Ode to the Simple Life

I thought I had a grasp on what the simple life was. I knew it was not a reality show starring a vapid, misbehaved socialite. I knew that it blended with New York City the way oil combines with water. And I thought that it might be similar to the "quiet" little suburban town I grew up in, where the pace of traffic slows by half, where you can smell the orange blossoms in spring, where the biggest draw to the "mall" is a 24-hour Sav-On.

The thing I've come to realize is, pared down doesn't mean simple. Slowed down doesn't mean quiet. Suburban isn't rural even if you have fruit trees in your backyard. And we can't begin to grasp how easy it is to be content with far fewer choices until we pluck ourselves out of the chaos, and plop ourselves into the middle of nowhere (literally, the Frommer's Guide to Italy didn't deign to even mention the region of Abruzzo, despite the fact that it houses the oldest National Park in Italy, and the birthplace of the ancient poet, Ovid).

What then, IS the simple life? The simple life is calling down from your balcony to Pietro, the proprietor of the bar next door, that you are out of eggs so that he will bring you some fresh from the farm tomorrow morning. The simple life is mentioning that you would love some potatoes, only to have Cesidio arrive with a plastic milk crate overflowing with them, that is so heavy that you must leave it in the entry way of your home, rather than carrying it upstairs to your kitchen. It is going up to your rooftop terrace and picking the fresh herbs that you want to sprinkle over your salad of fresh heirloom tomatoes and olive oil, that you then dine on while soaking up the Abruzzan afternoon sun. It is explaining sheepishly to your new houseguest from LA that you have no television. It is closing up shop between 1:30 and 4 every day for a siesta. It means that clothes dryers are non-existent, and the colorful banners of balcony clotheslines are as much a part of the landscape as the mountain ranges. It means that IKEA is a two and a half hour drive away.

I think I've always believed that happiness only exists where there is an abundance of choice. That I would be devastatingly bored without the option of at least 100 different things to do, watch, or eat at any given moment. But perhaps in America, we mistake calm for boredom. Contentment for lack of ambition. After all, a typical day's to do list here usually contains the number of things that an average, efficient human can actually achieve in a day. I never imagined that crossing everything off your list at night was an attainable reality, or that some people go to bed without feeling guilty that they didn't get to each and every task, and awaken without that overwhelm that today won't be any different. People here aren't stressed to the degree of having debilitating medical conditions. They own homes, have three-hour dinners with their close friends, take midday naps, and laugh a lot. They don't watch Lost or Family Guy, but I'm not sure they know or care what they're missing.

I think I'm gonna like it here.


Disclaimer: Ok, let's not get crazy now. My version of the simple life includes BitTorring the hell out of Family Guy...

Dry Rot, Scorpions, Tarantulas, Oh My!

Today I met a tarantula.

We've all seen them before. On tv. Or inside thick glass boxes. They're creepy looking, what with the hairy factor and all, but harmless, and we intuitively know this. This innate knowledge, however, changes when one is suddenly six inches from your foot.

I was on my way back from meditating in the field of a nearby farm. He was moseying home from a hard day at the plant, crossing the road from wilderness back to village life. He stopped. I stopped. We looked at each other with a mix of fascination and revulsion. (I imagine that I am just as hideous and terrifying to him as he, with his quarter inch thick legs and enormous mildewy-green body, is to me). I briefly contemplated getting out my camera with my fantastically trembling hands, but decided that perhaps part of this journey's lesson for me is to stop making idiotic decisions at the eleventh hour. With the luck I've been having lately, he would have been a rare breed of poisonous jumping tarantula, and stopping for any period of time longer than what it takes to figure out how to pass while giving him the widest berth possible, would have resulted in instant death. Or perhaps simply some unforeseen destruction of my last pair of pants.

