Open Doors Review May 2021

OPEN DOORS REVIEW

May 2021 N. 2

An Art & Literary Magazine in Italy

The Open Doors Review An Art & Literary Magazine in Italy in English & Italian

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Editor

Lauren T. Mouat

Cover Image “Tivoli Door” by Robin Mouat

© Open Doors Review, May 2021 Issue.

All authors and artists retain the copyrights to their respective works.

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OpEn Doors MAnifEsto Agli occhi di uno straniero, L’Italia viene spesso vista come il paese della pizza, della Mafia e della Dolce Vita.

In popular culture, Italy is frequently seen as two things: a soap opera Mafiosi video game or a picture postcard tourist dreamland of the Dolce Vita.

È l’ora di condividere storie ed immagini per scardinare questa stereotipo e dare un’occhiata più nel profondo. Mettiamo in risalto la creatività e l’abilità delle persone del “Bel Paese.” Adesso. Oggi.

L’obiettivo non è di creare qualcosa che sia incentrato solo sull’Italia. Si tratta di diffondere una raccolta di scritture ed arti visive cresciuta in questo posto.

Let’s add more stories to this picture.

Let’s look under the surface. Let’s highlight the creativity and skill of the people in Italy. Now. Today. The point is not to produce something Italy-focused. It’s to create a collection of writing and visual art that is Italy-grown.

Who do you love? What do you believe in? What do you know? These days, truth is under attack. Reality means different things to different people. While language is increasingly black and white the issues, like our hearts, never are. Art lives in these spaces between.

Chi ami? In che cosa credi? Cosa è reale?

In questi giorni la verità è in pericolo.

La realtà viene percepita in maniera diverse a seconda del punto di vista delle persone. Mentre il linguaggio è sempre più categorico, i problemi (come i nostri cuori) non lo sono. L’arte fiorisce proprio in questo terreno di mezzo.

We are cracking open, evolving, breaking up with the old world, breaking down the new. That’s where art grows.

That’s where conversations happen.

There, in that space, we find our humanity when we share and connect with each other.

Ci stiamo aprendo. Ci stiamo evolvendo. Stiamo rompendo con il vecchio mondo e mettendo il nuovo alla prova. È qui che avvengono le conversazioni. È così che cresce l’arte. Qui, in questo spazio, condividendo e connettendoci l’uno con l’altro, ritroviamo la nostra umanità.

I challenge you to step into that place and create. Come on in, the doors are open.

Non ti resta che entrare in questo luogo e iniziare a creare. Le porte sono aperte.

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ContEnts 3 Open Doors Manifesto 6 Letter From the Editor 8 Interview with Author & Guest Judge Heather Jane Johnson 15 Art by Alanah Edwards “Piazzale Michelangelo” Fronte Retro 17 Poetry by Roan Shea We Come Home 18 Poetry by Curry Patricia Anton Mother Tongue 21 Art by Aleeshia Maria Tozzi Totò, “L’Uomo Selvaggio” 22 Poetry by Ludovica Cosentini Il Fiato di Dio

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24 Art by Juliana Bleh Spring Street Café, Rome

60 Poetry & Art by Irene Palermo Deracinated

25 Fiction by Sarah Barnett-Benelli A Kindness

63 Essay by Scott & Trang Crider Silence on the Alban Ridge

29 Fiction by Giovanni Vergineo Ogni Desiderio

66 Essay by Antonia Caserta There is a Place

34 Interview with “Missive Selvatiche” Co-founder & Artist Pamela Maddaleno

67 Art by Marion Younan Bottega Bici di Firenze 70 Interview with Videographer Kylie Flavell

44 Fiction by Flavia Brunetti More Than Fire

79 Parallel Text: Let me Recount to you My Story Piera Salvataci Misciatteli Bernardini Translation: Ellen Craig

45 Art by Vinita Salomé Nostalgia 55 Fiction by Andrea Tani Giuseppina della Tempesta

88 Author Bios 93 Submission Guidelines

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LEttEr From thE Editor Lauren T. Mouat

It has been interesting to see the spontaneous connections that emerged between the work submitted to Open Doors over the last few months. Perhaps it’s no wonder that the coming of spring, after a winter of lockdowns, has inspired work that touches on themes of new growth, new life, new perspectives. I’m delighted that there are more Italian pieces in this issue and while I wish I could provide translations for all of these pieces (from English to Italian and Italian to English), for now, the mix of languages feels like an authentic reflection of what Open Doors is: a platform for voices with a connection to Italy.

Nature, her beauty, resiliance and also fragility is the subject of “Mother Tongue”

by Curry Patricia Anton and “Deracinated” by Irene Palermo. “Silence on the Alban Ridge” by Scott & Trang Crider and “There is a Place” by Antonia Caserta dwell on quiet moments in quiet places. The short story “More than Fire” by Flavia Brunetti takes on elemental themes in a fantastical context, and what place is more fantastical and elemental than Rome itself?

Italy is often a theme as in “A Kindness” by Sara Barnett-Benelli, “Ogni Desiderio” by Giovanni Vergineo, “Bottega Bici di Firenze” by Marion Younan, and the detailed embroidery of “Piazzale Michelangelo” by Alanah Edwards. These last two visual pieces remind me that, after a year of very limited travel, we are all focused a little more on the details of the places that inspire us.

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I wonder too, if our collective recent confinement is behind the focus on moments of reflection and solitude as in “Spring Street Café” by Juliana Bleh, “Totò, L’Uomo Selvaggio” by Aleeshia Maria Tozzi and the magical, almost surreal quality of nostalgia and memory of “We Come home” by Roan Shea and “Nostalgia” by Vinita Salomé.

The ways we grieve are subjects in the moving peom Il Fiato di Dio by Ludovica Cosentini and the surreal story “Giuseppina della Tempesta” by Andrea Tani.

I am also thrilled to include parallel text from the incredible memoir written in Italian by Piera Salvateci Misciatteli Bernardini, translated by her daughter in law Ellen Craig into English.

For the May issue, I interviewed author and guest judge Heather Jane Johnson, videographer Kylie Flavell and Pamela Maddaleno, artist and co-founder of a new act of artisitic resistance in Italy called “Missive Selvatiche.” While I was drawn to each of these creators for different reasons, the topics that emerged in our conversation all centered around a similar theme: taking the leap. Whether it’s to live in a foreign country or embrace the vulnerability of putting our art and ourselves out in the world, they each found self-empowerment, innovation and creativity to be the best reaction to the difficulties they faced.

It’s becoming clear that we are all “artists”, “creators” and “influencers,” (in the old fashioned sense of the term as one who affects others) and that the very definition of those terms are changing. Traditional methods of gaining recognition with a big publisher, a TV show or government funding are no longer the only option to create meaningful work and to connect to audiences of like minded people. We are self publishing, self producing, and helping each other through crowd funding. It can be a scary, unscripted, unpaved road but there is also hope, inclusivity, and empowerment in moments like this. We are finding our communities as we find our voices.

-LTM

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Interview

with Author and Guest Judge

Heather Jane Johnson

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Heather Jane Johnson is the guest judge for the May 2021 issue of the Open Doors Review and the author of 1500, a young adult historical novel set in Venice. After many years working as a book buyer in Boston, Heather moved to Italy where she works as a teacher and writer.

My conversation with Heather covered her decision to move to Italy, the research process of writing a book set in Venice, how cities can come into our lives like lovers and what she learned while self publishing her novel. Below is our edited conversation.

v 1500: Children are disappearing in Venice. Rumor has it a demon is to blame, but no one knows for sure. Beatrice de la Pietà, an orphan on the brink of a new life, cannot be bothered with such stories though. Meeting the expectations of her new employer, Cassandra Fedele, is all she cares about, and she’ll do anything to hold onto her new apprenticeship as a cook and maid in her household.But matters only become more complicated when Bea meets a girl obsessed with stopping the demon she was so determined to forget. Prompted by her new friend’s dedication to justice, and bolstered by the humanistic education she never bargained on receiving, Beatrice reluctantly dives into the danger and daring that flow through the heart of her watery world.

Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts to hear our full conversation when it comes out. Interview and podcast conducted by Lauren Mouat.

Moving to Italy Lauren: I wanted to start by just going back to the beginning of: “Who is Heather Johnson?” When did you move to Italy, where were you before and where do you live now in Italy?

Heather: I moved to Rome in August of 2011 but I had come to Italy at the beginning of 2010 for three months as an experiment to see how I liked it and also to have a complete break from my life in the US. I felt really lost, I didn’t have any idea of what direction I wanted to head in … I was just kind of treading water, almost killing time. Because of certain events that I had had in my life, I had a lot of regret about lost time and so it caused me a lot of discomfort, the sensation that I was yet again wasting time. So in those three months in Italy I totally fell in love then went back to the US but I wasn’t happy to be back there even though the circumstances I was living in weren’t bad … I felt like my life was elsewhere.

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Lauren: You felt unfulfilled?

Heather: Yeah. And I was also looking for work and for the first time in my life I was having problems finding work. What I saw was that the fact that I had spent three months in Italy as an adult was a reason for people to eliminate me as a job candidate for jobs I was super qualified for because Americans saw that decision to spend time in Italy, almost as a form of irresponsibility - that you just cut and leave and go traipsing around a European country for three months. Kind of like: How dare you?

Lauren: Wow, like you’re not trustworthy. It’s like Italy laid claim to you and said you are not even going to get a job in the US until you get back here!

Heather: Yes, exactly. That was the sense I was getting. So that’s the background of why I made the leap and then I ended up being in Rome close to four years which I loved at first and then something shifted about two years in. I started to feel that the city was deteriorating, something felt off. I also had a dynamic at work that was very stressful at the school I was working at. So when I came to Umbria, specifically to Foligno, just for a week to watch a friend’s cat, I felt really intrigued and drawn to try living in a new place in Italy that was close enough to still maintain my work in Rome. So that’s when I made the leap to Foligno, directly in the center of Italy.

Writing a Book about Venice Lauren: So along the way you decided to write a book that became “1500” that was published in 2020. This is a book set in Italy, in Renaissance Venice so it seems safe to say that probably you would not have written a book quite like this if you had stayed in the US. My question is: Do you think you would have written a book at all if you stayed in the US? Heather: I certainly never would have written the kind of historical and deeply researched book set in Italy if had I not come to live here. Without a doubt. Even just from a practical point of view of having enough Italian to know the search terms of what I was looking for. And to look at all the Italian versions of the Wikipedia pages for example which are often much more detailed about particular things because, well, they know more about their history and their country. Then there have been books written about some of the characters in my book that were completely written in Italian and never translated into English. So, I think that even just from a language perspective I had tremendously more material to work with.

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Lauren: And you were going to Venice and actually reading and handling original texts from the Renaissance as part of your research.

Heather: Exactly. That was one of the most exciting experiences of my life to handle wills from over 500 years ago.

But also, to have the capacity to chat with the archivist. If I hadn’t felt comfortable with my Italian I never could have just randomly had that impulse to pop in my head to say, “I should get that guy’s opinion about this particular thing.” It was just really emotionally enriching to be able to interact with Venetians in Italian because then they could fully and freely express themselves and there wasn’t this language barrier. I cannot express how many doors that opened for me and rabbit holes that I just never would have been able to go down. Venice is an incredibly magical place. It’s the only place I’ve ever been that was even better than my imagination.

