Once Upon a Time in Tuscany

There was a young woman and her heart traveling together

Somewhere in Tuscany, there is a lake, but not just any lake, not the Como in the north, invaded by Japanese and Chinese who are crazy enough to photograph even their footprints on the ground. No, here lies a lake with water where the sky is reflected. A lake where the houses right beside it belong to people who make a life there. I could see it even at a distance as the train passed by. Almost like an identical picture that I am aware only exists in our imagination. Still, let’s pretend the beauty is there. The kids playing around, a teenage girl resting on the ground in her bikini, the father cleaning his car… It is a vast lake surrounded by trees where the train passes, tearing through the bush and the deafening silence of those parts.

How pleasant it is to go there by train, to see the sun reflecting its light on the water, the birds flying in pure freedom, the warm wind coming in through the window of a carriage without air conditioning in the middle of July. And how much more pleasant it is to make precisely that trip, by train. One may find this unpleasant, the Italian sun entering through those windows wide open, and the hot air, lifting old curtains that I wonder what was there for… However, for me, memories are not made of perfection.

We don’t remember the moment when we perfectly cleaned a plate, but maybe we remember better when we cracked a small part and kept the damn plate, with a crack in the middle, for years. We remember the funny things, the messes we experienced, the laughter caused by a ridiculous situation, or that extra glass of wine we swore we wouldn’t drink.

I didn’t see any roads with stressed cars and horrible horns, and it seems to be far removed from all that landscape. As if not only I was traveling in space, but I was daring to be traveling as well in time, to a period where time ran slower. There was just that endless water, that warm sun beating down on my face.

How good it is to travel by train, admire the landscape without worrying about driving a machine, have the tar and the smells of other cars, and all the honking horns, stress, and that clock-ticking to get home. But, above all, how pleasant it is to talk endlessly. To meet people and talk. Talk about everything and about nothing, and when you realize it, you feel most satisfied when you talk about nothing because you talked about it all.

One day I got lost on one of these trips. I wasn’t sure if the electric locomotive headed for beautiful Florence would make a stop so I can then get to Arezzo, which was my destination. I sat down in front of an old lady. Thin face, small eyes, gray hair but pinched. The wrinkles that strangely embellished her were hidden by a necklace of pearls. For me, that was the Italian in her, perhaps only my eyes. She had an attitude both of a little girl and a wise and experienced lady.

She calmed me after I asked her if the train was going to my intended destination, “stai tranquila, stai tranquila. Una volta sceso a Firenze, poi fai il cambio ad Arezzo.” she said. I could relax. After all, I was not lost. In fact, I could say that I had never felt so found with myself as I did at that moment.

It had been my second time living in Italy, working as an au pair, which now, in my thirties, seems as ridiculously unbelievable as unbelievably the best thing I have ever done in my entire life. And I would dare to say that I regret now having past 10 years just doing that — because if I was not getting any richer in anything, I would do, at least I would now be richer in memories.

She — pardon me, my memory does not remember her name — lived in the center of Firenze, where the train was heading. However, the conversation would unfold about another city.

I told her, in my rusty Italian “Per me, la città più bella d’Italia è Venezia.” I had reached her heart with the sentence. She clamored her arms to the sky and in a typical Italian tone — typical only fur us the outsiders — , gesticulating with emotion, said “Venezia? Non c’è niente come Venezia! Venezia è unica, ma l’hanno distrutta”.

The city had been destroyed. Ruined because every native, raised and born in that island created by the wisest of men, had to flee and move elsewhere. Like those, also she left it. Still, with a sparkle in her eyes, she told me that she had lived the best years of her life there. In Venezia, she got married, she saw her two daughters being born, she lived her youth when you still could walk three minutes from your house and find a bakery and buy fresh bread.

“Adesso? Ora tutto è chiuso, ci sono solo negozi per turisti. “ she uttered in a melancholy, hopeless voice while her eyes, almost on the verge of dropping a tear, looked to the lake as it now started to be behind us and the train hurried to Firenze.

It was only a short conversation, then minutes if much. However, it was enough to talk about emotions, Venice, her marriage, and her experience as a mother.

