Crafts

There is an invasion afoot in Umbria, there’s no denying it. And it ain’t a stealth invasion, either. It’s a full-on, in-your-face, landscape-be-damned advance of the Big Box Stores.

I wish I could say that I have taken on a nom de guerre, gone underground, and organized a grassroots uprising against this disheartening trend which has turned much of the vista along Umbria’s main artery highway 75 into something akin to the blight in the far western suburbs of Chicago, but the fact of the matter is that I have found myself a customer more often than I would like to admit. Call it the convenience, the selection, the heavy weight of this current economic insecurity, but sometimes it’s hard to ignore the siren song of the one-stop-discount-shop, even though you know in your heart of hearts that you are just hammering one more nail in the coffin of a local economy which has survived for centuries—if not millenia—on the small and medium-sized family business.

I was pleased that the Roundtable topic chosen for this month was “crafts”, so I could talk up some of the amazing artisan wares—none of which are to be found in sprawling, low-overhead superstores–which come out of this region and bring my moral credit bottom line back into the black.

Food

If you can only stuff one thing in your suitcase to bring back from a trip to Umbria, it’s gotta be something to eat. Unfortunately, given the array of things that—tragically–can’t be taken overseas (I have managed to smuggle a salame or two over the border, but that was in the heady pre-9/11 days), you will have to strike the amazing local charcuterie, cheese, and produce from your list. There does remain, however, the incredible olive oil (Umbria produces some of the highest quality and most sought after oils on the market) and wine, truffles, honey, and heirloom legumes. Nothing brings back fond memories of your trip months later than being able to recreate some of the same dishes that were such an epiphany when you first ate them here.

Budget buy: Pick up some Perugina Baci chocolates at a local grocery store. A fun, easy gift for folks back home.

Ceramics

Ceramics are everywhere in Umbria, but the vast majority of them all come from the same town: Deruta. The name has become synonymous with high-quality hand-painted majolica over the past roughly seven centuries of artisan production, and if you’re looking for cheap factory-spat tchotchkes you will be sorely disappointed. The heartfelt ceramic tradition is still very much alive in the dozens of workshops large and small that line the highway and the winding roads up to the top of the hilltown itself and you can find anything from majolica tops for table seating twelve or contemporary ceramic sculpture running in the thousands of euros, to tiny painted beads made into unique earrings or pendants. Gubbio has its own unique history of ceramic production, the apex of which was the famed lusterware of Mastro Giorgio in the 1500s, and you can still find a flourishing tradition of majolica workshops in the center of town.

Tight fit: If you need to pick up something for your neighbor who has been watering your plants while you’re away, but are down to your last ounce of baggage weight, slip in a painted ceramic wine cork (or two). The fit perfectly in the toes of packed shoes.

Textiles

Cloth
I have waxed poetic about Umbria’s traditional damask and jacquard hand-loomed at the Brozzetti workshop in Perugia repeatedly, so I won’t bore you with it again. Or, on second thought…hands down one of my favorite places to visit in Umbria, both for the dramatic workshop (housed in a 13th century church in the center of Perugia) and for the breathtaking cloth Marta and her assistants are still weaving by hand today. Ok, I’m done. If you can’t make it to Brozzetti, excellent quality cloth is also to be had in specialty boutiques across Umbria, principally in Montefalco and Spello.

Lace
In a strange historic quirk, a bit of Ireland lives on Isola Maggiore (the largest of Lake Trasimeno’s islands) in Pizzo di Irlanda—Irish lace. At the beginning of the 1900s a local noblewoman asked a few Irish maids in her service to teach their lace-making craft to local women, and generations later you can still find these delicate crocheted pieces in shops on the island and in towns around the lake shore. One of the towns near the Lake, Panicale, has its own rich tradition of embroidered tulle –known as Ars Panicalensis—which has been producing intricate flower, medallion, bird of paradise, and baroque scroll patterns for convents and bridal veils for over a century.

Punto Francescano
I love to walk the backstreets in Assisi, where sooner or later you inevitably come across a Signora sitting in the afternoon shade busy stitching a motif of griffins, birds, or stylized flora on a piece of rough, unbleached linen in bright blue, brick red, or soft brown silk. Ubiquitous in the souvenir shops around town, this traditional embroidery—a mix of cross and Holbein stitches—was first produced from around the 1200s through the 1500s, when it seems to have become a lost art. Revived again by local women artisans in the 1800s, there is nary a home in the entire greater Assisi area which does not boast at least one hand-embroidered runner. I have two.

Hard core: If you are passionate about textile history, there are a number of small but excellent museums in Umbria, including Tela Umbra in Città di Castello, the Museo del Tulle in Panicale, and the textile collection in Palazzo Sorbello in Perugia.

Glass

If you think that only Venice does glass—well, you may be right. That said, in the late 13th century glass artisans migrated from the famed Venetian glass-making island of Murano to Piegaro in Umbria and continued making exquisite pieces in their new outpost. Piegaro is now home to one of Europe’s largest industrial glass factories, but more compellingly a glass museum located in the restored historic glass factory. For a look into a glass museum that continues to actively produce, stop in the fabulous Studio Moretti Caselli, a family atelier which has been producing hand-painted stained glass windows for cathedrals and monuments world-wide since its founding in 1860.  Now in the fifth generation, the studio is still an active workshop and offers guided visits and a small gift-shop (just in case you don’t have room in your luggage for an entire window).

Really cool: Ok, if you want to know how to be the absolutely positively hippest cat in town, get yourself a pair of bespoke eyeglass frames from Ozona in Perugia. It doesn’t get any craftier than this.

Curious to hear what Alexandra, Gloria, Melanie, and Jessica had to say about this month’s topic? Check out their blog posts, and leave your comments.

• ArtTrav – Stefano Giusti, Modern Luthier
• At Home in Tuscany – Wood, leather and flowers
• Italofile – Marble Run: Shopping for Traditional Marbled Products in Italy
• WhyGo Italy – The Guide to Crafts in Italy

Gifts

I’m a pretty pragmatic person (with, apparently, a knack for alliteration). For years people—friends with whom I corresponded, initially, and then folks I got to know over at Slow Travel where I first began publishing pieces online—would say, “You’re such an entertaining storyteller. You really should try your hand at writing.” And I would pooh-pooh them, because I had a business to run and sons to raise and the whole creative writing thing seemed frivolous and slightly self-indulgent.

