Reymond Page's Blog - Posts Tagged "italy"
Excerpt from A Change of View
Beginning on page 42:
MONDAY, AUGUST 27, 2007
Figs and Fishes
At what point do you let your child decide he has had enough cantaloupe for breakfast, especially when you want to be sure everyone’s getting enough fruits and vegetables after all those ham sandwiches? Apparently, one piece earlier than I did.
The drive to Matera was a long and winding one. You know the kind, where the road turns sharply to the left and right, uphill and right back down before your stomach has time to realize it’s supposed to be going down with the rest of your body. Usually that sort of thing is kind of fun, but today we got what marketing people might call a “value added bonus” along that scenic drive.
So, that cantaloupe.
Matthew started making some noise about not feeling well, but managed to keep things under control for about fifteen minutes. Eventually though, the roads wore him down, and that cantaloupe needed release.
As soon as Matthew lurched forward, Jonas looked like he was trying to escape a house on fire, using all four limbs to propel himself out of the car, despite the fact that the car was still moving. All I could say was, Yup, pull over. As soon as possible please. And I reached back and put my hand under Matthew’s mouth. I have no idea why or what I hoped to accomplish. As soon as Matthew was done, he took a deep breath, one of those chest-expanding breaths that makes you purse your lips and exhale like Dizzy Gillespie blowing on his trumpet. That feels better, he said.
We (Yes! Laura!) pulled into what looked like a cross between a cafe and a repair shop, with two old fellas sitting on lawn chairs out front. Drinking beer. It was 9:30 in the morning. Laura helped Matthew get cleaned up while I stood with my (clean) hand on my chin, pondering what to do next as I looked at the floor of the car. The men rested their beers on their laps, and leaned forward slightly, curious as to what we were up to.
I figured the first thing I needed to do was deal with the sheer volume, pulsating on the floor where there should have been a rubber mat. I knelt down, and used my hand and forearm like a squeegee, pulling a surprisingly large quantity of breakfast over the lip and out the door, which landed on the ground with an impressive splat. At that point, the beer drinkers pretended to be looking nonchalantly in the other direction.
I cleaned my arm off with the remains of a kleenex, and ran across the street to the grocery store to get cleaning supplies. We did our best to clean out the car, and used a half-dozen air fresheners to deal with what remained.
Back in the car and on the road again, Jonas eyed Matthew like a hawk, wary of any suspicious movements or sounds. But with the foul cantaloupe eradicated, Matthew was happy as could be. I told him that when he is a teenager, any time he is annoyed with me, he must remember this precise moment, when he was throwing up in the rental car in Italy, and I was holding out my hand in a way that only a father could at a time like that.
That is love, Laura told him.
To be honest, Matera was a bit anti-climactic after our morning adventure (not true, but almost...?). Standing at a railing with a view over most of the city, a man in his mid-fifties started chatting with us about what to see, what path to take. Okay, thanks, I said, and we started off. “Okay, I will take you,” he said. Uh, how much? “Is free. I want to be guide, but need to pass my English test first, then will be allowed. You correct my English when I make mistake, and you not pay.” Really? “Yes.” Franco told us that if the police show up, we must say that we got lost, and he is helping us find our way. No problem.
Franco took us through homes and restaurants, stables and churches, some with remarkable frescoes. Many have built-up facades, but inside are carved deeply into the soft rock, making for deceptively large interior spaces. Franco was born here, and he showed us the cave home he lived in, until he was four years old. At that point, in the late forties, the rest of Italy discovered Matera’s desperate level of poverty, and the government conceived a plan to relocate everyone to new housing projects. It remained a ghost town for some years, before people began to re-appreciate its ancient, simple beauty. It is becoming one of the destination points for tourists in south Italy, and it wasn’t hard to see why. The contrast with the glitz of the remains of Rome’s majestic era, or the splendour of Florence’s Renaissance revival, is stark. It was immediately apparent that those things just did not happen here, as though Matera hid in her own caves and let history pass her by.
Franco pointed out a fig tree beyond a fence. “Do you like figs?” Uh, can’t really say, we’ve never tried one. His face registered a bit of shock, and he jumped the fence, and brought us two kinds, green and purple. “Do you like them?” Just like a Fig Newton, I thought to myself, knowing before I opened my mouth that that’s one of those things you shouldn’t say out loud lest ye be thought a fool. Yes, they are very good, we all say. He smiles broadly and fills his shirt with several dozen figs. I help him back over the fence, and he pulls out my shirt and dumps all the figs in. Well, they’re not that good. For the rest of the tour, Jonas and I are dropping figs every chance we get - behind a wall, over a fence, down the valley, whenever Franco turned to point something out, we would jettison a few more. When he turned back, we puffed out our cheeks and held half a fig, smiled and nodded our heads. We would have had another incident on the way home had we tried to finish them all.