Lauren: I’m thinking about the experience of reading your book and one of the things that I loved about it is that you really feel you’re there. As a reader, you are immersed in Venice in a way that I don’t think would have come across if you hadn’t personally gone there over and over again to be in Venice and to talk to the people living there.

Heather: After I had tackled the main part of the research that I was trying to uncover, I purposely would plant myself in a particular Campo (piazza in Italian) for an hour with a notebook and just observe, which was quite Zen-like. It was almost like a form of meditation because you have to be completely in the moment.

I could see: this is how this city operates on a daily basis for the people who live here and that regardless of it becoming almost a sort of Disneyland or a theme park with the destruction that Airbnb causes or that over-tourism causes… hopefully that part of Venice will survive because for some people it is their home.

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Lauren: Yes, which you can completely forget if you’re just visiting for a day - you’re going to miss so much about what is the real Venice, what is the essence and soul of this place.

Love Affair with a City Heather: I think one of the really fascinating aspects of moving to a foreign country and staying there for a decent period of time and then moving to different places within that foreign country and spending a lot of time in particular cities just because you like them, is that cities become like lovers. And when you live in a city versus just visiting a city, you get to know that city like a lover and you either fall more deeply in love with it or you start to have a love hate relationship with it as you do with many lovers. You probably move there because you idealized it in some way or maybe for work or to escape but often there’s sort of some sort of idealization and then you have to go through the process of having those ideals shattered and learning all of the negative sides of that particular place.

Lauren: And you see all the little annoying qualities that he can’t live with on a daily basis but they were so great on your romantic vacation!

Heather: Yes yes yes. And how also- you know that phrase that people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime - I think places are like that too. Some place might be actually the perfect place for you for a particular amount of time but then you kind of outgrow it.

I’m starting to feel with the pandemic -and I think a lot of people are doing this- the pandemic is forcing you to look at the defects, the flaws of your job 12

of your relationships, of the place you live in a starker light because now you can’t escape or now you’re doing your work at home or now your kids are at home all the time or you are stuck in your city. So the question is: Do you really live where you live or do you actually live between two different places? Do you actually have one foot in one place and one foot in another?

Lauren: You know I lived in Rome for nine years, basically most of my 20s, and that was absolutely perfect. Rome is beautiful but a little bit messy and crazy and disorganized and that was completely me. I was looking for what I wanted to do with my life and what I wanted to do in Italy and it was the perfect place for that adventure. Now I’ve moved to Tuscany which is much more laid back and stable and that’s exactly how I feel in my life right now so that’s right pretty spot on, I would say.

Heather: And then you may go back to a particular city but for completely different reasons. Maybe you’re in a new part of your life and there was part of that city that was inaccessible to you in your previous incarnation but now that you’ve evolved two, three, four levels up (hopefully up ‘cause you can devolve down as well) so hopefully you’ve evolved and then you discover this layer of the city that was almost invisible to you before ... like platform nine and three quarters.

On Self Publishing Lauren: I wanted to ask you about your decision to self publish your book - why you decided to do that and what was the process like.

Heather: OK so, my journey to self publishing is a bit of a strange one in that I actually really did not want to self publish my book. I wanted the stamp of approval from an established publisher even though, I have to say, as a book buyer I saw an incredible amount of crap come across my desk and so one of the things you learn is that just because your book is officially published by a particular company doesn’t mean it’s good.

Lauren: So you had seen first hand that the stamp of approval of going with traditional publishing was not really an indication of a book’s merit or success.

Heather: Not necessarily.

Heather spent one year querying literary agents and publishers in the U.S. before finding a small press in Italy that was interested in publishing her book. She jumped at the opportunity but as she got further into the details of their agreement, 13

she began to realize she would be selling herself short if she continued with them and decided to publish the book (in English) through Ingram’s self publishing platform. We go into the details of this in the audio podcast version of the conversation.

Lauren: Are you happy with your decion to self publish?

Heather: I would actually never encourage anyone to just automatically self publish.

I think if you’re going to take all the time and energy to write a book - which is a huge accomplishment, massive - query, query, query. Get to know what’s hot, what’s out there, what people want, what people are looking for, because maybe you wrote exactly what the market is asking for and so heaven forbid you self publish that!

Lauren: What would be your advice to someone looking to get their book published?

Heather: So I think what I would say to anybody considering self publishing is: what are your goals? Do you want to just merely make this book available to your friends and family (and use your own platforms and connections to promote it) and you’ll be happy just to have it out there and have it in the possession of the people you love and care about…..Or do you want the possibility of mass recognition or even a niche recognition? Let’s say you’ve written a mystery novel - do you want the small possibility that your mystery novel could be big with people who love mystery novels? If that’s something that you’re really dead set on, I think you need to dedicate some time to trying to get it published in the traditional way. Also because I think that you never know, you could get lucky.

I almost think it’s like a rite of passage. That you’d be cheating yourself not to try. It’s kind of like: do you believe in your book or not? Because if you really believe in your book you will try to get it traditionally published, you’ll go through that rejection, you’ll go through the hours of sifting through hundreds of agents to see if they’re open to your kind of book, you’ll write those letters, you’ll watch those YouTube videos. Are you willing to do that? Because I think if you are, then you’re really committed to what you created. If in the end you end up self publishing anyway, at least ultimately you know you really believe in it and it doesn’t matter what happens really just that you believe in it is all that’s really important.

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PiAzzAlE Michelangelo FrontE/REtro Alanah Edwards Black thread embroidery

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we come home Roan Shea

Watch out there’s a slippery patch just to the right at the bottom of the stairs.

Directly at the bottom.

We didn’t know when we had it installed there would be so many flailing limbs and bruises, or teenagers stomping up the stairs.

And we didn’t know these creaky stairs, these deafening creaks would be so important to us.

We have an understanding in this house don’t we.

I hear you, you hear me.

The more we walk them, the more they creak under us­— the more they like to creak about us.

If you’re upstairs, listen for it— we’ve come home again.

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MothEr TonGuE Curry Patricia Anton

tell me of your soil composition the flows of your sacred waters and the geology of your fertile body and I will tell you about the seasons of my heart and where the map of my wrinkles and scars, each a story, have led and where the kudu were last spotted and whether the lion ate last night she sounded hungry tell me of blood, yours and mine and the course of this red swelling river carrying water from the hilltops where chai grows and the forest is moist and loamy whisper to me the texture of your dreams and I will relive mine one by one as I trace the map of the stars on the palm of your sky through the wide braid of liquid light that glides overhead each night 18

this season everybody eats, and hides, we agree creatures unparallelled on earth become shadows of themselves amongst verdant leaves elephants tiptoe by leopards laze unnoticed in the shady canopy and birds arrive from elsewhere as we do— we migrate to where the grass is greener to where freedom and wide open wildness reign, to where we nourish and birth our children—in grass, in water, in rain— we come home to You tell me, Mother, of the ways we are written in your rock stacks of time patterned sheaths once thought to be flat in upheaval exuding secrets of our ancient stories marriages, mergings, alchemy— hidden in your substrata chemistry tell me the story of your lilac breasted roller your myriad sunbirds and why this love for protea feels primordial and how the fiery throated nightjar and the squeaky cisticola have become the soundtrack of our lives and the seeds of your sacred baobab our medicine nature speaks

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louder here in the movement of sky fierce cracks of lightning that dance the night awake in the guttural rib ripping pulse of the lion’s roar that shakes the earth and in the great raspy call of some creature, somewhere, in passion I am undone by your simbiosis by your aquatic life and terrestrial death by this net of light and shadow you weave with your leathery fingertips and delicate threads of birdsong and river reeds “up to my knees in earth,” she said, remembering all wild ways out on display against the depth and density of sky like generous ocean waves of clouds moving us graciously through this spacious mystery the truth is— this love runs in red rivers and fuels this red earth in it’s blazing abundance of wildly decorative Life, in all her many forms She calls to us incessantly beckons unceasingly shall we listen? and do we truly hear? will we allow her the gracious space the silence the grace

to enter?

to come home to us?

She is speaking our soul’s own language in its own

mother tongue

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Totò, known as “The Wild Man” / “L’Uomo Selvaggio” Aleeshia Maria Tozzi Photo / Madonie Mountains, Sicily 21

Il fiAto di dio Ludovica Cosentini

Nel mio pensiero più intimo c’è da sempre imprigionato un piccolo vano.

Non c’è luce, non c’è porta ma l’insopprimibile eco dei canti del mio passato.

Ci sono io, nell’oscura profondità da cui non riesco più a risalire… e ci sei tu.

Appoggi i miei palmi stanchi alla tua bocca variopinta e sussurri alla mia buccia priva di stelle che la colpa non è mai stata mia.

Da bambina l’unica cosa che volevo fare era rincorrere il vento, per conoscere il segreto che avrebbe salvato la mia mamma.

Ho provato: a volte correndo così forte sono riuscita anche a percepire tra le mie ossa il fiato di Dio. 22

Lo stesso Dio che preferì punire Erode che ascoltare i miei gemiti.

Ma è stato inutile, ogni volta che giungevo in un posto nuovo il vento mi riportava in quella stanza d’ospedale.

Da quel momento ho compreso che la vera croce non era quella che Gesù trascinò fino al Golgota, ma gli occhi stanchi con cui la mia mamma mi dava la Buonanotte.

Parlo a te.

A te, che non conosci compassione.

A te, che te ne lavasti le mani come il tuo nemico Pilato.

Sono alla tua porta, e non riconosco più il valore delle parole.

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Spring Street Café, Rome Juliana Bleh Paint on Canvas 24

A kindnEss Fiction Sarah Barnett-Benelli

I was travelling with a dear friend in England. We were heading north to attend the funeral of a mutual acquaintance but had missed a connection and found ourselves stranded for the night in one of those dismal little ex-industrial towns —I don’t remember its name. We booked into the only hotel—a run-down affair by the station that smelled of boiled cabbage and air freshener. The cook had gone home so we set out through the dreary, damp streets to try and find something to eat.

My friend, I should add, is Italian and a sensitive man. In his own country he is a well-known food writer. But he is a reasonable man and he understands that on a wet Monday night, in a very small town, in a depressed part of England he is not likely to find the sort of food he is accustomed to.

We passed a plethora of fish and chip shops. We saw a Chinese restaurant with grubby white table cloths. There was a Prince of Burgers and a Chicks-U-Like that we thought at first was a brothel but the smell of rancid cooking fat gave it away. A pub offered chips in a basket—but not on Mondays. We were beginning to despair. Then we went around the corner and we saw it—Italia Autentica! My friend—I should have said that he has had a very difficult time and is recovering from a breakdown—my friend and I were drawn towards this restaurant like pins toward a magnet. Italia Autentica!