Its this same sense of responsibility that prevented me from really exploring the old castle that stands at the top of the hill, shadowing the village of Bugnara. It is wonderfully creepy and dilapidated, covered in overgrowth and crumbling at the foundations. There are enticingly eerie, seemingly bottomless caverns where I found myself hovering at the entrance. Spiral stairwells are interrupted by places where the roof has caved in. I started to walk across a second story archway that led to the overgrown garden, but then noticed all the decay and thought the better of adding my 140 lbs of dead weight to the mix. In some of the empty chambers there were clothes, newspapers, and remnants of wine bottles, unsettling reminders that I might meet someone or something I wasn't prepared for. So, I took a bunch of exterior pictures and wandered through the main courtyard where there was no roof to potentially fall on my head. An explosion of blackberry bushes tempted me, so I popped a few in my mouth. They did not however, taste like the blackberries I am accustomed to (or delicious in any way for that matter) so I decided that maybe, like exploring the abandoned castle, I wasn't meant to be eating them, and promptly spit them out. Upon returning to the house and telling Sue and Ross of my wanderings, they decided to inform me that the one "pest" you really have to watch out for in Italy are scorpions. And that they tend to like wild areas (like creepy overgrown castles) more than populated ones. Hmmm...could I perhaps be getting wiser? Could sacrificing my adventurous spirit in favor of a longer life be a sign that I am evolving? Hooray for progress!

I wonder then, what it means that today when I passed by the castle again, I stopped and thought long and hard about whether I could get over the wire fence covering the entrance to the back (quite sturdy looking) stairwell and whether bringing a flashlight might be all I need to protect me from anything creepy and crawly catching me by surprise...

I Think My Ass Is Bleeding

It takes true talent, I believe, to end up in the back of a police car by day three in Italy.

So I drank a bottle of wine at dinner, something I do often and can easily handle. Or so I thought. I caught my bus to Termini station, and then the connecting bus to my monastery. In my superior confidence in my navigational abilities, I put on my headphones, zoned out, and started the trek home. I'm not exactly sure at what point I noticed that I had missed my stop. The thing about missing your stop on the bus routes of Italy, is that it usually means that you can get off and walk your way back. Unless the road you were on is a freeway. Where the only way you can avoid being absolutely mowed down by passing vehicles is to get off the main thoroughfare by climbing over the railing, scraping the hell out of your ass, and ripping your pants in two. If you know me well, you know that I may have a tendency to exaggerate, but I need to make it clear that in this case I was complete and utter bare-assed to the world with pieces of pant tatters flapping in the breeze. The terrain into which I had climbed was the wilderness (unbeknownst to me, there IS a wilderness in the outskirts of Rome), and became more and more treacherous as I attempted to claw my way back towards anything that resembled civilization. I fell into one hole after another, often up to my waist, and had to fight my way out through thorn-covered vines and gnarled brambles. In chaos and confusion, I found myself screaming, "really? REALLY?!" to no one in particular.

When I finally spotted something resembling human colonization (ie. neon lights at a gas station), a huge, barbed-wire fence (are we sensing a pattern here?) stood between it and me. With no thought to the fact that climbing over things not meant to be climbed had not served me so far, you'd better believe that my dirty and exhausted, half-drunk, bare-assed self managed to heave myself up, and sort of "fall" over it. To say "climb" would be giving myself far too much credit. I then emerged like the swamp monster, covered in foxtails and weeds, and begged the station attendant in broken Italian, while sobbing, to call me a taxi. Followed by a wait of exactly one hour, while I shivered (I lose all my heat through my ass, of course), and learned how to thank the nice man (via translation book) for looking after me. This is all because I thought he was calling me a taxi. So when, an hour later, the cops arrived, I tried very hard to find "You suck," in the translation book. It wasn't there.

The cops spoke no English. Of course. They asked me for documentation, which I promptly discovered I had lost, along with both of my credit cards and about $70. Of course. The fact that I was covered in dirt, and that my pants were ripped meant that it was next to impossible to convince them that I had not been beaten or mugged, but was merely a drunken idiot who had gotten lost in the wilderness, coincidentally had lost all of my important documents, and was now tearfully, desperately, in need of my bed. The story wasn't even convincing to me, and I had lived it. Not to mention that the only relevant word I could say in Italian was "lost" and the only word they could say in English was "attacked." That and "boyfriend," which they kept asking me if I had. I'm still not clear as to whether this is because they thought it was he who had beaten and left me for dead, or if they were sussing out the potential for a date. One thing for sure is that they could not believe I was traveling alone. I explained that I had only been here for three days, and that I planned to stay for three months, and perhaps it was that I had exhibited such stupidity in such a very short period of time that prevented them from comprehending that such a thing was possible. Who let this unlucky, navigationally-challenged, half-naked American girl with a drinking problem wander around a foreign country for three months?!

