Italian Time

There are more clerics on this flight than civilians! Judy and I are astonished that the majority of early morning commuters between Dublin and Rome are wearing backward white collars. If my father the atheist were alive today, he’d turn over in his grave!

My high school buddy and I have enjoyed two full weeks touring all corners of Ireland and searching out our similar but parallel roots at the Ulster/American Museum in Northern Ireland.  We’ve tucked away our Irish souveniers and are looking forward to the next adventure’s base camp - an apartment in the mountains of Umbria owned and loaned to us by Judy’s co-worker in Los Angeles.

Outfitted with carry-on luggage and packaged  snacks, we arrive in Rome at 9:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001.

The SUV we rent takes time to master as do the maps showing us the way to Judy’s friend’s apartment. It will be our home away from home for the final week of this Irish/Italian vacation. By the time we see Rome’s airport in our rearview mirror, it’s nearly 11:00 a.m. local time. 

We are driving through a valley of vineyards that has a patent on gold light. Walled cities on gentle hills glow and small farms stream by our windows awash with artist's most prized colors. We’re feeling free and autonomous after the regimented Trafalgar bus tour of Ireland. Windows open, the air is whipping through our hair back-lit by the slant of the late afternoon sun. I snap a photo of Judy at the wheel. She is glowing golden too. We sing ‘60‘s hits and camp songs winding our way up the mountain pass.

We gas-up and buy Italian versions of fast foods which are delicious slow food offerings in neat packages. The store is over-the-road above the gas station on the median strip. You can reach it by elevator from either side of the highway. All is different from home. It’s about 3:00 p.m. local time as we pull onto the road once more.

By the time the wall enclosing Norcia is before us, it is nearly dusk. Lost, we park and head into a Pharmácia just outside the wall for directions - our first opportunity to try the Franklin electronic translator. As soon as we walk in, however, the two women behind the counter blanch white and cry out, “Momentiti, Momentiti!”  We think it an odd response - considering we haven’t even tried to ask for directions yet.

One of them goes through a back doorway and returns with a priest. It turns out that Father Joseph is the only English speaker in the town. He tells us two airplanes have just crashed into the World Trade Center Towers in southern Manhattan and that thousands of people have died. I feel my knees buckle and am nauseous and shaky. Judy is equally pale. The other gal behind the counter brings us two glasses of water.

Father Joseph is a Benedictine monk from Calcutta. His English is wobbly but understandable. He calms and soothes us, reassuring us that there is nothing to be done  tonight but to find our lodging. He offers to walk alongside our car to the address inside the city. It is close. I'm oddly settled by the sight of his head shaking side to side as he speaks in his halting and heavily accented English as he walks next to my window. There is no other car traffic on the narrow street.

Mrs. Lina Rotondia, the land lady, greets us like a worried mother hen. She has been listening to the radio and also knows the terrible news in New York, and now, too, at the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. Father Joseph has a conversation with Lina. He is surprisingly fluent in his third language. They know one another from the huge and only church on the square, which, we learn, is the center of this tight-knit community. He tells us the Golden Gate Bridge and other iconic sites at home are on high alert.

I’m viscerally relieved when I reach my husband by phone from Lina and Giovanni Rotondia’s apartment and find out that our New York family is OK, but terribly shaken - as our nephew’s building was across the street - two buildings down from the towers. He saw the second plane hit and the ensuing jumpers and implosions.

Wrung out and travel fatigued, Judy and I try to sleep after agreeing to meet Father Joseph at the church entrance next morning at 11:00. 

When she was about six, my older daughter described a sensation in her body as “hunga-junga” - that all wiggly - can’t find a place for yourself feeling. Judy calls it “jervous and nittery.” Both of us have this feeling tonight. I take the smaller of the two bedrooms. At some point during the night, we are both up. We step out onto her bedroom balcony with a bottle of wine and two glasses to sit at the small table there. It’s so quiet, but for bird peeps, whuthering wind and soft snoring - perhaps from Mr. Rotondia downstairs. 

Trying to suck sleep from the chianti bottle, I last look at my travel clock at 4:30 a.m. By 9 the sun is so bright it rouses me from dreamless sleep. Street sounds, bird sounds, and coffee wafting on the continuously blowing dry wind orient me to this new place. Judy is not yet up. The bath is just across from her room. Quietly, I gather my toiletries and clothes.

I love the sound Italian doors make when they latch so firmly into place. These carpenters KNOW how to fit doors properly. There’s no play; no after-shake. Once the heavy wood latches into its frame with a definitive click, it is plumly, cozily secure. I love the latching sound and that the solidity of tree trunks fashioned into doors seals out all exterior sounds.

Immersed for a quick soak in a warm bath, I try not to imagine people leaping from falling buildings. We are lucky not to have access to televised repetitions of the horror. I realize we are outside the cultural and retinal imprint of those scenes - emblazoned forever in our countrymen’s memories. For us, there is an urgency to get home, but unknown schedules and frustration meet us with every effort to make our way back to the United States. We feel out of the loop and out of the experience everyone whom we love is going through. Perhaps we are the lucky ones, despite being stymied. There will be no flights home for several days. We keep to the original plan - hoping we will be able to fly September 19.

Every day, Father Joseph takes us to a different religious sight in Umbria. On Friday, September 14, there is a moment of silence world-wide. It is noon at the Basillica of Saint Francis of Assisi. We are here with Father Joseph and hundreds of other people. All is silent except for the slap of good Italian leather soles against worn undulating marble and the incessant Latin prayer being intoned from the pulpit. The Franciscan Priest never does honor the silence. Father Joseph eases our hunga junga angst in the evenings with Grappa. His small apartment is spare and neat and is watched over by an enormous crucifix above the door. He has quite the supply of Grappa made from truffles, and plies us with it generously. It's a little like viscous vodka - sweeter and tastier. He also imbibes and confides in us how much he misses his family. He wants us to adopt him; I am to be his mommy and Judy his daddy. He is in his thirties. Judy is disgusted and cannot wait to get away from him! I am bemused and slightly sorry for him so far from home - as are we. 

Finally, today we fly! We have seen Italy under duress. I hope to return to appreciate and savor the beauty, the people, the food, and the Grappa. 

At LAX, I kiss my hand and bend to touch terra-not-so-firma. I Love L.A.