Now my friend chuckled a bit. He knows that the concept of. Italia Autentica! is an oxymoron. He knows that in reality there is no such country as Italia. Italia is actually a collection of countries, all with their 25

own identities, their own traditions, man! So we look in the restaurant wintheir own dialect. Their own food. And dow and my friend’s eyes fill with tears. within those countries there are towns Because standing in that window is a and cities and little villages, all of which dresser on which there is a selection of are still, metaphorically speaking, at war Italian wines. And what my friend has with one another. An Italian will never seen, in the centre of the row, is a botsay he comes from Italy. He will tell you tle from Carmignano. Carmignano! This he is from Calabria, from Sicilia, from is the area of Toscana from which my Toscana. He will tell you the name of his friend’s family hails! Did I mention that town or his city or his village. A Sienese my friend has recently lost his mother will not be impressed if you tell him your and has been suffering from a deep melancholia? The tears are flowfamily was from Firening now but we enter the ze. The rivers of blood restaurant, hearts lifted, full that flowed at Monteof hope. The table cloths are perti, in twelve-hunclean and made from a red dred and sixty, have He knows that in checked cotton. Clearly the not been forgotten! reality there is no food will be rustic. And auNeapolitans know that thentic. As authentic as can Naples was a Kingdom such country as be managed in this damp, and in their hearts they “Italia.” alien, English town on a wet know they are not ItalMonday evening. ians at all but Neapolitans.

My friend calls out: “Buona Sera!” He is looking forward My friend, a food writer, as I said, knows this. He also knows so much to an authentic conversation, that if the food of these various regions with an authentic person from one of the is served elsewhere it will not be au- countries collectively known as Italia. He thentic at all. My friend knows that one doesn’t even mind which region! If the cannot, truly, eat pesto outside of Geno- person speaks in a dialect my friend can va because the land around Genova has cope. He has travelled widely throughthe perfect conditions on which to grow out the collection of countries that the basil. Likewise Carpaccio di cinghiale, a politicians call Italia. delicacy of Siena, must be made from the The waiter steps forward, a wary look in wild boar that roam the woods and the his eye. My friend is tall. His dark wavy countryside nearby. Of course the boar hair was styled in Firenze. His coat, should have been shot by the restauratossed nonchalantly around his shoulteur, the meat prepared by the man’s ders, was bought on the Via Tornabuoni. wife. How else could it be authentic?

“Good evening.” It quickly becomes But my friend understands that not evclear that the waiter does not speak Italerybody knows this. He is a reasonable ian. Of any sort. I can see that my friend 26

is disappointed but not yet disheartened. back. “The chef says they are called The chef, he is sure, will come and greet paninis.” him and they can speak in Italian — any “They are not,” my friend insists. I know variety of Italian — my friend will not my friend is right. mind. And they can talk about food and toast each other with wine from Carmi- “Is the chef Italian?” gnano and speak of how the vines have “He is not,” said the waiter. My friend, as been grown there since Roman times I said, has had a breakdown. and were given special His shoulders slump. I restatus by Cosimo III de I can see that member the melancholia.

Medici. Even the En- my friend is “Well,” I say cheerfully, “We glish Queen Anne, my disappointed are not going to eat panini friend will remark, used but not yet anyway. Let’s start with brusto import wine from chetta – that is spelled corCarmignano! They will disheartened. The rectly at least. Then we will speak too of the olives chef, he is sure, will have some pasta.” The menu on the higher terraces, recall the leaves shim- come and greet him is limited. There is Tagliatelli alla Bolognese or Lasagne, or mering silver in the and they can speak Cannelloni, but the last two sunshine. The olives, as Italian--any variety are off this evening. So we orthe chef will know, are der the Tagliatelli alla Bologbeing harvested right of Italian. nese, even though we are not now. in Bologna and we know that the meat We are seated, the only people here. The will have been raised on English grass menu is brought. My friend is surprised and there was that problem with the mad to see that ‘paninis’ are on offer. How cows, and the pasta, it is certain, will have can this be? Surely this is a misprint. My been bought in the supermarket. And we friend loves his language – of any variety acknowledge that even in Bologna there – so we call the waiter. I explain, because can be no agreement as to precisely how my friend doesn’t speak English, this dish should be made. We know that every chef in every restaurant and every “It says here paninis! ” housewife in every kitchen will have the “Yes, says the waiter, do you want a paniexact method and they will not be quite ni?” the same.

“No, no. We want a proper meal but my The bruschetta arrives. It does not look friend is upset because the menu says right. It looks like toast, with tomatoes paninis. That is not an Italian word. The on top. But we try it. There is no oil! No singular is panino. The plural is panini. garlic! No basil! On bruschetta! We call The chef will know this.” the waiter again.

“I will ask,” says the waiter.” He comes 27

– only last week! What a coincidence!

He will go there and get it! But first he “We don’t use them. People here don’t brings the Tagliatelli alla Bolognese. My like garlic and they don’t want anything friend looks at it. The pasta is soggy, oily.” We are hungry and so we eat the so soggy. The heap of minced beef that tomatoes on toast. My friend says he adorns it is grey, so grey. It is not possiwouldn’t have minded if they had called ble, as we already know, to truly eat Tait tomatoes on toast. Tomatoes on toast gliatelli alla Bolognese outside Bologna my friend would have accepted. There is but, said my friend, even in England, on an honesty about tomatoes on toast. An a wet Monday night, in authenticity. What upset a small depressing town, my friend was that tomait should have been postoes on toast was called sible to make something bruschetta.

There is an honesty that approximated Tagli“But where is the wine?” atelli alla Bolognese. The about tomatoes The bottle is brought. My waiter comes back. The friend examines the label on toast. An Chinese restaurant has carefully. Everything is as authenticity. closed. They have all gone it should be. The wine is home. If we come again DOCG: Denominazione tomorrow he will have di Origine Controllata e the corkscrew. It is cerGarantita. The bottle has tain! not been opened.

“But the wine from Carmignano?” I “Please uncork it now,” said my friend, wanted to know. “How did it get here?” through me, to the waiter. “It should re- My friend, shoulders slumped, was ally be served at room temperature, but thinking of the vines on the hillside, the still …” The waiter, looking anxious, goes olives shimmering on the higher terracto the kitchen. We can hear the sounds of es. drawers being opened, of cutlery clatter“Three owners ago,” said the waiter, “Giing. More clattering. We hear an expleacomo. Giacomo really was Italian. He tive – I will not sully my reader’s ear by brought the wine with him, from the repeating the word, one generally conarea where he lived. Carmignano.” My sidered to be Anglo-Saxon, although in friend put his head in his hands. The fact the New Shorter Oxford dictionary waiter hesitated; then he gave him the states that its origin is unknown and in bottle. my opinion the word could originate in “Please take it. A gift. Perhaps the Station the Latin verb facere.

Hotel will have a corkscrew.” The waiter The waiter returns. The corkscrew, it looked doubtful even as he said this. But seems, was borrowed by the people at it was a kindness. the Chinese restaurant as they too had a customer who wanted to drink wine “Where is the oil, the garlic?”

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OGni dEsidErio Fiction Giovanni Vergineo

“Ogni tuo desiderio è un ordine”—disse Gennaro, ma non lo pensava. Pensava: “mi hai rotto i coglioni, mo’ ti do una testata brutta cicciona americana budinosa!”

Gennaro faceva la guida turistica a Roma e, come tutti i giorni di giugno, stava impazzendo per il caldo, per la calca, per la polvere, per le domande ridicole dei turisti, per lo scintillio imbecille del sole romano sulla spada dei gladiatori, per le cosce arrossate dal sole delle ragazze mezze nude, per gli africani che vendono braccialettidimmerda, per i bangladesh che vendono selfiestickdimmerda, per gli italiani che vendono SALTALAFILAA! SALTALAFILA AL COLOSSEO! per il sole implacabile che inondava tutto di una luce spietata, totale, illuminando vergognosamente vizi e virtù, e infine per il Colosseo stesso,

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il suo ingresso trionfale nell’anfiteatro seguito da una ventina di persone ancora più sudate di lui. Come guida, Gennaro era bravo ma anche molto rompipalle: anziché fare “due macchiette” come molti colleghi, riempiva i turisti di informaziLa giornata era comunque cominciata oni, “perché io ho passato dieci anni della bene: Gennaro aveva scopato, la mattina, mia vita a studiare archeologia e mo’ non con Sonia, la sua fidanzata. Poi aveva bevposso stare qui a raccontarvi du’ cazzate uto una tazzina di caffè veloce e, inforcata su Nerone, Poppea e Giulio Cesare. No. la bici, aveva raggiunto il Colosseo.

Vi dovete sciroppa’ la roba seria, vi doveArrivato al luogo dove avrebbe incontra- te sciroppa’ tutta le date, vi dovete sorbire to il suo gruppo, Gennaro tre ore di storia romana perera copiosamente sudato e Stringeva qualche ché siete a Roma cristo sanaffannato; ma ci era abituto, e state al Colosseo, quello mano qua e la e ato, e da un pezzo non si vero”— pensava. curava più di come appari- diceva, “Nice to Dopo una breve introduziva ai turisti. meet you, nice to one, Gennaro portò il grupUn attimo dopo essere gi- meet you...” ma po al piano superiore “come unto al meeting point il si arriva ancora più in alto?” non sembrava per coordinatore gli presentò i — “Deve arrampicarsi come suoi clienti; Gennaro sor- niente nice. una scimmia, signora!” — “ rideva a stento, stringeva AHAHAH” grasse risate nel qualche mano qua e la e gruppo. “Quella è la croce diceva “nice to meet you, nice to meet dove è stato crocefisso Gesù?” — imyou...” ma non sembrava per niente nice. barazzo nel gruppo — “no...Gesù non è mai stato a Roma...” — “ah..allora è la E poi cambiava, tutto a un tratto, perché è croce della Vergine Maria?” — “...allora così che si deve fare: raddrizzava la schiguys, vi lascio liberi venti minuti. I bagni ena, tirava in dentro la pancia, gonfiava stanno qua, il bookshop lì, e mi raccoi polmoni e sfoggiava il più bel Sorriso mando non vi perdete e siate puntuali”.

Professionale che avesse a disposizione, per poi cominciare il suo tour. “Welcome Gennaro si allontanò dal gruppo alla to the Colosseum, the most iconic build- ricerca disperata di un angolo dove fuing in Rome!” mare, anche se al Colosseo non si può.

Ma ‘sti cazzi: Gennaro stava la’ tutti i Da quel momento in poi, metteva il pigiorni da anni, non solo da quando facelota automatico: entrato nel personaggio, va la guida ma addirittura da prima, da Gennaro procedeva spedito verso l’Inquando era uno studente di archeologia gresso Gruppi del Colosseo dribblando e faceva il tirocinio proprio al Foro Roacchiappini, abusivi e spaccaossa che afmano, cioè praticamente a un passo dal follano la piazza a tutte le ore, e faceva che muto assisteva a tutto quel casino, insensibile alle formiche umanoidi che lo penetravano, che lo graffiavano, che lo fotografavano, ottuso nella sua eternità e nella sua eterna rovina.

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Colosseo, e quindi aveva una tendenza malsana a considerare tutta l’area archeologica come qualcosa di sua proprietà perché non solo ci era stato infinite volte ma ci aveva pure scavato, quella roba antica l’aveva studiata veramente, l’aveva amata, l’aveva sudata, l’aveva spicconata e spalata e scarriolata. E allora, qualche diritto in più rispetto a un bovino anglosassone doveva pure avercelo. E invece no, pensavano le guardie: “NON SE FUMA! MA GUARDA TE QUESTO AOH SEI PURE ‘NA GUIDA!”.