I finally came up with the idea to give them the number from the guidebook for the restaurant in which I had dined, thinking that perhaps they could solve the mystery of where my credit cards had disappeared to. Instead, we got a VERY pissed off, English-speaking waitress on the phone, whom the officers then used as a translator. She merely wanted to know why I had the cops calling her establishment, and whether or not I had been robbed, which she then communicated to the officer in Italian, and hung up. Of course. So I was still no closer to resolving whether they had found my missing documents.

When they put me in the back of the car, I had to take it on faith that I was going home and not to Roman jail to spend the night with Roman prostitutes and Roman crack whores. Fortunately, we shortly arrived at my monastery. Unfortunately, both officers demanded to be let in to see my passport. So picture this. I'm not allowed to bring boys home, and I stroll in at 1 am with two polizia in tow. Of course. So I let them in through the huge gates and up the pitch-black stairwell to my room, praying that they would be quiet. They weren't remotely, of course. But by now, perhaps out of relief that I was near my warm bed, and not on my way to a foreign holding cell, I started to see the humor in this situation. Now we were snickering, pushing each other into walls, while I scolded them to be quiet, and we continued to use charades to communicate with one another. I kept asking if I was in trouble, because I couldn't figure out why they needed to see my passport, and because one of the guys had been on the phone with god knows whom for the entire ride home, repeating my name and "California" over and over again. When I repeated the question to his partner, the only way I could communicate it was to hold my wrists out in "arrest me" pose. At which point, the officer pulled his handcuffs from his pocket. I nodded. He then pointed to the headboard of my bed. Giggled. Literally giggled. Endearing and wildly disconcerting at the same time. Then the first officer, while still on the phone, noted that I had a pair of jeans drying on the window sill, pointed to my bare ass, and suggested with a grin, that I change.

They say truth is stranger than fiction. And the truth is that if ANYONE after three days could have a run-in with non-English speaking police who don't believe a word you're saying and end the night making fun of you and being suggestive, that person would be me. But it occurs to me that I got a good story, a free ride, and an excuse to buy some Italian fashion out of all of this. If there is a silver lining, I will find it. Of course.

Ahhh, Breakfast

When I checked in to the convent, I asked the sister in impressive Italian, if breakfast was included. It was. I asked when it was served, again wowing her with my mastery of her language. Between 7 and 9:30. Great. I emerged from my room this morning and was lured down the stairs by the delicious smell of coffee (thank you, Frank, for making me a crazed fan of coffee before I left--I would be an absolute outcast here otherwise). I went to the front desk and asked the the nuns if they could freeze the cold pack from my ice chest. They said yes. And then all hell broke loose.

Apparently I had caused quite a scene the night before when I had left for dinner and taken my room key with me. I tried repeatedly and failed, to ask if I had to ring the bell in order to get through the outer door, since I could tell that my key would not work. The nuns sent over a young sister who supposedly spoke "un po inglese," although we were unable to say even one word to one another that made any sense. I just kept nodding in wonderment at what all the nuns were freaking out about.

You see, many of the convents have curfews, and I had intentionally booked ones that didn't for my stay. I certainly didn't want to get locked out, but more importantly, I didn't want to be judged for coming home late reeking of Chianti. So the fact that I had to ring the bell just wasn't going to work for me. I didn't want to wake some poor sister at whatever time I finally meandered home. That's precisely why I climbed over the metal gate, each bar capped with a razor sharp sword point, when I returned home last night, nearly destroying one of the two pairs of pants I brought on this trip. I was observed by the driver of a nearby van, thinking to myself all the while that if he called la polizia, the poor nuns would probably be terrified out of their wits at having an intruder, and would have no idea that it was simply little ol' me trying not to wake them. I figured that they would never even notice that I hadn't checked in again before morning.

Well, I guess the redhead with curly hair from America is NOT flying under the radar here. They had ALL noticed that I had not returned home last night (not putting it together that I was already INSIDE when they saw me this morning). All of them congregated around me this morning, gesturing wildly in an attempt to make me understand that I could NOT leave the premises with my room key, and that I must return before 11 pm in order to get back in. So much for no curfew.