Then, almost two years ago now, my webmaster super-hero guy Marcel (who, as a side note, is the husband of fellow Roundtable blogger Gloria…Italy is a small country) said, “Listen, you should really put a blog on your website. It will help traffic.” Oh. Well, then. I mean, if it’s for business….

Thus began an adventure which has, in many respects, changed my life. Aside from the wholly frivolous and self-indulgent pleasure in putting words down on paper, especially words that make me cackle to myself in front of my computer, blogging has been a conduit to forming an amazing array of new friendships, professional contacts, and kindred spirits here in Italy and beyond. When I think of how much my personal and professional lives have expanded past the borders of this tiny region of Umbria to encompass Italophiles from across the Bel Paese–and the world over–I must acknowledge that this crazy new-fangled blogging thang has been, oddly, one of the biggest gifts I have ever received.

Case in point: the amazing posts submitted over the past few weeks as part of this month’s open call to bloggers who were willing to jot down their thoughts on December’s theme of “gifts” with an Italy angle. I spent a fabulous evening reading through them all and was at turns amused and moved. It was almost impossible to whittle it down to my five favorites (This is why I could never judge X Factor. Just in case I’ve been short-listed by their casting department.), but whittle I did and here are my five favorites (in, by the way, no particular order):

Once More, With Feeling

Valerie from 2 Baci in a Pinon Tree traces the path of integration into her village’s life and soul by way of gifts given and received. It’s a common theme among expat bloggers in Italy (touched on by Sicily Scene ,  Bellavventura, and An Italophile this month, as well), but Valerie’s take went right to my heart and reminded me again what a gift friendship and acceptance can be when you are a stranger in a strange land.

Taking the Words Out of My Mouth

Huh. Just when you think you know–at least by name–all the bloggers in Italy, here comes out of left field an excellent blog written by a Swiss woman now living in Tuscany. (Oh. Maybe that’s why I’ve never run across her before. I don’t do Tuscany.) Barbs aside, her post about the light and dark sides of living here absolutely spoke to me (I had to laugh about her experience of sudden popularity once she was living in Italy and had an available guest room. Yep. Been there.), as did her discovery of how sometimes it takes a move abroad for us to appreciate our homeland. For a wonderful flip-side to that story, take a look at Alessandra’s charming story of her mad escape from Umbria, which led to her ultimate love affair with it.

What’s Really Important

In 1997, Umbria was struck by a traumatic earthquake. I didn’t lose anything, but many, many people saw their lives literally reduced to rubble in a matter of seconds. That has been a lesson for me many times in the years since, and Kate’s tear-jerker of a post at Little Paradiso underlined once again of how fleeting life can be, and how easy it is to forget what is really important. I dare you to read her post without getting misty-eyed. Go ahead, try. And then bust out your credit card and send a couple of bucks to those folks down there during this holiday season.

Wait, what?

I love crazy-ass shit like No Onions Extra Pickles’ What to Get the Italian Futuris Who Has Everything.  I mean, it’s pure, unadulterated, highbrow silliness. And that’s just fine with me. This blogger is whip-smart, sarcastic as the dickens, and apparently knows her way around Italy. Possibly my favorite submission. In fact, I think I’m going to go read it once more, just for the fun of it.

One Word.

Cookies. Enough said.

There were a couple of posts that deserve a quick mention, as well. I loved the Puglia gift basket, and the great shot of heirloom produce from Le Marche. Supporting local artisans is one of my things, so I was thrilled to read about some wonderful workshops in Florence from Cross Pollinate. Oh, and of course Life…Italian Style. Because she tweeted it at 11:59. And that’s the kind of pluck I admire.

Curious to hear what Alexandra, Gloria, Melanie, and Jessica had to say about this month’s topic? Check out their blog posts, and leave your comments.

• ArtTrav – Top 5 Christmas gift ideas from Renaissance Florence
• At Home in Tuscany – The Gifts of Life
• Italofile – Give the Gift of Italian Culture
• WhyGo Italy – 8 of My Favorite Italy Gifts

Many of you know that, since May of 2011, five of us have been writing a monthly post on a given topic and we call it the Italy Blogging Roundtable. Each month we decide the topic in advance and the only rule is that it has to be connected to Italy; the posts are posted on the same day and cross-linked so that readers can enjoy our diverse experiences. You can see posts by participating writers here:  Alexandra from Arttrav, Gloria from At Home in Italy, Jessica from WhyGo Italy, Melanie from Italofile, and me.

Normally we don’t tell anyone the topic in advance, but our post for December 14th is an exception. Why? Because we want you to participate. The topic is “gifts” (or “presents”). It’s inspired by the holiday season, but does not have to be limited to “Christmas gifts”. For this month, we’re inviting bloggers to expand upon the topic of “gifts”–somehow connected to Italy–on their blogs.

Here is how to participate:

• From December 1st to the 13th, post on your blog about “gifts” (and Italy).
• Include in your post a reference to the fact that this is part of the Italy Blogging Roundtable’s invitation to post on this topic.
• Include, at the end of your post, links to the Roundtable blogs: Arttrav, At Home in Tuscany, WhyGo Italy, Italofile, and Brigolante.
• Let us know by tweeting it with the hashtag #Italyroundtable. If by chance you don’t use Twitter, email it to one of us (my email is info@brigolante.com). We’ll read them all, and retweet some, too!
• On December 14, 2011 we’ll post on the same topic and include links to our favorite posts by the larger community. We’re aiming to link to five posts submitted by others, but that depends on how many people participate!

Comfort Food

If you’re very lucky, at least once during your years here on this earth, your life will fall apart.

If you are truly fortunate, you will wake up one day and find you no longer recognize yourself. And in that instant of existential prosopagnosia, everything around you will shift—infinitesimally, yet just enough to somehow strain the molecular structure of your universe until it disintegrates into a shower of glittering, lethal shards. Your universe will land in a million fragments at your feet and the more you panic and struggle to gather them up and fit them back together into the shape of the universe you once thought was eternal, the more you are left cut and bleeding until you finally realize that the only way to save yourself is to walk away forever.

And this moment–the moment that you walk away, that you close your eyes and jump, that you let go of one trapeze, trusting that you will manage to grasp the next–is both the most terrifying and the most empowering moment you will ever live. If you’re very lucky.

I am living this moment. In my inconsequential reality, my universe has shattered. I have taken a giant step off the path, and this shift in my perspective has obscured the landmarks I once used to as guides and brought into view a completely different set of reference points. It has been a period of one of the steepest learning curves of my life, of reflection and revolution, of destruction and creation, of waging battle and making peace. The dust is settling. I am doing a bit of emotional triage. I am evening out my shifted ballast. I am becoming the person I want to be.