Allora Gennaro spense la sigaretta e accese il cellulare. Un messaggio da Sonia, che lui immaginava ancora languida tra le lenzuola del suo letto. Cliccò sulla notifica: - SoniAmore: “Sei un PEZZO DI MERDA”.

Panico.

Gennaro lo sapeva bene, di essere un pezzo di merda, ma doveva cercare di capire rapidamente cosa avesse scoperto Sonia ed elaborare una strategia. Immediatamente fu invaso dal terrore di perderla, e la fine della loro storia gli sembrò inevitabile e overwhelming, una catastrofe impossibile da affrontare. Chiamò la ragazza: “Sei un PEZZO DI MERDA!” rispose lei, gridando, e staccò. “Ok, devo restare freddo, ok, adesso la sistemiamo”—pensava, mentre accendeva meccanicamente un’altra sigaretta.

Richiamò Sonia: “E DDAJE E SPENGILA ‘STA SIGARETTA AHO, E QUANNE VOLTE TE LO DOVEMO DI’”—“Si si mi scusi, mi scusi”—“SEI

UNA MERDA! E SMETTILA DI CHIAMARMI”—“MA AMOORE! DAI FRA POCO ARRIVO E *click*”.

“Ok, ok, ok, cosa ho fatto? Vediamo: c’è stata quella che ho limonato al pub irlandese a Campo de’ Fiori, un mesetto fa.

Ma non ci siamo mai più sentiti, è finita lì. E allora l’amica di Paolo...alla festa di laurea... Qualche TESTA DI CAZZO non si sarà fatta i cazzi suoi...MERDA SONO LE 10.10!”.

Gennaro era in ritardo di dieci minuti: corse al meeting point e tutto il suo gruppo era lì che lo aspettava impazientem- “I’m sorry guys...I’m sorry...I am a bit sick and I had to go to the bathroom... and there was a very long line...”—“It’s ok man, when you have to go you have to go!”—aveva risposto il simpatico marine americano che all’improvviso, col suo sorriso da “soldato in vacanza” e il suo fare rilassato era istantaneamente diventato il preferito di Gennaro. La Grassona del gruppo invece non era per niente contenta: dal momento in cui aveva cominciato il tour non aveva smesso un attimo di sudare, e questo la faceva sentire a disagio profondamente dato che sudava molto più degli altri (questo pensiero la faceva ovviamente sudare ancora di più)—infine la situazione era stata aggravata dalla sua scelta di non prendere manco l’ascensore dato che non voleva essere un peso per il gruppo... “Ok guys, I apologize for the delay...scusate per il ritardo... e scendiamo giù va’”. E allora la Grassona, che ora si sentiva in credito: “Can we take the elevator down?—possiamo prendere l’ascensore?”—Gennaro ci pensò un secondo. Erano già in ritardo, 31

Una storia di mesi prima. Nella mente di Gennaro si materializzò il bellissimo lago di Nemi, lo “Specchio di Diana” proprio di fronte al bosco dove in antichità, insonne, si aggirava il Re del Bosco in attesa E allora Gennaro si incamminò, ripetendi essere ammazzato dal prossimo Re; e do automaticamente la sua lezioncina lui ci aveva scopato in quel bosco, durandi archeologia for dummies. Dopo poco te uno scavo archeologico, ci aveva scotacque, prese il cellulare e scrisse un mespato con una studentessa saggio a Sonia. “Piccola, portoghese brutta come dai...che è successo? Mi Giunse all’ingresso la fame che però in quel fai preoccupare. Ti amo”. del Foro e pensò: ma momento ci stava, mentre Poi arrivò all’ascensore, Sonia non ci stava, e forse che solo la Grassona po- perché sto facendo Sonia non c’era mai stata teva prendere (gli “abili” questo, perché mi davvero ed era per quesdevono andare a piedi, è trovo qui, ora, con to che Gennaro pensava la Legge del Colosseo”). mo’ a questa me la scopo, In un attimo scese al pia- una mandria di perché Sonia non c’è ora no terra e guadagnò l’us- turisti, quando solo e non c’è mai stata, non cita; camminava come mi ha mai amato, e inuno zombie immag- pochi anni fa, qui ci vece non era vero, Sonia inandosi l’inferno che lo scavavo? lo amava ma era matta, e aspettava a casa, le lacGennaro era matto pure e rime disperate di Sonia in quel momento la cosa più intelligente e, magari, gli schiaffi che avrebbe dovuto da fare gli sembrò rotolarsi sul prato con prendere. Che cazzo aveva fatto? Con‘sta cessa di portoghese che però pareva trollò di nuovo il cellulare mentre passaamarlo, almeno quella sera, più di Sonia, va dai tornelli d’uscita (pensava: mo’ sta o forse Gennaro aveva solo voglia di farsi chiattona ci resta incastrata) una scopata in questo luogo mitico, e im- SoniaAmore: “SEI UNA MERDA, maginare il Re del Bosco e Diana stessa LO SAI BENISSIMO QUELLO CHE e Caligola guardarlo mentre celebrava la HAI FATTO, PORCO!”—“MA DOVE, sua ierogamia con una studentessa non COSA?” pensò, ma non poteva chieder- particolarmente carina, ma in quel moglielo, perché questo avrebbe solo peggi- mento simile in tutto alla Luna, e quindi orato la situazione. E allora si concentrò a Diana. al massimo, ignorando l’Arco di Costan“Nemi”... Ma come cazzo aveva fatto a scotino e tutte le domande che la Grassona prirlo? “So...what are we seeing next?”— gli continuava a fare, e poi gli vennero in chiese la grassona. “Adesso andiamo al mente quattro lettere, dolci, magiche: N Palatino, signora, e poi al Foro”. “Ok. And E M I. what’s that?”—“Il Palatino è dove Roma Nemi. Ecco cos’era, doveva essere questo. è stata fondata! Il capitolo 1 della storia prendere l’ascensore significava tornare indietro e perdere altri quindici minuti.

“Whatever you desire, ma’am – ogni tuo desiderio è un ordine”.

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Romana. Mentre il Foro...ma non si preoccupi, le dirò di più dopo, quando ci arriviamo!”—“Ok...fine”, ma la smorfia della signora diceva chiaramente: non sono per niente a posto e ti farò una terribile recensione, Italian Asshole che non sei altro. Gennaro si incamminò per il vicus Curiarum, la strada che erroneamente molti chiamano “via sacra”, ignorando che invece la via sacra piega a Nord verso le Carinae, ma lui invece non lo ignorava perché lì, proprio lì, ci aveva scavato, anni prima, durante l’università, quando dei turisti e dei soldi non gliene poteva fregare di meno e pensava solo all’archeologia, a scavare, a documentare, a scopare con le colleghe. Pensava alla foto più fica che aveva su facebook, in cui si vedeva lui, sognante, mentre scavava proprio alle Curiae Veteres, con il Colosseo di Fronte e il tempio di Venere e Roma affianco, ed era felice, cazzo se era felice (e Lara stava per atterrare, stava per arrivare solo per lui proprio quel giorno).

faccia triste.

A un tratto Gennaro fermò il gruppo, si girò e guardò il Colosseo davanti a se’; poi respirò e sentì il sole che gli inondava il viso come aveva inondato il Colosso di Nerone secoli addietro, gustò il calore sulla pelle e percepì tutta l’antichità di Roma schiacciarlo come un insignificante barbaro del XXI secolo, arrivato alla festa con secoli di ritardo ma comunque arrivato. La giovinezza era andata ma nonostante tutto lui era lì a respirare polvere antica, che è più inebriante della cocaina, invece che cocaina in qualche triste ufficio londinese come la maggior parte dei suoi coetanei. And it wasn’t that bad after all, non era poi tanto male. Poi, sorrise alla Grassona:“Ok ma’am, let’s stop for a gelato. Whatever you want”—“Prenditelo pure il gelato, Grassona, ogni tuo desiderio è un ordine perché ti vorrei dare una testata ma in fondo, in fondo in fondo, ti voglio bene” – pensò.

Infine guardò il cellulare.

Giunse all’ingresso del Foro e pensò: ma perché sto facendo questo, perché mi tro- “SoniAmore: DEVI M - O - R - I - R - E”. vo qui, ora, con una mandria di turisti, quando solo pochi anni fa qui ci scavavo?

Come sono passato da quello a questo?

I soldi. Ecco perché. Mi servono i soldi. Sono cresciuto, sono un adulto ora.

Evvabbe’. “Do you mind if I stop real quick for a gelato?—Ti spiace se mi fermo un secondo a prendere il gelato?”— disse la Grassona. E Gennaro: “But...we’re about to enter the Roman Forum...we are actually a bit late... Siamo un po’ in ritardo e stiamo per entrare nel Foro!”—disse, ma pensò: “Ma proprio ora devi magna’ il gelato, trippona che non sei altro?”. “Ok, alright...”—rispose la Grassona con la

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Interview

con Artista

Pamela Maddaleno di Missive Selvatiche Photo: Missive Selvatiche: Margherita Nuti, Alessia Castellano, Pamela Maddaleno, Michelle Davis, Giulia Iaquinta

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“Cosa succede quando un’opera d’arte viene trovata dove non dovrebbe essere ... come una cassetta delle lettere?” Questa è solo una delle domande sollevate dai misteriosi pacchi che sono spuntati nelle cassette postali delle persone in tutta Italia. Da una manciata di artisti che cercano di combattere la depressione del lockdown, Missive Selvatiche è ora alla sua terza edizione che incorpora il lavoro di oltre 150 artisti in 1.500 pacchetti, sempre consegnati a perfetti sconosciuti.

Il progetto è nato come atto di “resistenza artistica” nel novembre 2020, quando i fondatori Pamela Maddaleno e Alessia Castellano stavano affrontando l’ennesimo blocco nazionale e si sentivano frustrati dal fatto che l’arte fosse messa da parte in un momento in cui sentivano che era più necessaria. Una dozzina di artisti hanno contribuito alla prima edizione, avvolgendo con cura tre opere d’arte originali in pacchi di carta marrone insieme al loro manifesto. La seconda edizione di marzo ha visto l’ingresso in squadra dell’artista Margherita Nuti e ora sono di nuovo cresciuti, aiutati da un collettivo fiorentino guidato da Michelle Davis e Giulia Iaquinta.

Pezzi di musica, schizzi, foto, poesie, illustrazioni - hanno chiamato queste missive “Selvatiche” in riferimento al fatto che gli artisti coinvolti erano liberi di creare come volevano. Senza sostenitori o finanziamenti, questo è un progetto interamente nato dagli artisti stessi che sperano che i loro “doni” d’arte ispirino la conversazione e la riflessione, ispirando gli altri a mettersi in gioco, a creare e a condividere, mostrandoci che anche a distanza, l’arte ci mantiene sempre*. *Adattato dal articolo originale pubblicato in inglese da Lauren Mouat in The Florentine, May 2021

Ho parlato con Pamela Maddaleno di com’è stato creato il progetto di Missive Selvatiche e come si stia sviluppando. Abbiamo parlato della sua esperienza come artista, le opportunità create dal Self Publishing e la forza del “fare qualcosa” anziché ”rimanere fermi nell’incertezza. La seguente intervista è stata editata ed adattata per la rivista.