“Io scendo qui ora, ma tu scendi alla prossima fermata.” she told me, warning me that my stop would be next. And as fast our conversation began, as fast it ended, with her leaving the train, waving me goodbye already from below. I got out in Firenze, with my feet feeling the heat from the asphalt .

There was no time to explore Florence, I would have to take a rain check, come another time. I hardly waited for the connecting train to Arezzo, and as I hop on I had realized my trip had barely begun. Next destination: Arezzo.

. Life Was Beautiful in Arezzo — Train Ride Part 2

The same train. The same heat. The same trip. An Italian summer at its peak. It was challenging to stay awake, especially after a big lunch and the tiredness that came along. There I was, heading for Arezzo. For those who don’t know, the stage for one of the most beautiful films ever made La vita é Bella ( Life is Beautiful).

And life was wonderful during those lonely times. However, make no mistake. I would be a few hours away from meeting some great people, but my lone wolf label would remain within me.

Here I finally arrived in Arezzo. There I was. Smelling the Italian flavors that floated through the air. Listening to strangers who passed by me as if I were invisible. I didn’t care either, so much the better, wandering aimlessly, looking at the city as if I were floating in it. Going crazy whenever a poster appeared in a corner, reminding the walker about Benigni’s masterpiece.

I walked until dark. I had ordered a sleepover from a couch surfer, but it was my first time, and I was feeling a little nervous. I would have to overcome it. The far worse option would be to sleep outdoors, under the stars, in an ancient coliseum that was almost worn away by time. I gathered my courage. There I went searching one more time for the unknown.

Sitting outside an old church was my host and two other girls. Only one would remain in my memory, Lisa Parini. She was Roman but lived in the red city, Bologna. She was 38 years old and still looking for a direction in life and to figure out what she wanted to do “when she grew up,” hence my sudden interest in her. Matteo, our host, guides us towards his house.

Later we collected food and beverages for dinner. The day soon turned into night. However, the summer heat remained, and the moon lit up the balcony where we set the table. There were voices around the house, speaking Italian, which almost sounded like singing.

What a scenario! A big table, friendly strangers with one single purpose of being happy. Together served with a typical and classic pasta with vegetables and pine nuts; a spectacular Chianti wine; a Tuscan summer evening, a multi-cultural veranda! Wine! Lots of wine and food. You can’t ask much more from life when you have the pleasure to live moments like this.

And lo and behold, it was already past midnight when something unexpected happened. A man in his mid-forties. Strong, chubby, wearing an orange shirt that completed the rainbow colors of that table. There he was, coming down from his balcony to ours, holding on to a mountain climber’s rope while carrying on his waist something unusual: two bottles of liquor, one of grappa (brandy), the other homemade from plums.

He then jumped to our balcony. Asking for Matteo. Lisa and I staring at each other, soon to be laughing our asses off. He sat. Made some mixtures, passing the glass to everyone to see if the combination was good — who the hell cares about germs when there is happiness?

He laughed, always saying that something was missing from the mixture “ Forse ha bisogno di un po’ più di alcol.” [Maybe it needs a little more alcohol).

He remixed it, passed it back and forth, and there was always someone saying it was better to add something else. In the end, nobody knew what we were talking about, such was the amount of alcohol that was already floating in our conversations.

Lisa was still laughing. She laughed and laughed throughout the next day. Not because of the mixture, although it obviously helped, but because of that man. That funny man who had come down from the balcony on the top floor of the house, holding a rope with two bottles on his waist, calling for the host of the house, “dove sta matteo?”. And she and I not having a single clue who the hell that man was.

The following day, we wandered to find a good Italian coffee. It was a cool morning for a summer day. The benches where Lisa and I sat were wet. In that garden near the same church where Benigni laid the blessed red carpet for his wife. That night of wonderful rain that provided one of the most beautiful and memorable cinematic moments in history! May God bless Italy and that rain! As I stared at those stairs, there they were again, coming downstairs, under the rain and that made-up umbrella, walking towards me without noticing me there.

We wandered aimlessly around Arezzo, visited an ancient wall recently opened to the public, and talked about travel, here and there, there and here.

I don’t remember my way back. I closed my eyes from tiredness while the train, although without air conditioning, packed me around a place that, for some months, I called home.