I am eating a lot of mashed potatoes.

Yes, because there have been many lessons learned during this time of excruciating, exhilarating change. I’ve learned that if someone falls into your lap for no apparent reason, go with it. Because, more often than not, there’s a reason. I’ve learned that though you’ve pooh-poohed the notion of finding wisdom from virtual strangers online, sometimes that’s exactly where you will find the wisdom you need. I’ve learned that sometimes the hard part is making a decision, and everything else falls into place once you have. I’ve learned that there is no shame in looking someone in the eye and admitting that you are having a hard time and need help. I’ve learned that we are generally more powerful, more courageous, and more creative than we think we are. And I’ve learned that when you are going through a total life overhaul, a system reboot, a closet clean, a throwing out of baby with bathwater, a part of you still needs to be soothed by the familiar.

In my case, this craving for some tiny part of my life to remain within the safe confines of the known manifested itself in two ways. First, I actually exhumed some cassette tapes of music from my college days. Cassette tapes, people. Suddenly, my house was full of the sounds of Jonie Mitchell and early REM. I found long-forgotten Radiohead albums and mix tapes with Indigo Girls, Smokey Robinson, and Blues Traveller (I have eclectic taste). I had some scratchy Aretha and quirky Lyle and angry Alice in Chains. And, oddly, mixed in with these I had some of my favorite Francesco de Gregori, Vinicio Capossela, Fabrizio de André, and, of course, my beloved Bandabardò.

Second, I started dreaming of—and preparing—dishes I hadn’t even thought about in years. Creamy soups, scalloped potatoes, pot pies, and banana bread galore. I pushed aside my new millenium low fat ethnic whole vegetarian locavore cookbooks and fell in love with the Rombauers and their schoolmarmish, slightly scolding elderly Aunt Irma and Marion tone all over again. Our dinner table starting looking like the set of Leave it to Beaver, as I put meatloaf and tuna casserole and baked beans and pudding on the table. And, oddly, mixed in with these I found myself putting down penne in bianco, minestrina, pappa al pomodoro, and pasta e fagioli like there was no tomorrow.

It was a bit of an epiphany for me to discover what should have been self-evident: after spending almost half my life in Italy, my comfort zone has expanded to include elements of this country, as well. I had somehow presumed that when I fell down and scraped my knee, I would head to the mother who would make me chicken-noodle soup and sing me “Hush, Little Baby” but I found that more often I would head to the mother who would make me pane e olio and sing me “Ninna-nanna”. And that, in itself is comforting. Because perhaps I’ll get lucky again at some point in my life, and find myself starting from tabula rasa…and for a little TLC I won’t have to go far. I’ll have my music, I’ll have my food. I’ll have myself.

Curious to hear what Alexandra, Gloria, Melanie, and Jessica had to say about this month’s topic? Check out their blog posts, and leave your comments.

• ArtTrav – Minestrone: my winter comfort food
• At Home in Tuscany – Tuscan Comfort Food
• Italofile – Comfort Me With Potatoes: A Tale of Two Tuber Dishes in Italy
• WhyGo Italy – Comfort Food is a Cultural Thing

Either you’ve been reading my ramblings here and there online for the last decade, or you’ve stuck with me on this blog for the past year and a half, or you just happened to stumble upon this post today. Regardless, you’ve taken a minute out of your busy day to stop by, so you are the first person with whom I want to share my Big News.

I have a friend who plays the lottery with religious fervor and scientific methodology. He’s been playing for years, and every once in awhile he’ll actually manage to cash in (though, truth be told, I suspect he doesn’t even come close to recouping his losses from the past decades). He is perennially (and quite amusingly) ticked off when he reads about the blessed souls whom fortune has kissed each week. “Look at this!” he’ll snap the newspaper in front of my eyes, “Can you believe this joker won!?! Says here it’s the first time he even played the damned thing. Says here he let his little boy choose the numbers. Says here he forgot he even had the ticket in his wallet until he was searching around for some coupon.” And he’ll storm off, muttering to himself about probability and systems and beginner’s luck.

The thing is, he’s not upset that someone else has won…he’s upset that someone else undeserving has won. Someone who just plays for fun, with no foresight or mathematics or gravitas. A dabbler.

Getting a paid gig blogging, especially travel blogging, has roughly the same odds as winning the lottery. It just doesn’t happen that often, and when it does it’s because there is a writer out there who has played the game with religious fervor and scientific methodology. These writers are certainly talented, but–more importantly—they are also born networkers, motivated, and tirelessly dedicated to working the system by massaging their Google rankings and updating their WordPress plugins and attending seminars on the latest in SEO.

And then there are bloggers like me. Writers who write for the sheer frivolous joy of putting words down on a page. I couldn’t find my Google ranking if it bit me on the butt, don’t bother with plugins unless my webmaster makes an executive decision and puts them in (which often leads to a panicked phone call to long-suffering Marcel, who explains that everything is fine and I just need to keep on doing what I’ve been doing), and am so indifferent to SEO that I don’t even put tags on my posts. I am a dabbler who, if the universe were a completely fair place, would never win the lottery. But guess what.

Yep, that’s right. You are now reading the words typed by a paid travel writer and blogger (I may bill you…I haven’t decided yet.). Not only did I win the lottery, I won it twice over by picking up two incredibly fun and challenging new gigs in a way so effortless and seemingly happenstance that it still feels very surreal—and a little tenuous. This is how it happened:

This past spring a number of Italy travel apps for the iPhone were published through Sutro Media, many of which were authored by people I knew. I thought to myself, “Huh. That would be fun…to write a travel app for Umbria.” A short while later, I learned that the formidable travel writer Alex Leviton (who wrote the Umbria guide for Lonely Planet) was writing the Umbria app for them, so I went on with my life. Apparently, destiny had other plans, as I ended up meeting Alex through a mutual friend not a month later and we immediately hit it off personally and professionally…to the point that Alex said, “You know, I could really use a writing partner locally in Umbria to make this app rock.” (She actually said that. She’s from California. They say rock and totes a lot.) “Are you interested in coming on the project?”

And so, just like that, I found myself hired to co-author of the Umbria Slow:  Food, Culture & Travel iPhone app, which does, indeed, rock. Totes.