POSTED BY REY AT 10:50 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 27, 2007
Figs and Fishes
At what point do you let your child decide he has had enough cantaloupe for breakfast, especially when you want to be sure everyone’s getting enough fruits and vegetables after all those ham sandwiches? Apparently, one piece earlier than I did.
The drive to Matera was a long and winding one. You know the kind, where the road turns sharply to the left and right, uphill and right back down before your stomach has time to realize it’s supposed to be going down with the rest of your body. Usually that sort of thing is kind of fun, but today we got what marketing people might call a “value added bonus” along that scenic drive.
So, that cantaloupe.
Matthew started making some noise about not feeling well, but managed to keep things under control for about fifteen minutes. Eventually though, the roads wore him down, and that cantaloupe needed release.
As soon as Matthew lurched forward, Jonas looked like he was trying to escape a house on fire, using all four limbs to propel himself out of the car, despite the fact that the car was still moving. All I could say was, Yup, pull over. As soon as possible please. And I reached back and put my hand under Matthew’s mouth. I have no idea why or what I hoped to accomplish. As soon as Matthew was done, he took a deep breath, one of those chest-expanding breaths that makes you purse your lips and exhale like Dizzy Gillespie blowing on his trumpet. That feels better, he said.
We (Yes! Laura!) pulled into what looked like a cross between a cafe and a repair shop, with two old fellas sitting on lawn chairs out front. Drinking beer. It was 9:30 in the morning. Laura helped Matthew get cleaned up while I stood with my (clean) hand on my chin, pondering what to do next as I looked at the floor of the car. The men rested their beers on their laps, and leaned forward slightly, curious as to what we were up to.
I figured the first thing I needed to do was deal with the sheer volume, pulsating on the floor where there should have been a rubber mat. I knelt down, and used my hand and forearm like a squeegee, pulling a surprisingly large quantity of breakfast over the lip and out the door, which landed on the ground with an impressive splat. At that point, the beer drinkers pretended to be looking nonchalantly in the other direction.
I cleaned my arm off with the remains of a kleenex, and ran across the street to the grocery store to get cleaning supplies. We did our best to clean out the car, and used a half-dozen air fresheners to deal with what remained.
Back in the car and on the road again, Jonas eyed Matthew like a hawk, wary of any suspicious movements or sounds. But with the foul cantaloupe eradicated, Matthew was happy as could be. I told him that when he is a teenager, any time he is annoyed with me, he must remember this precise moment, when he was throwing up in the rental car in Italy, and I was holding out my hand in a way that only a father could at a time like that.
That is love, Laura told him.
To be honest, Matera was a bit anti-climactic after our morning adventure (not true, but almost...?). Standing at a railing with a view over most of the city, a man in his mid-fifties started chatting with us about what to see, what path to take. Okay, thanks, I said, and we started off. “Okay, I will take you,” he said. Uh, how much? “Is free. I want to be guide, but need to pass my English test first, then will be allowed. You correct my English when I make mistake, and you not pay.” Really? “Yes.” Franco told us that if the police show up, we must say that we got lost, and he is helping us find our way. No problem.
Franco took us through homes and restaurants, stables and churches, some with remarkable frescoes. Many have built-up facades, but inside are carved deeply into the soft rock, making for deceptively large interior spaces. Franco was born here, and he showed us the cave home he lived in, until he was four years old. At that point, in the late forties, the rest of Italy discovered Matera’s desperate level of poverty, and the government conceived a plan to relocate everyone to new housing projects. It remained a ghost town for some years, before people began to re-appreciate its ancient, simple beauty. It is becoming one of the destination points for tourists in south Italy, and it wasn’t hard to see why. The contrast with the glitz of the remains of Rome’s majestic era, or the splendour of Florence’s Renaissance revival, is stark. It was immediately apparent that those things just did not happen here, as though Matera hid in her own caves and let history pass her by.
Franco pointed out a fig tree beyond a fence. “Do you like figs?” Uh, can’t really say, we’ve never tried one. His face registered a bit of shock, and he jumped the fence, and brought us two kinds, green and purple. “Do you like them?” Just like a Fig Newton, I thought to myself, knowing before I opened my mouth that that’s one of those things you shouldn’t say out loud lest ye be thought a fool. Yes, they are very good, we all say. He smiles broadly and fills his shirt with several dozen figs. I help him back over the fence, and he pulls out my shirt and dumps all the figs in. Well, they’re not that good. For the rest of the tour, Jonas and I are dropping figs every chance we get - behind a wall, over a fence, down the valley, whenever Franco turned to point something out, we would jettison a few more. When he turned back, we puffed out our cheeks and held half a fig, smiled and nodded our heads. We would have had another incident on the way home had we tried to finish them all.
POSTED BY REY AT 10:50 PM