Alscolta l’intervista intera su Apple Podcasts o su opendoorsreview.com. Intervista e podcast realizzati da Lauren Mouat.

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Lauren: Congratulazioni per il successo di questo progetto! Sono stata attirata da “Missive Selvatiche” perché è nato contemporaneamente alla rivista letteraria Open Doors, ed è anche un metodo per unire le persone attraverso l’arte.

A che punto siete con la terza edizione? State ancora preparando qualche pacco o sono già tutti in viaggio?

Pamela: Allora, nella terza edizione ci sono 1.500 pacchi, quindi molti considerando che sono tutti fatti a mano. È un po’ più evoluta questa terza edizione, nel senso che abbiamo fatto delle cose che prima non avevamo mai osato fare. Per esempio, siamo andati a portare 25 “Missive Selvatiche” in una scuola elementare, perché siamo state contattate da una maestra di una classe di seconda elementare in cui c’era un bambino che aveva ricevuto nella propria cassetta della posta una “Missiva Selvatica” e si è presentato in classe con questo pacchettino. La maestra ci conosceva, ne ha parlato agli alunni e ci ha scritto dicendo che tutti i bambini sognavano di ricevere nella cassetta della posta una “Missiva Selvatica”. E quindi abbiamo fatto un’eccezione e siamo andate noi personalmente (tipo Babbo Natale) dai bambini e ci siamo rese conto che anche quella è un’operazione importante.

Anche i bambini sono rimasti molto colpiti. Abbiamo parlato con dei bambini di 7 anni, abbiamo visto che per loro l’arte è il pittore. Se tu chiedi a un bambino: “Che cos’è l’arte?” per loro, l’arte è la pittura. E invece dentro le nostre Missive si trovano molte altre cose - ovviamente forme un po’ più classiche come illustrazioni, fotografie - ma anche delle cose che nei pacchetti in genere non si trovano come musica, danza, teatro, cinema quindi poter spiegare anche questo ai bambini è stato bello.

Adesso probabilmente consegneremo i pacchetti a una biblioteca così, chi si siede a studiare, può trovare una Missiva sul proprio tavolo; quindi ci stiamo un po’ evolvendo anche nella distribuzione, senza mai abbandonare la cassetta della posta, che è proprio il nostro mezzo.

Lauren: Come vi è venuta in mente questa idea a te e Alessia? Che tipo di conversazione avete avuto, e nel film immaginario di questo momento, cosa posso vedere?

Pamela: Vedi due persone, un po’ depresse all’epoca (adesso stiamo meglio perché fare delle cose fa sempre stare meglio), proprio all’indomani delle restrizioni che per la seconda volta hanno toccato l’arte, la cultura e lo spettacolo. Allora a fine ottobre, quando per la seconda volta sono stati chiusi i musei e non sapevamo assolutamente che cosa sarebbe successo, la prima cosa che ci siamo dette è stata: “Facciamo qualcosa per noi, per non fermarci e facciamo qualcosa anche per gli altri.”

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Quando si fa cultura e arte, gli altri vengono identificati come “il pubblico” e anche questa categoria, gli spettatori e i fruitori dell’arte sono in grande sofferenza perché soprattutto nel momento in cui siamo tristi, preoccupati, angosciati nel non avere la possibilità di rielaborare questi sentimenti complessi attraverso un film, una mostra, uno spettacolo di danza o di teatro, rende (secondo noi) la situazione ancora più difficile.

Ed è per questo che dichiarare così velocemente l’arte tra le attività non essenziali è uno sbaglio da parte della politica. A quel punto ci siamo dette: “Facciamo qualcosa!” Quindi anche se ci avessero chiuso in casa, avremmo avuto tutti i giorni un tragitto autorizzato al nostro posto di lavoro o al supermercato e, in quel cammino lì, avremmo trovato delle cassette della posta e avremmo messo dentro le nostre cose.

Per noi l’idea fondamentale di “Missive Selvatiche” è quella di arrivare agli sconosciuti. Diciamo che ci siamo anche rese conto che l’arte e la cultura sono dei circoli un po’ chiusi, e quindi questa era l’occasione in cui volevamo fare un regalo anche a chi queste cose, forse, non le conosce. Questo è il momento giusto in cui magari ci si può interessare a una fotografia, a un’illustrazione, perché ricevere un regalo inaspettato a casa può provocare delle emozioni.

Lauren: Qualsiasi tipo di risposta, come con quel bambino che era stato colpito dal contenuto di arte del pacchetto, che poi ne ha parlato con la maestra e con tutta la 37

classe e così tutti quei bambini ne stanno parlando con le loro famiglie.

Pamela: Esatto.

Lauren: In questo momento, possiamo trovare qualsiasi cosa online, ma troviamo solo le cose che cerchiamo. L’arte non cresce così. L’arte cresce da cose “a caso” che, messe insieme, creano una cosa nuova, bella, interessante - qualcosa oltre. Anche l’arte del progetto “Missive Selvatiche” sta andando in posti a caso, anche quello è un atto creativo oltre all’arte inviata nei pacchi.

Pamela: Certo. Per noi la questione degli sconosciuti è assolutamente essenziale.

Poi sappiamo che c’è un grosso rischio - ovviamente di cui noi abbiamo discusso tanto, perché questa è un’iniziativa completamente autoprodotta e autofinanziata, quindi ci sono state molte discussioni sul fatto che vogliamo mettere (tra virgolette) “in pericolo” le nostre opere che saranno cestinate. Ma poi ci siamo dette: “Sì!” perché questo pericolo c’è sempre. Anche quando vai a vedere uno spettacolo puoi addormentarti. Quindi, non si può sempre piacere a tutti o arrivare alle persone che già ti conoscono e ti apprezzano, solo perché bisogna arrivare a tutti.

Questo ci ha spinto anche ad aumentare al massimo la qualità del pacchetto: cioè le cose che c’erano dentro dovevano essere belle, perché altrimenti si accomunavano un po’ a quello che si trova nelle cassette della posta.

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Lauren: Però è impossibile vedere questi pacchi così carini, fatti perfettamente e dire che non ci piacciono!

Pamela: Allora ti dico una cosa. Nell’edizione scorsa, avevamo una signora che ci ha scritto che aveva ricevuto la “Missiva Selvatica” e che poi era andata nel cassonetto della carta del proprio quartiere e aveva trovato due “Missive Selvatiche” nel cassonetto. Però lei le ha prese, le ha recuperate e le redistribuite.

Lauren: Bellissimo! Arte “salvata” più che “Selvatica”. Penso che se provochi una reazione negativa - per esempio se qualcuno riceve un pacco e dice: “Cos’è questo?” o “L’arte non è importante” – anche quello è una cosa interessante…

Per provocare una conversazione in questo momento in cui nessuno può incontrare gli altri… Ovviamente è meglio produrre una conversazione positiva, ma non si può avere il controllo su questo!

Pamela: Anche perché come dici tu, c’è proprio stata un’assenza di dibattito rispetto alla questione dell’arte e della cultura. Quando sono stati chiusi i luoghi dell’arte, non c’è stato nessun dibattito a livello politico. Si è chiuso e punto. E invece si potevano trovare tante forme alternative, come per esempio un drive-in, al posto delle sale cinematografiche. Mettere uno schermo in una piazza, in cui ognuno nella propria macchina va a vedere un film come si faceva negli anni ‘50! Tra l’altro non è un’innovazione. Anche la salute mentale e psicologica delle persone è stata presa poco in considerazione… È per questo che noi volevamo essere creative e costruttive e dire: “Ci sono delle forme alternative per continuare a fare arte”.

Lauren: Tocca sempre all’artista pensare come sviluppare l’idea, perché è con l’artista che vivono la creatività e i nuovi modi di vedere il mondo.

Volevo chiederti se puoi parlarmi dalla tua arte personale, perché so che fai fotografia e video.

Pamela: Io ho lavorato molto con il video. Sono una grande appassionata del cinema. Mi sono specializzata in montaggio, quindi ho lavorato molto come montatrice, e poi la mia passione per la musica mi ha portato anche a cominciare a filmare e a realizzare dei videoclip. Da undici anni vivo a Parigi, dove sono entrata in contatto con una serie di artisti che mi hanno molto ispirata, sia a livello visivo che a livello musicale. Quindi è da quando sono a Parigi dove sono entrata in contatto con una serie di artisti, che mi hanno molto ispirato sia al livello visivo che a livello musicale.

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A Parigi ho ripreso la fotografia analogica che sviluppo da sola. Poi questa passione / lavoro per la foto analogica mi ha portato ad interessarmi al Self Publishing.

Quindi con una mia collega francese, Léa Neuville, abbiamo messo su una piccola casa di edizione indipendente a Parigi che si chiama “Gazzarra” e che si occupa di Self Publishing.

Essenzialmente facciamo delle foto che si chiamano “Zine” perché si rifanno alle “Fanzine” degli anni ‘80, che erano delle pubblicazioni autoprodotte legate alla musica. I fan di gruppi musicali o di scene musicali creavano delle pubblicazioni riproducendole attraverso fotocopie e poi rilegandole in maniera molto spartana e distribuendole.

Noi abbiamo ripreso questa formula e con dei materiali poveri creiamo delle auto-pubblicazioni legate alla fotografia analogica, ma anche alla musica. Abbiamo seguito diversi gruppi francesi che si occupano di musica sperimentale. Il nostro lavoro fotografico, quello mio e di Léa, è un lavoro sull’intimità. Sono dei lavori fotografici che parlano di noi. Di cose anche molto intime. Delle relazioni tra le persone. Io ne ho pubblicate tre, di cui una era su una storia d’amore, un’altra era sulla mia esperienza della maternità (più elaborato nel podcast).

Credo che io e Alessia, nella creazione di “Missive Selvatiche”, abbiamo attinto alla nostra esperienza nel self publishing. Perché il self publishing è una grande scuola che ti permette di fare con delle cose povere delle cose belle. Siamo tutt’e due estete e quindi ci piacciono le cose belle, curate. Se si aggiunge il fatto che le nostre opere sono fatte a mano, e si possono trovare anche in una copisteria, attraverso molte prove, una scelta di carta giusta, una qualità ottima anche per stampare delle foto, tutto questo è entrato in “Missive Selvatiche”.

Margherita, per esempio, è una fotografa che fa parte di un collettivo di fotografi pratesi che si chiama “16”, quindi Margherita aveva già una grossa esperienza di lavoro in un collettivo. Tutte le nostre esperienze sono confluite in “Missive Selvatiche”.

Non è un progetto improvvisato.

Lauren: Conoscendo le vostre storie, è chiaro che ovviamente “Missive Selvatiche” è cresciuto da tutte queste radici.

Pamela: Lo dico con una certa fierezza. Abbiamo 150 artisti all’interno che sono veramente tutti di grande livello e lo si può capire guardando il nostro Instagram. “Le ragazze di Firenze” hanno portato delle novità bellissime. Abbiamo l’esperienza alle spalle che abbiamo messo all’interno di questo progetto.

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Lauren: La cosa bella che vedo è che anche con questa conversazione sul Self Publishing e i pacchetti d’arte messi nella posta, c’è un nuovo mondo che si sta aprendo in cui le persone possono comunicare direttamente l’uno con l’altro. Penso che è un futuro interessante in cui non devi trovare l’editore mondiale di turno per pubblicare. Puoi creare la tua arte, il tuo lavoro e la tua vita con le persone che sono simili a te, perché adesso abbiamo la possibilità di farlo.

