Many parts of this weekend reminded me that there's hope yet for the Italian winter, that grey mornings and early nightfall need not bring my spirits down.
One was Friday night, when a fellow American friend and I went out to a nearby cafe for a post-dinner drink and dessert in honor of her 24th birthday. She ordered a nine euro cocktail and I, a huge bowl of gelato, over both of which she told me about an unfortunate encounter with a middle-aged lawyer whose office she had visited that afternoon on a classmate's tip that this man was looking for English lessons. It had started out smoothly, he appeared grandfatherly and professional, until halfway through their conversation he calmly informed her that it was a very particular kind of English he wanted to learn. You can imagine. She had been flabbergasted, she told me, and when she played dumb he added, simply, that he takes frequent "business trips" to Bangkok, and needs to work on his English so he "knows what to order." The cafe waiter probably thought she and I were crazy because we were laughing so hard. I mused that the lawyer might pay an indecent amount of money for those indecent English lessons, why not give it a go? But I think we both knew that she wouldn't go back. There might be... ahem... other expectations, in which case neither of us would want her to get involved. Yikes. Those are the adventures of another American girl in Turin.
Saturday morning I slept in late (9,00! a luxury for me, for I usually wake up at 7,35) and read my latest novel, "Loving Frank," on the sunny balcony with a big mug of tea and a little bowl of biscuits. The boys abandoned their cereal bowls of chocolatey milk at the table to watch morning cartoons in the living room, while their parents sat at the kitchen table in their pajamas with open datebooks to coordinate schedules around the upcoming week's interior remodeling. I soaked up the sunshine like a lizard and fell into early 20th century Boulder, Colorado, through the eyes of Frank Lloyd Wright's mistress, Mamah. I dinked around the house for awhile, tidied my room and checked my email, then took off for a one-hour run as the weather permitted. Exhausted my legs, came home to shower, read some more, then took the bus across town to pass the afternoon playing silly guitar and harmonica with my Italian guy who knew the ropes for the evening's event: La Notte Bianca, the White Night, which happens but once a year in Torino. Galleries, museums, and shopkeepers open their doors to the public until midnight or later, offering linened tables of Dixie cups of wine and various finger foods to the hundreds of locals and visitors out for the sparkling night of art. We met up with some friends and saw a photography exhibit, interior design ideas, a brief dance performance, heard music, a light show, film clips, paintings, one-of-a-kind garments. There was an installation called "ONEROOMHOTEL" realised by an Asian-American man who created a sort of hideaway hotel room in an empty room, a series of doors flush with the floor that opened vertically to reveal a bed, a television, a bathroom, and other familiar hotel things, all nestled under the floorboards. Another installation involved a clothesline of dirty underwear hung outside of a gallery with pens scattered among them and a simple written command: "Write something! Air your dirty laundry!" Huge candy-pink swirls on the sidewalk were a comment on the civil sanitary company's failure to clean up dog poop in a timely manner. (see photos) In every street we heard music, laughter, glasses clinking. It was awesome.
Sunday was another uncharacteristically sunny November day, which I greeted again at 09,00 with a cup of tea and my book before making my bed, airing my IKEA rug on the clothesline, and debating over what to wear to lunch in the countryside an hour's drive out of the city.
There I met a ton of adorable old Italian people, all hovering comfortably around 60, as well as a handful of nearby farmers and a golden retriever named Shiva in whose honor we had the lunch. Note the photograph of the adorable old woman and the birthday cake. We had to help Shiva blow out the candles. I drank at least five different kinds of alcohol (something white and sparkling, two red wines from the very vineyard I gazed upon while I ate, a dessert wine with coffee, something strong poured over persimmons, and limoncello at the very end), ate just shy of too much food, climbed a huge unstable ladder to cut two crates of cacchi - I THINK they're persimmons - from a bug infested tree, and ended up reading about our new president in the local Italian newspaper in front of a cosy fire. Delicate, springtimey flowers are painted all over
the ceiling of their den. It was a long afternoon of listening, for I still have a hard time chiming into Italian conversations about farming and other unfamiliar topics, but it was good to be out of the city. I've found that when I'm in the countryside I can see myself staying in Italy for an indefinite amount of time; it is when I'm living in and moving about another city that isn't my own (or Paris... go figure...) that I feel the Bay Area calling me back. Does that make sense? As though I could be doing this very thing in my own hometown, close to my family, whereas when I pace along rows of shrunken grapevines and squint to distinguish church from home on the hazy distant hills I feel so very far away from what is familiar that I almost don't miss it.I'll try to rephrase later. For now, that makes the most sense. I've been jokingly invited to come work on their farm next summer, though as they have no animals I can't imagine what I'd do-- probably a lot of walking, drawing, awkward broken Italian conversation, and wine. Not bad.
There are also photos from TUESDAY NIGHT, NOVEMBER 4TH, when I stayed up all night to watch DemocracyNow's livestreamed coverage of the polls' closings, which aired from 02,00 - 07,00 in Torino. Italy is still in ecstasy over our president elect, as am I, though I fear for him, too, immensely. And some artsy shots from La Notte Bianca. Enjoy!
