A Taste of Cascina Piola

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Day by day accounts here at Cascina Piola melt like sugar over a warm flame. One day is filled with tomatoes and sun, the next with a thunderous electric summer storm and weeding, the mosquitos and fresh cold spouting spring, the coming and going of guests, and blooming of new flowers every day.
Raffaella and Piero comically juxtapose eachother's work methods with warm love and affection. Their house is dark lacking the light from outside but it keeps the coolness of the bricks and stucco ceilings, a welcome relief during breaks in the afternoons. Their house is cluttered with colorful posters from Columbia, Cuba, communist movements, Peru, Che Guevara, Terra Madre, and the promotion of biological all natural foods and lifestyles. Their library where I sit and write emails is filled from floor to ceiling on two opposite walls with Italian literature. Spanning from politics, philosophy, history, entertainment, travel, almanacs, literature both classical and modern, seashells, Dutch clogs, glass jars filled with nicknacks. The fullness of their house feels like the warm hug I've been missing the past six or so weeks. It is enveloping and very welcome.
All their furniture is heavy wood. Some engraved with pretty Italian countryside flowers, some simple and painted bright solid colors. The windows are large and rounded at the tops, some are filled with colorful stained glass. A banner hanging from one of the terraces reads PACE, and below it is a terrace exploding with bright happy red flowers. Every color in the garden makes the other colors more pronounced so that in the morning it feels as though I'm walking through a bright botanical still-life.
The surrounding three towns have three churches whose bells ring every hour and half hour. Each about three to five minutes off. The valley is significantly cooler than the hillside and working in the campi is a pleasure. There are birds that call to eachother all day long. Bugs buzz and the tall trees whoosh and whisper with the winds. The clouds hover high in the sky, sometimes whispy, other times tall and full, white and grey. The sky is always blue; at night there is purple before the sunsets, but rarely the pinks and peaches I saw in Bologna. At night it is calm, the stars sit in the night sky and the moon shines brightly. I have often felt like the mouse in tall grasses that wishes to eat the moon.
I feel at home but far from my own. I want to bottle the atmosphere here so that I can share it. The perfumes of jasmine, wisteria, sage, rosemary, mint, garlic, sauteed onions and zucchini, baking tortes, burning honeycombs, and wood ovens; the freshness of the breezes, church bells, sunshine, and shade, birds calling, and silence at the days's end. These are the essences I want to capture. I remember most vividly the smells of Poland and Israel (especially of Maidenek and Safed) and hope that by cherishing the odors here they will become part of my olefactory history.
My time here has come and gone by quickly. I want to return here to feel the full but slow pace of the days. I want to read all the books in their library without having to use a dictionary to translate. And I want to live like the people of the earth- like I have, like I will continue, and hopefully never forget.

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Comments

[mom]

never forget
your writing is so exquisite, I promise you will never forget, you will reread these journals in the days/months/years ahead and be greatful that you were able to capture the essence of this experience with such grace! I feel your experience and I am sure you will remember, too.