Pamela: Certo! Allora il discorso sul Self-Publishing è un discorso anche complesso perché secondo me è un discorso legato (per lo meno per me e Léa è stato così) anche all’urgenza del lavoro creativo.

Quando si fa fotografia o illustrazione, c’è tutta una parte del lavoro che quasi sempre fa l’artista, in cui bisogna andare a cercare i finanziamenti, andare a bussare alle porte, e tra il momento in cui tu finisci un lavoro e il momento in cui forse questo lavoro riuscirà ad essere distribuito, passa moltissimo tempo in cui hai sprecato energie a chiedere, a compilare bandi, a pagare per partecipare a dei concorsi fotografici. Il Self Publishing ti permette di pubblicare quando vuoi. Quindi gestisci l’urgenza di dire qualcosa e la puoi dire quando vuoi.

Il mio ultimo lavoro è stato un lavoro sulla maternità, e su come la maternità e l’uso del mezzo fotografico può cambiare anche il punto di vista di un fotografo. Era un lavoro che o lo pubblicavo in quel momento oppure mai più. Per me adesso (è passato già un anno dalla pubblicazione) è già una cosa distante. Quindi fa parte di me, ovviamente, ma forse adesso non avrei l’energia che ho avuto un anno e mezzo fa per cercare di realizzarlo.

Questa però è una questione personale: ovviamente noi ci siamo interrogate molto sul gratuito, sul fatto che stavamo facendo qualcosa di gratuito, perché c’è un grosso dibattito sulla gratuità dell’arte, sul fatto che gli artisti che lavorano nello spettacolo non vengono pagati, che non percepiscono l’indennità di disoccupazi41

one, oppure spesso non sono considerati neanche dei veri lavori ma delle passioni.

Quindi noi non volevamo far passare il messaggio che l’arte deve essere distribuita gratuitamente, ma che siamo in un momento di cambiamento, e questo periodo non si può ignorare così; è un periodo in cui stiamo cambiando, è un periodo in cui dopo essere stati fermi un anno ci siamo resi conto che le cose che noi facciamo comunque partono anche da un’altra esigenza che non è quella di portare lo stipendio a casa. È anche un’esigenza più interiore. E quindi, senza niente togliere ai lavori che portano uno stipendio a casa, fare questa cosa ci fa stare meglio, è stato un modo per noi di non smettere di fare, non ingrigirci e quindi cominciare a lamentarci e criticare o magari diventare negazionisti e essere arrabbiati costantemente.

Devo dire che tutte le persone che hanno partecipato a questa iniziativa si sono sentite di fare una cosa utile e anche un’occasione per partecipare a questo momento storico.

Penso che ci sia stato un momento, forse ci sarà ancora, in cui l’arte è stata anche un grosso business, quindi se avevi carattere per entrare dentro quel business c’entravi, altrimenti restavi fuori ai margini. Ecco, chi sta ai margini secondo me ha lo stesso diritto di esistere come chi sta nelle grandi gallerie d’arte contemporanea. Il collettivo poi è qualcosa che dà grande forza, anche perché essere sempre soli a promuoversi è difficile, cioè non tutti hanno il carattere di autopromuoversi. Anche il collettivo è un mezzo di promozione.

Lauren: Qual è il futuro di questo progetto? Ci sarà una quarta edizione di “Missive Selvatiche”?

Pamela: Il progetto è molto legato al periodo storico, quindi noi abbiamo sempre dichiarato fino a che ci sono le restrizioni noi continuiamo. Quindi in futuro non so dirti se ci sarà una quarta edizione. Se continueranno le chiusure noi continueremo con una quarta edizione, questo è sicuro, quindi forse continueremo anche a vita! Queste varianti potrebbero farci andare avanti per anni.

Quello che posso dire di sicuro è che questo progetto ci ha permesso anche di instaurare molte relazioni con altri artisti e con i Festival che ci hanno contattato, quindi sono sicura che questo progetto non finisce qua.

Lauren: Grazie mille Pamela per il tuo tempo. Questo progetto mi ha colpito tanto, è una voce di speranza lanciata nel vuoto di questo momento, quindi congratulazioni di nuovo a tutti voi per aver creato “Missive Selvatiche” e dato ispirazione a tante persone.

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Pamela: Grazie, anche di farci parlare, perché ovviamente il nostro obiettivo è quello di far passare il messaggio che l’arte è un’attività essenziale. L’arte, la cultura, lo spettacolo non sono solo intrattenimento, ma un’attività essenziale come il supermercato, sono assolutamente convinta di questo. Siamo fatti di corpo e di spirito quindi non possiamo nutrire lo spirito con le serie televisive. Dobbiamo anche avere altro; trovarci in luoghi pubblici tra di noi per vivere delle esperienze insieme perché poi il cinema, il teatro, i concerti sono anche questo - sono anche eventi vissuti insieme agli altri, dove gli altri sono importanti.

Ci sono progetti di creare un’edizione in lingua cinese a Prato dove c’è un grande comunità cinese. C’è anche un progetto in Francia di creare “Missive sauvages”. Pensavo perché il/la Sig./Sig.ra Maddaleno(è un uomo o una donna?) ha vissuto a Parigi per tanti anni ma quando gliel’ho chiesto, lui/lei ha risposto che era una fotgrafa di Lyon che non conosceva ma, sentendo dell’idea ha contattato la “squadra” per creare una cooperazione. Per me, la cosa è chiara: le creazioni e la creatività crescono sempre di più.

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morE thAn FirE Fiction Flavia Brunetti

When Eva appeared at the water’s edge in Brindisi, the god Tevere was already there, a figure wrapped in oilskin, looking into the sea. He turned as she approached.

“Goddess of fire,” he greeted her, “I am glad you came.” The smile he offered didn’t quite reach his eyes, which searched her.

“God of the river, how could I refuse such a kind invitation when extended by you? I have not seen Rome in at least a thousand years.”

Tevere turned his back to the sea, gesturing to the steps behind them, a tall marble column standing guard near the top.

“This is why I wanted to meet you here. This is where the Ancient Appian Way ended. I remember when everything connected to the rest of the world from right here.” Tevere looked around, sighed. “We can cut across the country, take the old way back to my city. What do you say?” he asked, extending an arm out toward Eva. She accepted and stepped onto the road, and Tevere walked with her, easily, matching her step.

“I am happy to be able to repay the kindness you showed me when I visited your country. I have thought of little but Kenya since I left,” Tevere said as they began their journey. Though they walked at a conversational pace, the land slid under them obediently – sometimes a normal step, miles in the next – crossing the country on a path carved by the mightiest of roads, centuries past.

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Nostalgia Vinita Salomé Film / Rome, 2004 45

“You are always welcome,” Eva replied, looking at the tall, dark-haired god as he walked comfortably in his home. Everything seemed to curve ever-so-slightly toward him – the light dancing on the planes of his face, a breeze fluttering his hair. It was clear that Italy loved her Tevere.

Tevere was a handsome god, and he grew more powerful as he neared the city that had always been the river’s favorite. By the time they stepped into Rome, every puddle of water, every fountain, every working aqueduct vibrated in his presence, and Eva remembered how water is everywhere in Rome. Behind her back, she summoned a tiny flame in her hand, only for a moment, to remind herself of who she was, so she would not be swept away by the force that was the sinuous Tevere, whose source wound its way through the city itself.

peak of her glory. Eva had never noticed before how exquisite his hands were.

It was not until the end of a long day – the day Eva had begun to miss her home in earnest after Tevere had admired the way she could make rivulets of fire wind through the stone of the fountains in Piazza Navona in the dark, the same day when she thought it might be time to start her return journey – that he asked for the favor.

“It won’t be for too long,” Tevere said, his dark eyes catching hers temptingly.

“I have to go. I’m looking for something lost. The Meta Romuli pyramid.”

“Oh?” Eva was surprised. They were standing in the middle of the empty piazza, lit only by a few distant streetlights. In the darkness, the fountains glowed. “I remember it from the last time I was here,” she continued, remembering the pyra“And now, Eva,” when he said her name mid that had stood not far from Tevere’s it felt like a new jewel, “I show you my own bank. “Wasn’t it destroyed hundreds Roma.” For days, he did, peppering the of years ago?” city with his stories, showing her how it “Yes,” he replied, pink growing in his held within its confines the ancient and cheeks, “but I think I’ve found a way to the modern, pointing out the traffic flow- bring it back.” ing beneath the ancient Arch of Drusus, Eva took a step back, frowning up at the a solitary monolith that tolerated ziptaller god. “I don’t think you should,” she ping cars and motorini. When they came said, reflecting now on what the other across marbled ruins, Tevere would draw deities said about Tevere – his obsession with his hands in front of them what it to restore Rome’s former glory. She had had looked like when Rome was at the 46

never tolerated idle gossip, but the man Eva knew this was not true. Tevere sought standing in front of her now, eyes ablaze, no one’s counsel, not ever. And yet he unsettled her deeply. looked so broken, so meek, and though she knew it was probably calculated, she “There are myths, Eva,” Tevere said, did not like to see him sad. reaching his hand out to touch her arm.

A small veil of fire appeared and hovered “What do you need me for?” she asked, over Eva’s skin. Tevere quickly pulled and Tevere knew he had won. back. “The Romans spoke for centuries “I cannot leave my city unguarded,” he of it being the burial place of one of the said, sweeping his hand around to the founders of the city—” majesty of the piazza. “I have seen in “You’re a god of this city, Tevere. You were these days that you love Rome, too. I trust there. Certainly you don’t need to rely on you with her.” Tevere dared to take a step gossip—” closer to Eva. She gazed at him. She did not love Rome, but Te“It holds a place in their “There are myths, vere did not care to see history, their legends, their Eva,” Tevere said, that. His hands made most beloved art. If I could a supplicating gesture, find some of the artifacts reaching his hand and Eva, who had not that remind the people of out to touch her felt anything for a god in times past. Of what they arm. A small veil of hundreds of years, could were. Of the magnificence fire appeared and think of nothing but Tethat once was Rome! I have hovered over Eva’s vere’s beautiful hands, as seen history disappearing. skin. perfect as the statues on I could—” Tevere faltered his beloved fountains. then, seeing the worry in Eva’s eyes, the disdain creeping in. He “Alright, Tevere,” she said, placing one was familiar, especially with the latter, hand in his, igniting a shock of electricwhen he spoke to his peers. He tried to ity, because any promise one god makes smile reassuringly, and his eyes lost the to another is binding. Tevere’s face lit into manic sheen that had crept in. “Anyway, I a beautiful smile. He dropped her hand. am going to see if I can locate it, but even “There is one small thing,” he said. “A if I do, I will not do anything. I just... need small ceremony has to be performed each to see. That’s all. If I find anything, I will day so that the city remains in balance come and seek your counsel.” with its elements.” Tevere turned toward

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Bernini’s achingly beautiful Fountain of the Four Rivers, the depiction of four river gods, each representing a continent, speared by the obelisk reaching for the sky. Eva realized now they were not there by chance.

and small animals scurrying over grass and dirt, went silent. Eva stood tall, her dark red robe flapping in the wind. Her eyes glowed a dangerous orange. Tevere frowned.