This past spring I was invited on a weekend blogging trip promoting Umbria called “Umbria on the Blog”. It was fabulous fun, and I ended up meeting other bloggers from around Italy and a few local movers and shakers in the social media marketing world. I thought to myself, “Huh. That would be fun…to write for an official blog about Umbria and be able to meet with bloggers in and out of Umbria more often.” But the weekend ended (a huge success), and I went on with my life. Apparently, destiny had other plans, as the brains behind the Umbria on the Blog project contacted me soon after to tell me about an ongoing blogging project in the works and ask if I would be interested in writing and curating their English language content.

And so, just like that, I found myself hired to blog for Umbria on the Blog in English, which has the amazingly wonderful side benefit of being able to collaborate with others just as passionate about Umbria as I am (but with much better contacts. These are people who can actually come up with press passes.).

So, what does this mean for you, dear reader? Nothing, really. (Except, of course, you now have just one more excuse to fill your glass with Sagrantino and toast to the randomness of life.) If you like the tips and suggestions I’ve been throwing out here on my blog, you may want to consider downloading the Umbria Slow app, which includes lots of the same stuff but in a much less wordy way and with groovy Google mapping so you actually know where the hell you are going. If you like the “slice of Umbria” posts here, check in at Umbria on the Blog where you’ll find more of those style posts (I post twice a week, plus there’s a photo blog and a bits and bobs section called “What I’m Loving”. There are lot of bells and whistles over at UOTB, but it’s still me behind the curtain.).

I will still be blogging here. This is my home, where I come and put on my saggy-ass sweatpants and sprawl on the couch and let it all hang out. I can do stuff here that I can’t over at the office (like swear, name specific businesses, and bitch about my in-laws). That said, I may be here a little less over the next few months while I try to get a system going with all this new writing-for-pay business going down.

In short, this post wasn’t about tooting my horn (okay, maybe just a little tooting) or trying to get you to buy my app or read my posts (okay, maybe just a little promoting) or any of that. It’s about thanking you—yes, you—for reading my words for the first time or, perhaps, for the 100^th time (There are 134 posts on this blog! Yikes. No wonder my house is such a mess.). If it hadn’t been for you, I would have quit this writing pipe dream ages ago and my life would be that much less rich and full right now. So, thanks.

Now, go read my stuff.

Trying to snap a picture of Trevi without an olive tree getting in the way is like trying to snap a picture of an elephant without the trunk getting in the way.

It had been awhile since I headed to Trevi, which is one of the those towns in my geographical slush zone: too close to Assisi to count as a day trip but too far away to bop over for lunch. But I was hankering to get back to one of my pet blogging projects, and though Trevi isn’t the next on the list of The Most Beautiful Villages of Umbria –I’m on the Cs, for those of you paying attention. And don’t give me that look. Yes, it’s taking me awhile to get through the list. Things have come up, people.—fall is Trevi’s season, it being one of the most important olive oil producing areas in the olive oil producing region of Umbria.

So, on a gloriously sunny autumn morning I found myself driving up through the groves blanketing the hills beneath Trevi at that magical hour when the mist is just lifting and the ghostly outlines of the teams of pickers, spreading nets beneath the olive trees and positioning their rickety wooden ladders against the branches, are beginning to emerge from the silver grey. Just as I rounded the last hairpin turn coming up from the valley, the town itself—dramatically dribbling down the sides of its steep hilltop like gravy over a heap of mashed potatoes—caught the first rosy-gold rays of sunlight and, despite the eight cranes hovering over the jumble of rooftops, the pure beauty of it made me catch my breath. And the thought came to me, as it so often does with our favorite comfort foods, “Damn. Why has it been so long?”

I love this old-timey effect. Plus, you can't see all the damned cranes.

Trevi starts its comfort food schtick with the most basic of amenities: a sprawling, free parking lot right at the top of the hill about fourteen feet from the main piazza. To anyone who has passed any time visiting hill towns in Umbria (and, by the way, if you do want to visit hill towns in Umbria, pretty much your only option is to have a vehicle), the deal breaker importance of free, easy, accessible parking is immediately clear. Let’s just say it gets the meal off on the right foot. I stuck my car in Piazza Garibaldi, and passed under the Porta del Lago city gate into the main Piazza Mazzini, which is so film-set ready it would be a clichè…if, of course, it wasn’t real. The accommodating ladies at the tourist information office (unfortunately open only Friday, Saturday, and Sunday…but I discovered that tapping politely on the glass door and smiling winningly might score you a resigned entrance) kitted me out with a MAP and a FREE AUDIO GUIDE of the town. To anyone who has passed any time visiting hill towns in Umbria, the deal breaker importance of friendly infopoint staff who can actually provide such novelties as maps and audio guides is immediately clear.

Just one of the amazing views from Trevi. Brace yourself. You're about to see a lot of 'em.

So, remember your great-aunt Mary Margaret who came over from County Kerry fifty years ago, but never lost her Gaelic brogue and sweet-yet-schoolmarmish cadence? Well, somehow the folks over at the Trevi tourism office tracked her down to do the voice on their audioguide. It was both surreal and soothing to wander through the tiny center with Mary Margaret murmuring in my ear about the Churches of Sant’Emiliano (largely unexceptional inside, but with three pretty Romanesque apses and a 15^th century portal outside) and San Francesco (built in the 14^th century on the site where Saint Francis admonished an ill-mannered donkey to cut the racket during his sermon, at which point the donkey knelt in silence until Francis had finished. Thus begging the question as to why that won’t work with my kids.) and the various palazzi and piazze.

You want chicken soup for the soul? Well, check these views out.

The audio guide lasts about an hour, but honestly I cherry-picked the explanations, preferring instead to wander the warren of lanes in the tiny center in contemplative silence. As I walked, my pace slowed and my pulse began to match the easy heartbeat of this quiet town. I popped into a couple of museums—the charming and well-done Olive Museum (what else, in the olive oil capital of Umbria?) and surpising Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary Art Museum (even Trevi shakes it up a bit…a little ginger in the oatmeal, so to speak.)—and roamed languidly through their empty, silent halls. I stopped to snap pictures of odd niches, carved doors, smiling artisans in dim workshops, and the views. Especially the views.

This is the view to the San Martino monastery outside of town (temporarily closed due to restoration work).

I came away from Trevi as soothed and settled as if I had just had a big, steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup. Maybe my mind wasn’t expanded, maybe I didn’t have any spiritual epiphanies or life-changing realizations, but sometimes that’s not really what I’m hungry for. Sometimes what I’m really craving is less a question of stomach and more a question of heart.

Ok, I'm done with the views. Maybe...