Having handles the crazy nuns, I decided to check out the breakfast spread. Here's what it consisted of: cereal (two kinds), orange juice, bread, and an absurdly large assortment of spreads for said bread. AND a fancy machine that made every kind of coffee beverage imaginable. I had a cappuccino and then realized that there were no bowls and no milk for the cereal. Well, that's not entirely accurate. On the table where the cereal was located there were tiny little glass bowls that I assumed might be meant to hold butter or sugar. They were about four inches wide and an inch deep. So I rinsed out my coffee cup, filled it with muesli and started problem solving the milk issue. Ah hah! The coffee machine had an option for milk without coffee, although it would only come out hot. Oh well, I would make do. Of course, hot milk turns muesli into instant mush, so I tucked into my bowl of what was now oatmeal, and observed other guests in the convent in order to determine the secrets of breakfast. I was not to be disappointed.

A dark haired, middle aged woman approached the breakfast table, grabbed one of the tiny bowls and filled it to the brim with maybe three tablespoons of cereal. So that WAS what the bowls were for. I concluded that here must be a nation wide cereal shortage, for which the resolution was to supply leprechaun-sized bowls...but what about the fact that there was no milk? Do Italians simply eat their cereal dry? No, indeed, they do not. For in the next instant, this woman picked up the pitcher of orange juice, poured it over her tiny bowl of cereal, and returned to her table!

Evidently on this side of the world I am, undoubtedly, the weirdo.

Duct Tape and the Doctor

Okay, I know I'm a rookie and I have no real frame of reference.  But I'm fairly certain that I can tell you exactly how NOT to go to Italy for the first time.  Be sure to follow the instructions exactly. Spare no detail. And you too, can experience traveling bliss. 

First, buy a backpack that you consider absurdly expensive. Not the turbo version with metal mesh straps and fancy gadgets that shoot poison in to the eyeballs of potential thieves, but one of the midrange ones, with a sufficient number of useless pockets and plenty of tiny holes for all kinds of cords for every conceivable electronic device.  Presumably these holes allow you to conceal your valuables from people who might steal them, while the five feet of cord that connects your "hidden" laptop to the wall socket trips everyone who walks by lost in contemplation over why your backpack has a power cord.

Next, pack the backpack to the brim. No, to more than the brim. Pack it with books. Because everyone going on a three-month backpacking stint through Italy needs to bring a lot of books. Whatever space you have left after you have packed all your books should be filled with extremely random items, that your very worried mother read that you might need in an article entitled "Extremely Random Items That You Might Need For Your Trip But More Than Likely Will Just Feel Very Silly For Bringing." Items like duct tape, at least 1000 pink foam earplugs, and baby wipes. Decide to use the duct tape for citizen's arrests and to slap over the mouths of screaming babes.

Third, stop for some tequila on the way to your departure lounge and discover that the zipper on your fancy, expensive, intentionally hole-filled backpack of books has broken. Limp to the gate with your giant backpack in your arms, your ice chest over your shoulder, and your yoga mat dragging on the ground behind you.

On the plane, get no sleep whatsoever, even though you spent a great deal of money on a variety of inventive items guaranteed to provide in-flight comfort (inflatable footrests, people--you look silly blowing them up, but believe me, people will wish they were you). Be sure to take your contacts out in  the pitch-black cabin with fingers that you have just used to squeeze lime in to your vodka. Arrive at JFK at something like 2 am your time and settle in for a comfy 12-hour layover.

Not that its been all bad. Not remotely. In fact, the moment the plane ascended, I felt the weight of all the trivial things that I have allowed to infringe upon my happiness for the past few months rise from my body and dissipate in to the ether.  I found myself laughing, while tears of relief streamed down my face, as I silently mouthed the lyrics to Forgot About Dre (if you haven't seen my rendition, just know I get serious). For those of you who have read the book, you'll understand when I say that I kept coming back to the notion that god long ago drew a circle in the sand around the spot exactly where I'm standing.  This was never NOT going to happen.  I was never NOT coming here.

Here, to the heart of the gorgeous Villa Doria Pamphilj, the largest park in Trastevere, where I am breathing in the warm dawn and feeling the presence of such profound history wash over me in waves. Waves that come crashing down on a girl, a yoga mat, and a backpack of books wrapped in twelve yards of duct tape.