“The park of the aqueducts,” he repeated, gesturing to the looming shapes in the distance, “named after the ancient aqueducts that still run through it.” He was watching Eva closely, still holding her hand. “Are you alright?”

et. “A minor wind. The Venti gods give me a good supply.” He opened the flask and held it out, and a bright, cold wind flew up, blew around the grand space for a moment, and then whirled out into the night sky. Tevere sniffed. “Glacial. From the North.”

“I do apologize, goddess. I am getting “For the elements of water and earth, take ahead of myself with excitement. You are, a thimbleful of water from this fountain of course, correct,” Tevere bowed. and feed it to the ground in the Parco de“May I?” he said, reaching again for her gli Aquedotti,” Tevere made a soft ladling hand. After a moment’s pause, Eva took it motion with one hand and a scoop of walightly, and once again, they were someter floated from the founwhere new. Every god tain toward them. With the Every god knows knows the inside of the other, he took Eva’s hand the inside of the mighty Pantheon, even again. A moment later, they if they are not of the city. mighty Pantheon. stood in what looked like a They were standing They were standing just field, the small orb of wabeneath the oculus, lookter shining between them. just beneath the ing up at the night sky.

With a gentle and reverent oculus, looking up “Here,” he whispered, motion, Tevere lowered at the night sky. “you release the wind.” the orb into the ground, where it was immediately Tevere grinned at her absorbed. and pulled a small flask out of his pock-

“Next time, you will tell me where we are going. You will not take me without permission,” she said, drawing herself up. The park, which previously uttered the soft night sounds of birds settling in 48

In an instant, they were standing in Circus Maximus. “And now for the most powerful of the elements,” he said, and for the first time, Eva noticed Tevere’s smile

was like a shark’s – predatory and full of teeth. He struck a match and it flared into the sky, feeding off Eva’s presence.

It burned down quickly. In the sphere of light, Tevere looked at Eva, the light leaving shadows in the hollows of his cheeks, along his temples. Eva darkened. The fire went out.

“You knew what you were doing when you invited me here, river. I made a promise and I will keep it. I will remember that you manipulated me. It does not bode well for you.” For a moment, Tevere’s shadow loomed huge in the remains of the ancient chariot stadium, and though Eva knew it was not wise to test another god on his own grounds, just at this moment, she did not care. “Go on your fool’s errand, enough of you. You will return as soon as you can. Do not leave me with your city for too long,” she added as a warning, and then, because she was feeling herself a fool, she shooed him with her hand and turned away. There was a sound like rushing water, like a threat, and when she looked back, he was gone.

“The Great Fire of Rome started here in the first century,” he whispered, and she refused to shiver, staring straight into his eyes, even in the darkness. “Burned most of the city right down to the ground. This is where we feed this element.”

“I know what it did.” Eva could feel the fire here, still tugging at her. She pushed it away, forced it to cower, though it lingered, just out of her reach, and she knew The goddess Eva, if she knew anything, if she did not keep careful knew how to be brave, and not just outwatch, it would feed off her, consume side, where everybody could see, but deep itself. “I don’t want to be involved with inside, in a way that reflected outward this,” she said to him, forcing herself to and helped others. Here in Rome, she did whisper. Some places, some moments not feel brave or resourceful, and she was were delicate. A balance had to be care- desperately, heart-clawingly homesick. fully cultivated. Her hand stung. He She missed the heat of her homeland, the shrugged. sun that seemed to burn a thousand times “If it’s too powerful for you, I do un- closer than here – sometimes setting so derstand. We can break your promise. I close the entire sky turned molten. This city felt cold to her, pale in comparison. would not fault you.”

Worst of all, she felt stuck here, furious at Eva, who was known for her regal comTevere’s trickery. It played in loops in her posure and patience, felt the urge to slap mind, the fire inside her boiling, so that him. she sometimes woke up to find she had

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burned her blankets off in an angry sleep, she did not go back to Circus Maximus. leaving her cold in the watery dawn light. When she felt guilty about endangering the city, she told herself she was, after all, When Eva woke up like this, when the fire a goddess of fire. It was unlikely that her had nowhere to go, she walked. She paced own element would turn against her. the roads that circled the Colosseum, the tiny hectic jewel that was Trastevere, the Eva only doubted herself in the very quiCampo Marzio that held the Panthe- etest of hours, when she remembered how on, her favorite monument in all of the the fire had pushed on her will, reaching city (and sometimes, she thought, all of out for her. Those were the nights she the world). She wandered over to Largo woke up with curls of smoke rising from di Torre Argentina, the large piazza that her skin. The nights she needed to wansheltered ruins in its middle, known as der. the area sacra, and all around it the chaos When Eva finally appeared in the desertof modern-day bus stops. Sometimes her ed Circo Massimo, an eagerness pressed feet would lead her to Castel Sant’Angeinto her from all sides. Burn, burn, burn, lo, though she never went inside after the burn, the invisible fire whispered to her, first time. She had known both Hadrilet me come to life, and for a moment, the an and his lover, Antinous, and walking goddess of fire feared her own element. through the halls that still rang of the But fear would never do. She was in conemperor only made her sad for the boy. trol here. Eva opened her hand slowly, When Eva found herself in the Panthe- fighting down the howling in her head. on, she carried out the air rite, using the I am Eva. I am the goddess of fire. I rule store of venti that Tevere had in his home. this element. She wished it, and a small, When she had gone back, the night Te- tremulous blue flame appeared in her vere left her, she found he had the gall to hand. She would feed it slowly, let the enleave her a note on the table with instruc- ergy seep out. tions. She burned right through it, the Just before it happened, she saw it – paper turning to flame in her hand. But phantom flames licking at this cold city, when she carried out the air rite, she forthis place of ruin and marble, and in that got all this, and felt only relief at the wind second, her control slipped. Everything swirling through the round opening that exploded. looked out onto the world. Eva went back to Piazza Navona regularly, bringing wa- All of Circus Maximus burst into flames, ter to the beautiful aqueduct park. But living fire, chewing everything in its 50

path. It twisted and twirled into the air in exultation, and one moment Eva cowered, and the next she was raging with it, opening her arms wide, throwing her head back, her eyes filled with all the colors – orange and yellow and purple and black at the center of a flame that’s been gazed at for too long.

If you don’t stop, Rome will burn, said a voice inside her. Flames flickered softly in Eva’s eyes. Let it burn. She had started this, and she could end it, but let the god who had tricked her come back to a city of ash.

you are made up of. She put a hand to her heart. I know you.

When she opened her eyes, the fire had gone. Circo Massimo was desolate, burned black. The buildings around the park had been singed but were still standing. She felt a hole in the city. She had hurt it. For the first time in her life, Eva dropped to her knees, craFlames flickered dled the wounded earth.

softly in Eva’s eyes.

Let it burn. She had started this, and she could end it, but let the god who had tricked her come back to a city of ash.

“I am sorry,” she whispered, and curled up on the ground in the middle of what had been a mighty empire, and she fell asleep, an invisible wisp where she had once been a true flame.

And then Eva felt the fire expand outward, licking Eva didn’t know how to out into the surrounding streets, and she fix it. If it had been her city, she told herrealized people would die. She began to self, she would have known. If it had been run. your city, you never would have done “No, no, no, no,” Eva yelled at the flames this, herself whispered back, and her finthat enveloped her, that gave her life. gers curled around the dry dirt. Sorry, “Stop it,” and if Eva had tears, she would sorry, sorry. She got up to leave the city have cried them, but demons of fire have she had defiled, and then, finally, Eva reno water inside. She stopped running. “I membered that she was brave – not like a am not a demon,” she said out loud. The god, who fears nothing, but like only sound was every sound – the howl some humans, who move forward despite of fire devouring, roaring. She closed her what they most fear. She would walk the eyes. This was her fire. She let the guilt city to find its wounds. She never once go. You feel you are a fool. You are angry thought of Tevere. with yourself. Do not let him be the reason you no longer know yourself or what Eva didn’t find anything until she got 51

to Largo di Torre Argentina. The ruins within were gone now. The piazza dipped down into bare concrete. Eva’s stomach churned. Pieces of the Theatre of Pompey should be here.

my mind,” he said, squinting down at the empty part of the page.

“I am Eva,” she said, holding out her hand, watching the boy closely.

“Jack,” he said and shook Eva’s hand. A There was a boy sitting on one of the pinprick of electricity singed her palm. stone parapets bordering where the ruins should start, resting cross-legged on Eva stepped back, and Jack, poised over the wide stone structure, looking down the paper, went back to work. She looked at a notebook in his lap and sketching out at the center of the piazza, listening intensely. Once in a while, he looked up to the light scratching of his pencil. As she gazed, it seemed as at the empty middle though the blank conof the piazza, and his Piece by wandering crete slowly seeped into pencil quickened. Eva piece, the four temples the ground. Eva leaned draped her hands over grew, joined shortly over the railing to get a the railing and tried by all that was left of better look. Stone and to look discreetly over the space where Julius columns grew from the at his notebook. What Caesar was killed. For ground, carefully rearwas he drawing, if there was nothing left a shimmering moment, ranging themselves. to draw? He noticed they ere no longer ruins Piece by wandering her when he looked up but grand structures, piece, the four temples and tilted the page to- filled with busy people. grew, joined shortly by ward her. She bit back all that was left of the a gasp. He had drawn space where Julius Caeout about half of the archeological site as sar was killed. For a shimmering moit should have been. The depictions were ment, they were no longer ruins but exquisite, delicately but decisively drawn grand structures, filled with busy peoin black pencil. He was working on the ple, and Eva’s head tilted back to take it shading. She looked again at the concrete all in. She blinked, and before her stood slabs lining the empty space. the ruins. She walked over to Jack, whose drawing perfectly mimicked the excavations before him. He appeared entirely “I don’t know,” the boy shrugged. “I just nonplussed. She had an idea. came to sit here, and I got this picture in “How are you drawing that?” she asked.

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“Would you draw where I’m from?” she don’t know how, but you did. asked him.

Instead, she smiled a real smile at him.

Jack gladly unzipped his backpack, show- Not calculating or manipulative. Just ing Eva the array of colored pencils in- grateful. And happy. And relieved. “Jack, side.

I hope you remember when I tell you.

You are a world-builder. I hope you un“Pick the ones that remind you of home,” derstand, somehow, one day, how imhe said, and she chose. He worked quietportant your work is.” Really. “I will keep ly, and as he did, it all appeared in front this,” she said, holding up his drawing of of her: the reds and oranges and yellows, her beloved Nairobi. “And show it to you like her fire, the sun and the birds she again when you are very famous.” was used to seeing in her country’s sky, the ever-present green and burnt clay, the He laughed brightly. “You showed it to deep blues at night, a million stars. As his me. By the way, those are my favorite colfingers drew her home, the colors above ors, too. I use the same ones when I draw him flared and faded, remaining in her Rome at sunset.” He waved to Eva, and mind’s eye. she waved back, watching to make sure he was safely on the tram, because she could “You are very talented to draw a place tell he was paying more attention to the you have never seen like this,” she said, way the light hit the building across from accepting the picture gratefully after he him than to where he was going. And she carefully tore it from his notebook. thought about what he said.