If you really are hungry while in Trevi, you’re in luck. There are two fabulous restaurants: La Vecchia Posta (Careful, their site plays music at you. Scared the bejeezus out of me.) in the postcard-perfect main piazza and La Taverna del Sette, which has a charming internal courtyard.

Did you love these pictures? Thanks, but they’re not mine. They were used with kind permission by the talented (and generous) photographer Marzia Keller, to whom I am forever grateful. Because my pictures suck.

My favorite season has always been autumn, because I am a nerd. And the favorite season of nerds the world over is fall, because it marks the end of the nerd’s least favorite season:  summer.

Summer is the season of endless, aimless frolicking, frolicking usually involving sports and bikinis, (or–most often–sports in bikinis). Summer is the season of the beach read, the blockbuster movie, the pop anthem. It is the season made for drinking the hottest drink and driving the hottest car and hanging with the hottest crowd. It is, in short, the season which celebrates everything the nerd is not very good at.

Fall—fall, my friends—is the season when order and routine return. It is the season when schools (or–for the older nerd–night courses) begin, the season of baggy sweaters and long walks in the arboretum (nerds like their nature tagged in Latin). Fall is the season of the Nobel prize for literature, the art-house film festival, the symphonic season opener. It is a season made for quiet, contemplative, indoor pursuits during which one is fully clothed and speaking in complete, grammatically correct sentences. It is, in short, the season during which the nerd positively shines.

Fall

And one of the nerd’s favorite activities during those rainy, Sunday afternoons in late fall is visiting museums. I love museums. Love them. I grew up in Chicago, which is a city saturated with sprawling, monumental museums. I cut my teeth at the Museum of Science and Industry, with its coal mine and walk-through heart and giant model train, and the Field Museum, with its towering dinosaur skeletons filling the main hall and life-size dusty paleolithic dioramas. (I love the Field Museum so much I actually toyed with the idea of holding my wedding reception there. Alas, nerds are poor. Geeks are the rich ones. They understand computer programming.)

Umbria, of course, can’t hold a candle to Chicago’s museums size-wise; the average Windy City museum covers more square acres than most Umbrian towns. That said, a number of bite-sized local museums have popped up in this region over the past few years that are excellently curated, accessible to English speakers, and well worth the hour or so it will take to visit their singular collections…even for you cool summer people out there.

Casa Museo di Palazzo Sorbello (Perugia)

http://www.casamuseosorbello.org/en/

Palazzo Sorbello

There is something about human nature that draws us to the past. We trawl antique stores, hike the Mayan ruins, pore over archives searching out familiar surnames. We are constantly peering through windows into history, hoping to find some connection between our brief years on earth and the millenia that have come before.

This is especially true about the home-cum-museum. Who doesn’t love to wander through these domestic archaeological sites and learn about the quotidian routines of their occupants, so similar—or, at times, so incredibly removed—from our own?

When I visited the recently opened (and winningly named) Palazzo Sorbello “House Museum” in Perugia, I was fully expecting to be charmed. I envisioned richly furnished rooms (it is a noble family’s Palazzo, after all) arranged in artful domestic tableaux, mannequins posed in period garb, dark corners, a slight musty odor, and lots of dust. I envisioned, in short, the typical small, private, off-the-beaten-track museum.

I was not expecting to be wowed. But I was, and completely enthralled during my two hour tour (the standard visit lasts about half an hour, but I got to talking with their marketing director, Enrico Speranza, who has encyclopedic knowledge of the Sorbello family and their Palazzo and before we knew it….). If a visit to the Palazzo Sorbello is a window into the past, the view from here is one of a family with a long history–uniquely interwoven with that of Italy from the Middle Ages to the 20^th century–and with an enduring passion for art and culture.

We began in the extensive library, includes a rare original Encyclopedie Française from the mid-1700s.  From there we spent the better part of the morning viewing their carefully curated selection of landscape paintings and portraits, breathtaking European and Chinese porcelain, a priceless handblown Murano chandelier, and various objects d’epoque.

Perhaps most fascinating was the collection of intricate embroidery produced at the beginning of the 20^th century by the Embroidery School founded by the American wife of one of the noble family’s descendants. This enterprising Dame, Romeyne Robert, left her mark on the local economy by enrolling rural Umbrian women in the school, teaching them this disappearing craft, and giving them their first taste of economic independence.

More than a simple time-capsule, Palazzo Sorbello is a living lesson in Italy’s social and economic history and one of the most fascinating museums in Umbria.

Museo della Memoria (Assisi)

Palazzo Vallemani
Via San Francesco, 12
Phone: 075 8197021
Hours: Nov-Feb: 10:30–1:00/2:00–5:00 March, April, May/Sept, Oct: 10:00–1:00/2:30–6:00; June-Aug 10:00–1:00/1:30–7:00

Museo della Memoria

It’s easy to forget, in this religiously homogeneous land where politics, education, holidays, foods, given names, and kitschy tchotkes all seem to revolve around the Catholic church (the fact that I can use a yiddish phrase to describe things like holy water key chains and friar salt and pepper shakers gives me no end of etymological joy), that there are, indeed, other religious communities in Italy.

Jews in Italy have have had a tough time of it for the past two millenia, and the tiny remaining community of 45,000 which still live in the Bel Paese would have been even smaller had it not been for the work of a network of citizens—lay and ordained, private and official—who secretly collaborated under the direction of Catholic Bishop Giuseppe Placido Nicolini and priests Father Rufino Niccacci and Don Aldo Brunacci to harbor and ultimately save more than 300 Jews (most from northern Italy) and other war refugees in the early 1940s.

I, like most local residents, had heard bits and pieces of this story through word of mouth and buzz created with the publication of The Assisi Underground, a 1978 novel built around the true story of this clandestine network. That said, for years the only remaining tangible evidence was the vintage printing press, still bolted to the floor of the typographer workshop-turned-souvenir shop in Piazza Santa Chiara, which had been used by the Brizi family to secretly print false identity cards and other documents, making it possible for Jews both in Assisi and across Italy avoid deportation and imprisonment.

When the building was sold in 2009, the new owners asked the press be removed, which spurred a grassroots movement by locals to create some sort of official display rather than let the last vestige of the Underground be packed away in storage. After a few calls to action in the local paper, I hadn’t heard much else, so figured the momentum had died away and the living memory along with it.

