the boy underneath the man when he told me he liked grunge in his youth, showing me the well-preserved CDs. He granted me even towels for a warm and quiet bath, and I quickly fell asleep, ready for another day of discovery.
He left me once again at the south door of the city, where he had picked me up the night before. The day slowly began. The morning was undisturbed, a bit chilly, the clouds felt like they were touching me, and the plants still dropped to the ground tiny drops of dew that so carefully ran to the end of the leaf, joining their particles of water in one, and with their weight starting a journey back to the wetland.
Everyone still slept, and the same square filled yesterday with humans was now an empty stage with only one spectator. I could afford the solitary melancholy to appreciate the detail of the white, tall, sovereign Roman columns. When I touched one of its pillars, I felt as if I was going back in time, returning to the humans who built them.
Several illusory images plagued my mind, trying to construct the Roman scenery of that place two thousand years before. What would life be like on that hill next to those same mountains? Who will have built them? I was scarcely impressed by the Romans. All I wanted to meet were the exact people who were part of such a fantastic place and to be able to speak to them! If only I could have that power!
That morning's haze enchanted even more Assisi, being only the reality recalled in the city by the soldiers carrying machine guns on their laps. Fear of terrorism was felt, shaking the journey and the dream. But the power of human abstraction is excellent, and everything was swept from my mind after eagerly entering the Basilica of San Francesco.
Being Portuguese, we are used to entering sacred temples and seeing gold everywhere. Still, they're only peace, a navy blue ceiling, several paintings painted in harmony throughout the Basilica, and how moved I felt by all that.
The time to go down to the grave came. Even if it was early in the morning, the space was packed near the tomb of San Francesco. American believers who had come here to do tourism or moved by their faith. A beautiful ceremony even for atheists with hearts. The whole mass, spoken in English, was crowded with beautiful words uttering kindness, which caused tears to most sensitive souls.
It was a challenging year, with no breaks from work, passing over the limit of exhaustion at all levels of life, work, love, friendships, family, everything seemed to run against me, and to be there in Italy, and particularly in Assisi was what some would say a break from life. However, I felt more alive than ever in that beautiful pause.
The tomb of San Francesco was behind the priest, a vast central rock where people could make a circular pilgrimage.
As he left the cathedral, the morning was still awaking, among the rising sun, trying to penetrate his sunbeams into the mist that hummed the stones of each street. The Cathedral looked even more beautiful in those hours, empty and sober among the bells that played announcing the new hour and echoing all over Assisi.
I set off on my way to the highest point I could visit, crossing paths perhaps less traveled, among olive trees and beaten earth, up the hillside by a narrow curvilinear path. My heart was pleased, and my face was smiling, and glimpsing among the olive trees, images of Assisi appeared in my eyes as if I was on a black and white, old film.
I reached the top, where I stood the day before with Roberto, and my luck continued with me because easily and without bargaining, the receptionist at the castle gave me a discount. Ancient walls, ancient castles, strange wall fabrications unknown till there to me. On my way out, the not-so-innocent man gave me an envelope filled with postcards from Assisi, and when I reached home, it was a small post-it with his e-mail and an attempt to say how beautiful I was.
Two days of beautiful reclusion. Roberto, how kind, a solitary man who owned a shop in Umbria, Assisi. He took me to the same train station, I bought the ticket so I could return home, initiating another 7 hours trip on old trains, and once there, I waved him goodbye. There it was, a small piece of jewelry that he kindly gave to me, as a memory of my two days with him, and vice versa, two days where he killed loneliness, and I created a memory for life
Hello, I’m Araci, a female writer from Portugal navigating her thirties. If you have enjoyed this article, maybe you would like to buy me a coffee here https://ko-fi.com/joanaaraci
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