Luckily, I was wrong. Through private and public donations, the Museo della Memoria (Memory Museum) opened in the spring of 2011, and it is startlingly excellent. The four halls are packed with excellently displayed (and translated) letters, documents, photographs, and historical artifacts (many of which revolve around the Brizi’s typography workshop), an in-depth biography of the main characters in the story (including the German Colonel Valentin Müller, Commandant of the city and Catholic, who showed humanity in an inhumane situation), and a video loop of interviews with some of the surviving activists and refugees.

Moving, compelling, and perfectly curated, this jewel of a museum merits a visit. A final note: No Assisan betrayed the Underground and no refugee passing through was captured during its activity. So, the Jews have a debt to the city. And yet…and yet. It was the letter forged by the hand of one of these refugees, fluent in German,  purportedly from Kesselring declaring Assisi an open city, which began the evacuation of German troops under Colonel Müller and quite probably saved Assisi from destruction.

So, who owes whom, really, in the end?

Museo della Canapa (Sant’Anatolia di Narco)

Phone: 0743. 613149 (if you arrive and no one is there, call this number or ask around…the office is down the street)
Hours: Mon closed, Tues-Fri: 9:00-1:00, Tues/Thurs: 3:00-6:00, Sat: 2:30-6:00, Sun: must reserve.

Museo della Canapa

If you think that just one person can’t make much of a difference in this crazy world, listen to the story of a five foot tall, red haired, tinkly-bracelet-and-flowered-poncho-clad dynamo named Glenda Giampaoli. Yep, just like that bad ass of a Good Witch Glenda, who might disarm you with her ready smile and sweet voice but don’t get between her wand and whatever she’s aiming it at.

A textile archaeologist with a soft spot for her home region, Glenda had a dream: to bring to light the rich history of hemp farming and textile production in the Valnerina. And before you start pigeonholing her in with Woody Harrelson and patchouli-scented aging hippies in Berkeley, let me just tell you that hemp was once mainstream in Italy. Extremely mainstream. So mainstream, in fact, that Italy was the second largest industrial hemp producer in the world at the beginning of the 20^th century. The staid women’s fashion magazine, Grazia, put out an entire issue in 1940 entitled “The Triumph of Hemp” dedicated to the latest in hemp fabrics and styles. (The lead story begins thus: “Hemp, like a woman, must be treated roughly to render it soft and pliable.” Ahem. Yes, well. We’ve come a long way, baby.)

Then, as Glenda so succinctly puts it, Italy lost the war. History is written by the victors, who also determine the course of the future. As the Allies had huge economic stakes in the success of nylon and other synthetic fibers developed during World War II, hemp was demonized. Polyester was in, hemp was out…and with it a micro-culture and economy dependent upon its production. With an admirable amount of patience and tenacity, Glenda has been working for the past few years to re-introduce hemp farming in the Valnerina and other areas of Umbria (recent EU legislation has begun legalizing the crop) and sensitize the population to the benefits of bringing back this lost product.

Part of her campaign—the most important part, perhaps —has been the establishment of the nano-sized Hemp Museum in the fetching village of Sant’Anatolia di Narco. With a bit of negotiation, flavored with diplomacy, grovelling, determination, and (one can only imagine, in this country where just renewing your driver’s license can seem more complicated than an establishing an international commission on CO2 emissions) quite a bit of luck and goodwill, Glenda was able to retrofit a section of the village’s former city hall to hold an eclectic collection of antique textile and weaving tools and looms and examples of hemp cloth donated by local families and dating from the 1800s.

The museum’s information panels are all excellently translated, but if you’re lucky you may get a tour by Glenda herself, who flavours the visit with local lore and cultural nuance (hemp weaving, for example, was key to the economic independence of women—particularly widows and single women—at the turn of the century, as it was one of the few occupations available which could be pursued without leaving the home). The pride she has in her tiny yet huge triumph of a museum is palpable…and contagious. As I watched her punctuate her impassioned explanations with grand gesticulations while she insisted on showing us “just one more thing…this is really special!” I realized that only a tiny yet huge personality like Glenda could have waved her wand at the disheartening Italian bureaucracy and conjured up this most special museum.

Curious to hear what Alexandra, Gloria, Melanie, and Jessica had to say about this month’s topic? Check out their blog posts, and leave your comments.

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Jars of red-hot nduja.

Because people interested in Italian food outside Italy are generally curious about all Italian food, but Italians themselves consider their local dishes—ideally prepared in their mother’s kitchen–the apex of their national cuisine and really only sample delicacies from other regions when they are actually visiting there. And, even then, mostly out of a sense of duty and to cement their opinion that their local dishes are the apex of Italian cuisine.

So, on the rare occasions when there is an opportunity to check out what people are eating all down the Boot, I jump at the chance. This past weekend Foligno held its annual Primi d’Italia food festival, which features pasta dishes from a variety of Italian regions. I passed on the tastings (word on the street is that the food is average and the prices high), but did check out the stands selling everything from bread from Puglia to cheese from Trentino. Great fun, lots of goodies to try at home, and a reminder of this crazy patchwork-quilt nation of histories, cultures, dialects, and—of course—foods that is Italy.

The one food that might just unite the nation: Bunga Bunga sauce.

Olives in all shapes and sizes.

Umbria holds its own in pork charcuterie.

The further south you go, the spicier the cuisine gets.

Perhaps the most picturesque booth, with its giant loaf.

A fun display of pasta shapes from every Italian region.

I picked up some pasta from Naples and Abruzzo. To sniffs of skepticism from the folks at home.

Ahem. Yes, well. I know this may come as a surprise to you (It certainly did to me), and I’m going to try to break it to you gently. That’s not exactly what goes on around here. Apparently the life of a working mother of two who writes an incredibly niche (that’s French for obscure) blog on the slow travel charms of one of the smallest regions in Italy is not exactly the most sought after arm candy on the social diaspora.

Which is why, when I received an email this summer from a fellow expat of the XY chromosome persuasion complementing me on my blog and inviting me out to lunch (I believe his exact words were something disarmingly elegant like, “I think you would enjoy one of my favorite restaurants in Umbria and I would be delighted to take you as my guest”), I literally glanced over my shoulder to check and make sure he was actually writing to me and not someone infinitely more attractive and interesting who might be standing behind me. But he was, indeed, addressing me and we settled on a date a few weeks hence (just because I don’t have a very refined social life doesn’t mean that I’m not, sadly, insanely busy).

I quickly came to the conclusion that the only explanation for this anomaly had to be that my new expat friend was some sort of psychopath (this is how the mind of a South side Chicagoan works). To fend off any possible attacks, I did what any responsible adult would do: I brought my nine year old son along. Apparently Mr. X had the same thought, as he informed me he was bringing along his niece. And so, our motley foursome was formed.

If I wasn’t disappointed about the woeful state of my social life before this lunch, I certainly was afterwards, as it turned out to be one of the highpoints of my summer. Mr. X is a delightful, erudite retiree who has lived in Umbria with his wife for the past few years and devotes much time and energy sussing out wonderful unknown eateries. His adult niece, visiting from Brooklyn, was a fun and funky designer who was great with my son.  The conversation was easy and engaging, and before we knew it we had been at the table chatting for three hours (and my son was officially late for his rugby practice).

But the best part of my surprise invitation was, by far, the pure find of a restaurant Mr. X had chosen. If there’s one thing I pride myself on–other than the fact that I can move my ears and I defiantly refuse to see the movie Titanic–it’s that I pretty much know Umbria, including her notable restaurants. I may not have actually been to them all (though that is certainly one of my short term goals, which conflicts with my other short term goal of weight loss), but it’s relatively rare that someone can pull a place completely out of the hat and awe me.

I believe that we put a little bit of our souls into our cooking. I mean, not in that new agey brick-heavy metaphoric Like Water for Chocolate way, but in a more down-home pragmatic human nature way. Any creative act—painting or singing or writing or love making—inevitably reflects what’s going on in our heads and hearts. That’s just how we’re wired and I challenge anyone to sit down and paint a bright field of sunflowers or bake a sunny lemon tart the day after a death or a break-up or a foreclosure. This soul/food connection is usually more direct in our own kitchens, simply because the dishes aren’t diluted with the touch of too many hands. But sometimes—sometimes—you come upon a one-man-show restaurant where alongside your pasta you find plated a little piece of your cook’s heart. Welcome to Laura’s Hosteria.

Hosteria 4 Piedi & 8,5 Pollici
Piazza del Mercato, 10
Bastardo (Giano dell’Umbria)
Tel: 0742 99949

http://4piedi8-5pollici.blogspot.com/

Why yes, I *do* know how to upload maps now. Expect lots of showing off in future blog posts.

I have to be honest and admit that I initially had my misgivings. The Hosteria is located in Bastardo (a wholely charmless village whose only claim to anything nearing passing interest is its name) in a secondary piazza ringed with bleak cement apartment blocks and a big box supermarket. We parked in a depressing commercial lot with its straggly grass and recycling dumpsters and my unease was lessened slightly as Mr. X pointed out the whimsical entrance to the Hosteria’s otherwise anonymous storefront, which could only be described as the result of a one night stand between an English garden show booth and the front yard of an organic co-op in Portland.

The eclectic front courtyards hints at the shabby chic decor inside.

The eclectic interior, with it’s meandering black and white mural decorations, fresh wildflower centerpieces, mismatched shabby chic chandeliers, vintage tableware, and—curiously—antique typewriter in the bathroom (it took me awhile to figure out why my son kept getting up to visit the loo every ten minutes), further put my doubts to rest. This was not a place which would be turning out factory-made tagliatelle with chemically-enhanced truffle sauce from the kitchen.

The small restaurant oozes personality.

Indeed, we didn’t know what would be coming out of the kitchen until our hostess, Laura, told us the specials of the day; the Hosteria is a strictly no menu sort of place. The selections are a magical alchemy of seasonal ingredients, Laura’s fancy, and customer finickiness (my son didn’t seem particularly excited about the cocoa maltagliati, ink squid tagliatelle, or ricotta and basil ravioli, so Laura took a gander at what she had in the kitchen and came up with a wonderful twist on the Roman specialty cacio e pepe, with a little guanciale thrown in for good measure. He was happy.). I was plied by the ravioli, and they were perfect…light little flavor bombs with a fresh tomato dressing. Aside from her egg pastas, Laura also makes a range of sauces to dress the dry pasta of your choice; the selection the day we visited were guanciale and zucchini, meatball and eggplant, and arrabiata.

An example of Laura's hand-shaped fresh pasta.

The meat dishes were equally diverse, ranging from a local tagliata steak, to traditionally prepared lamb chops, to the decidedly non-traditional ginger chicken or fish cakes. I asked for a cheese selection, and was treated to one of the best cheese courses I’ve had in Italy…from aged pecorino to fresh ricotta (served on a spoon with local honey), accompanied by a number of Laura’s handmade fruit mustards, relishes, and—divinely—wine reduced to an intense drizzle-able glaze.

The portions were as generous as Laura herself, so by the time we got to the dessert menu we could only handle some of her excellent biscotti (which were so good that my son managed to pocket one or two for later) and vin santo.

The Hosteria has an interesting wine list, with some off-beat local Umbrian cantine which reflect the vibe of this small (seating for about 30) restaurant and its menu. As I said, I was treated to lunch, but my gut feeling is that a couple could easily have two courses, dessert, and wine for around €50.

We had these biscotti, but without the hat.

When I asked Laura about the name she gave her Hosteria (which translates into 4 Feet & 8.5 Inches), she told me she had taken it from one of her favorite works of Brazilian author Paolo Coelho, Zahir. “The story is a parable of one man’s search for his wife, during which he is also searching for himself and the meaning of love. Four feet and 8.5 centimeters is the distance between rails on train tracks, and becomes an allegory for static nature of marriage as opposed to the constantly changing and evolving nature of love. Because the more you try to establish rules to measure love, the more love disappears.”

Kudos to Laura, her wonderful Hosteria, and the measureless love with which she feeds her clients’ bodies and souls.

These photos were used with kind permission of Laura Saleggia, who retains all the copyrights.

Back to School

Draw near, draw near, stranger, as I spin you an epic yarn. A timeless story of love and betrayal, of struggle and suspense, of triumph and failure. There are heroes, young friend, and villains galore. I will tell of innocents and schemers, of noble causes and fiendish designs, of the loftiest and the basest of human desires. Draw near, wanderer, and listen to my tale of fate, destiny, and—ultimately—a moral to it all.

Hear me as I sing the tragedy of How My Children Transferred Elementary Schools.

No, wait. Don’t get up. It’s a great story, I swear. It really does have all that stuff in it. Listen, your beer’s on me if you’ll just sit here for ten minutes and hear me out. Ten minutes. Seven. Seven minutes. Ok? Ok.

The school year began here in Umbria this week, and as I lightheartedly dropped my sons off to their second and fifth grade classrooms, I couldn’t help remembering this same time last year. My older son was beginning the fourth grade, and we were both anxious. He had had a particularly tough third year; his favorite teacher had retired after the second grade and he and the new teacher had locked horns for the subsequent nine straight months. I had gone back and forth about simply switching him to the other local elementary school (in Italy you get the same teacher for all five grades of primary school, so if you don’t see eye to eye you are kind of stuck), but had decided to continue where we were (and enroll my younger son in first grade there, as well).

It quickly became clear that something had to give. My nine year old was desperately unhappy, thus we were all unhappy. He started asking me if he could change schools, which gave me pause, as his best friends were all classmates. He was obviously at the end of his rope. So, come January, I took both my sons (the first grader wanted to be with his brother) out of their elementary school and enrolled them in the other public school about half a kilometer away. Thus began a golden period in their lives, and a private hell in mine.

Fine, private hell might be overkill (though I did promise you drama), but let’s just say I was completely blindsided by the social ripples caused by what was, in my mind, a relatively innocuous (and, I may add, completely none-of-anyone’s-business-personal) decision. You see, it slips my mind sometimes that I live in a small town. It’s easy to forget, because Assisi gives the impression—what with the crush of millions of visitors a year—of being a teeming metropolis. But the fact is that only around 1,000 people actually live in the historic center and–of those–999 are all up in your business.

I also tend to underestimate the dark underbelly of small town dynamics because I went to hands down the most awesome, lefty, fun, accepting, smart high school in North America. I realize the correlation may be fuzzy, but from what I understand from friends (and bootleg copies of Glee), the average American high school educates you not only in algebra and creative writing, but also in how to navigate cliques, handle gossip, recognize the mean girls, and generally hone those delicate antennae indipensible in managing the subtleties of social interaction. Because–despite all the romanticizing and idealizing–life in a small town is pretty akin to life in high school, except the median age is higher and the chaos which can be wrought more damaging.

The weeks following the school switch (I should probably add that I had been my sons’ PTA president for six years, so admittedly we weren’t the most low-profile family in the school)–during which a whisper campaign was initiated, teachers I had known for years publicly denounced my decision, families with whom we had travelled and socialized since our children were three years old stopped speaking to me, friends quickly separated themselves into wheat and chaff categories, and acquaintances whom I hardly knew by sight stopped me on the street to chat conspiratorially in the hopes I might let something slip unpolitic enough to stoke the flames of debate at the local cafè—were perhaps the steepest learning curve of my adult life. My kids went back to school, and, in a way, so did I. However, while they stopped shedding tears over their lessons, I began shedding them over mine.

It’s the Economy, Stupid.

Nothing gets people’s dander up like the specter of job loss, an aspect I had naively underestimated when making my decision. Assisi has two elementary schools in the historic center, which is simply mathematically untenable given the size (and age) of the population. This is a known but unspoken truth; every spring when enrollment begins the two schools fight tooth and nail for students, because if they don’t reach a minimum class size teachers are transferred or let go. It’s that simple. So, when students leave—especially students of somewhat outspoken, public, influential families—the school (and their teachers) immediately circle the wagons, and their first priority becomes damage control, spin, and desperate number crunching. Perhaps not the noblest of instincts, but human, nonetheless.

No One is Disinterested.

If there’s one thing you learn very quickly when you move to a small town, it’s that you can’t pick your nose in the car. Because everyone knows you. Even people you don’t know know you. They know you, they know your significant other, they know your boss, they know your cleaning lady, they know your postman. Not only do they know them, they are probably related to them. They may not like them, they may barely speak to them, but if the universal currency of information is on the block, you can be sure that there will be some exchange…and often the heftiest price paid is by you. And in a social crucible where knowledge is power, where gossips wield stunning power, and where—to be honest—very little goes down of particular interest on any given day, even the most banal of events (who had coffee with whom, whose car was seen parked where, whose kids were taken out of one school and enrolled in its rival) acquire the whiff of scandal.

Change is a Big Effing Deal.

The City is all about change. About progress. About evolution. About new horizons and frontiers. The Province is all about tradition. About history. About roots. About stability and comfort-zones. And I like that about the Province; after a life of constant movement and adaptation, I like the sense of past and belonging to a larger social tapestry. I especially like that for my children. That said, just as the dynamism of cosmopolitan life can veer into superficial self-absorption, so can the solidity of country life veer into stodgy mistrust and fear of change. Career transitions are whispered about as if they were some sign of failure, rather than simply that of a wish to try something new. Separations are akin to a death in the family, rather than an opportunity for a new beginning. New hairstyles and hobbies are viewed with raised eyebrows and pursed lips. And a change in schools—even to one that is just a few blocks away, even when the classmates are all friends from preschool, and even when the teachers are familiar faces from around town–is viewed as a traumatic, life-altering folly. (Just for the record, my sons are thrilled with their new school and have been from day one. I should have trusted my intuition and transferred them earlier. Another lesson learned.)

I’ve Been Damned Lucky.

The most positive lesson taken from all of this has also been the hardest to internalize:  gratitude. I have learned to be grateful that I can both enjoy the advantages of living in a small community, yet see beyond it to a bigger picture. I can get past defensiveness and finger-pointing when I feel censured, and take a hard look at myself and the mistakes I’ve made. I have a life that is so stimulating and joyful that I don’t need to pay much attention to the minutiae of my neighbors’ days to fill my own. The deep roots I’ve put down have favored, not stunted, my growth and I see the challenge in change, not just the apprehension. Though I smile and wave and chit-chat and trip my social butterfly way across the piazza, I know who my true friends really are…in Tucson, Bali, Piemonte, California, Castiglione del Lago, Chicago, and—a precious few—here in Assisi,  I have the extraordinary fortune to have a crowd watching my back, supporting without second guessing, and caring without judging.

And I suppose that if there is a moral to this story, it lies here. You can’t appreciate the light until you see the darkness, the loyalty until you feel abandoned, the serenity until you get lost in the chaos. The microcosm of small town society puts this into sharper relief, perhaps, but these lessons are all around us regardless of where we are. Life is full of teachable moments, but we have to show up to class with our minds open, pencils sharp, and pride tucked away in our lockers. Because life is also a tenacious bitch of a professor, and each time you flunk her class you can be sure that you’ll keep finding that same topic covered on the next final exam until you finally—finally—get the answer right.

Curious to hear what Alexandra, Gloria, Melanie, and Jessica had to say about this month’s topic? Check out their blog posts, and leave your comments.

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