The smell of burning that had followed After that, something changed inside her all the way there was gone from the Eva. She noticed how the ochre light of air. In Circo Massimo, the grass was althe sunset burst out of the city’s seams, ready growing back green. and how the pale blue light of a morning He smiled at her, and hopped off the par- changed the scene and set a whole new apet, zipping up his backpack as he went. stage, and if she sat still enough, like a “Ms. Eva,” he said shyly, and she noticed goddess could, she felt as though she was how young he looked. “Thanks. For say- underwater. This is how she learned that ing that I’m good. Sometimes I don’t feel Rome was a different place at all times of day—that at night, depending on the sealike I am.” son, she was soft and warm and enticing, Don’t feel like you are? She wanted to a velvet maze, or she was sharp and cold tell him. You just rebuilt your own city. I and clear, fierce and magical to behold 53

and walk through. Eva grew fond of the city’s gargantuan parks, though the park traversed by the aqueducts remained her favorite, and she sat for hours after bringing the water. She learned to look for the little green and rose parakeets that chirruped all over the city, swooping in small flocks from tree to tree, a few of the more brazen ones dropping onto her shoulder to tell her their secrets. She always listened. She learned that there was joy in all the balancing celebrations of Rome, of all the elements, including her own.

For the first time in several thousands of years of existence, Eva learned to find spaces that were safe, where she could let the fire inside her run wild – the fire that did not always destroy but could also clean and make way for rebirth. She gave it, and herself, room to breathe, and when she was in Circus Maximus, the fire no longer beat at her. She saw colors inside that she had never seen before. She slept deeply, and quietly, and dreamed often.

loud. I’m not so sure she would agree with you.

“Aren’t you interested in knowing what I found?” he asked her sullenly.

“I am guessing you found nothing, Tevere.”

“But there are so many things I could find. You could stay here.”

“I return your city to you,” she said to him, sealing their agreement.

“Looks like you found something,” he said, noticing Jack’s drawing in her hand.

Eva smiled at it. “Yes. A gift. Perhaps from your city. Do take care of her. She is truly one of a kind.”

And with that, Eva disappeared, though not before stopping in each of the places in Rome that had opened themselves to her, even after she had made a mistake.

Last of all was Circus Maximus, and if you were there on that drizzly afternoon, just in the center, for a moment, you Before long, Tevere returned. Eva found might have seen a tiny, flashing flame – a him in his living room when she came for goddess’s gratitude. the wind. He was sitting on his couch, his mouth twisted in defeat. He did not look as mighty as she remembered him.

“Rome agrees with you, goddess of fire,” he said appreciatively when he saw her.

You were so busy chasing down her past that you didn’t notice when I almost burned her down, Eva did not say out 54

v

giusEppinA dEllA tEmpEstA

Fiction Andrea Tani

Dalla sera prima una tempesta di vento incurvava gli ombrelli, sbandierava i manifesti elettorali e faceva sbattere le persiane di legno. Le strade e le balconate s’erano riempite di cartacce, e gli aghi di pino avevano tappato tutti i tombini. Poche ore prima il nuovo sindaco aveva preso il microfono, ma non aveva fatto in tempo a presentarsi che si staccò un ramo da un albero e finì sopra una jeep. Partì l’antifurto e tutti s’impaurirono. Il forte vento alzò anche la polvere, che oltre a spostarsi a mulinelli finì per travolgere i tendoni del mangiare. Ebbero la peggio le lasagne fatte in casa e le pinolate ancora calde, e si spensero del tutto il parco giochi, il trenino e le luci del palco. La festa proloco, l’evento più importante dell’anno, era rovinata. Non ci fu modo di raccogliere i soldi contanti che andavano veloci agli ospedali di zona. Per i ragazzi delle elementari poi quella festa era molto di più, anticipava di una settimana il martedì di carnevale ed era un banco di prova per sfoggiare i costumi più belli. Le mamme si chiudevano in casa e diventavano delle sarte accanite. Armate di ago e filo facevano le nottate a lucidarsi i gomiti, fino a quando i figlioletti non si trasformavano in personaggi della Marvel.

Tutto questo era andato in malora.

Un forte acquazzone diventò in fango e il fango s’appiccicò sugli addobbi delle maestre, sulle scarpe da ginnastica, sulle fioriere offerte dal quartiere. E continuava a volare di tutto: sacchi della spazzatura, cartoni, piatti e bicchieri di carta, ma soprattutto le mantelle dei supereroi. E allora alcuni bambini strillavano, altri invece pensavano davvero che potevano volare.

Giuseppina della tempesta dei bambini se ne fregava di brutto. S’era messa la borsa dell’acqua calda sulle gambe e si fumava in santa pace la sua Milde Sorte che scuoteva nel barattolo di sott’aceti. Seduta al tavolo di cucina, aveva già smazzettato i buoni sconto del supermercato e i bollettini postali dell’Istituto dell’Immacolata. Cercava di appiccicare i bollini dell’ultima spesa su una schedina presa alla cassa, era in promozione un set di posate laccate di bianco disegnato sul davanti. Le persiane sbattevano ancora sugli infissi quando il solito micio riapparve lì sul davanzale della finestra.

Veniva ogni giorno a fare la sua sfilata e quando Giuseppina se n’accorgeva anda55

va alla porta e diceva: «Mi vuoi rubare il tonno, gattaccio? Tornatene da dove sei venuto!» bastava un colpetto al vetro e lui scappava. Ma in quei giorni quel micio non se ne voleva andare, stava lì sotto l’acqua con lo sguardo spento, spossato dal freddo e dalla fame.

Giuseppina aveva uno strano rapporto coi gatti da quando vent’anni prima un incidente compromise il cervello splendido di sua figlia Serenella e portò via la sua micia Trilli. Non le andava giù che quella cosa fosse successa a lei. Non si capacitava che la casa di un tempo, quella di tante cene e tanti scherzi di Natale ora era come un enorme scatolone al buio sospeso nel vuoto e appeso a una cordicella.

S’era rintanata in quelle quattro mura e con la pensione faceva quel che poteva per sostenere le spese del ricovero. In più aveva messo a faccia in giù tutte le foto di famiglia, anche se c’era una coltre di polvere e le tremavano le gambe ogni volta che ci passava davanti.

Quando Giuseppina si svegliò, scemò il vento. Si scaldò la sua ciotola latte e crusca e s’accese la sua Milde Sorte. Le nuvole erano chiare e la luce del mattino entrava come spaghetti dai buchini dell’avvolgibile. Uscì sul terrazzo e vide qualcosa che le adombrò gli occhi. Un enorme coso grigiastro, simile a un telo, si era impigliato fra i rami alti del suo cipresso e copriva tutto il sole. Spazzatura di paese! pensò e battè i pugni sul muretto. Quella festa annuale per famiglie era così lurida, così intrisa di bigottismo, che i bambini non capivano, il “dolore” non era ancora entrato nella loro vita e tutto quello sfarzo, quelle risate, erano solo immondizia.

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E lei l’immondizia la gettava volentieri nel cassonetto.

Quel coso andava assolutamente tolto.

Giuseppina andò in garage, s’infilò gli stivali, una tutina da giardiniera e afferrò una scala allungabile d’alluminio. Sentì un po’ male ai polsi, ma strinse i denti e la portò in giardino. Incagliò bene i piedini a terra, sbloccò i ganci di raccordo e scorse la scala fino in cima, cinque metri alta. Dopo impugnò un arpioncino e iniziò a salire, a ogni gradino sentiva cedere le ginocchia. Non era in buona salute, gli acciacchi dell’età l’accompagnavano in ogni cosa che faceva, ma oggi qualcosa dentro la smuoveva, non accettava che quel coso umidiccio troneggiasse nella sua proprietà. Poi non era mai salita su quel cipresso, che pure conosceva bene.

Era l’albero di famiglia che se avesse potuto parlare, le avrebbe elencato le corse calde di sua figlia insieme a Trilli, quel batuffolo mangia snack che correva a saltelli come i canguri. Quindi era un albero importante, ma ora era marcio, poteva crollare in un secondo. Giuseppina lo sapeva, ma aveva una missione da compiere, salire scalino dopo scalino e arrivare in cima, e infatti fu così. Il coso ora era a circa un metro da lei e sembrava un lenzuolo di stoffa sintetica, strappato e di scarsa qualità. A contrasto col cielo creava una sagoma a forme alterne, a volte pareva un orco, a volte un’aquila in picchiata. Con una mano Giuseppina si resse alla scala, con l’altra allungò l’arpioncino. A forza di colpetti lo disincagliò e lo liberò del tutto. Cascò rigido per terra senza aprirsi, fra l’erbaccia e i ranuncoli schiacciati dai mattoni.

E ora bisognava buttarlo via. Non esitò un secondo, lo infilò in un sacco nero e lo portò al cassonetto. Aprì il portellone ma trasalì. Fra le dita il tessuto non era così male, era vellutato come il vestito del suo matrimonio. Lo tirò fuori dal sacco e più che un lenzuolo ora, a causa dello strano mantello e dello strano cappuccio, lo confuse con un saio tibetano. Così lo portò a casa e lo infilò in lavatrice. Scelse il primo sapone che aveva nell’armadietto e dette il via. Quando il lavaggio fu finito, lo tirò fuori e lo tese ad asciugare. Dopo tre ore di sole lo portò in casa e lo appoggiò sotto la Singer. Abbassò la leva, scelse il filo più adatto e con un colpo di pedale la fece partire. Con molta cura rammendò ogni strappo che vedeva. Dopo le ultime cuciture lo stese sul letto e gli tolse i pelucchi qua e là.

appendeva alla finestra come tenda occasionale. Ci si guardava pure allo specchio, con cappuccio giù e con cappuccio su.

Non staccava gli occhi dalle sue forme, non toglieva il naso dalle sue pieghe morbide, amava il suo odore profondo e quando si accorgeva che scemava anche di poco, apriva lo sportello della lavatrice.

Gli ammorbidenti non mancavano: aveva il muschio bianco, la fragranza fior di loto, quella agli agrumi e pure la vaniglia.

Il trattamento di bellezza al costume era ormai una costante. Era sempre pulito, fresco di bucato e Giuseppina ci si tuffava dentro, ci si addormentava col viso.

Era così presa che un giorno per poco si stava dimenticando l’ennesimo appuntamento con l’oncologo.

Arrivò la chiamata dall’ambulatorio.

Controllo di routine. Giuseppina si fece un bagno più lungo del solito, non ci voleva andare. Lanciava occhiate imbruttite all’orologio sul muro e cercava col pensiero di fermare le lancette. Non si fermavano. Aveva già abusato di caffè a colazione, ma si prese un’altra fetta di crostata e si fumò un’altra sigaretta. Se devo morire, pensava, voglio morire come Dio comanda! Alla fine si vestì, si cambiò due o tre volte le scarpe, e andò in camera a salutare il suo costume. Aveva il manto soffice che giocava col pulviscolo radioso dell’aria, dalle rose sul balcone planava una fragranza fresca che finiva sulle cuciture. Se lo baciò, se lo strusciò fra le mani e col fiato spezzato uscì.

Nei giorni successivi Giuseppina eliminò le verdure dalla dieta e riniziò a mangiare i pasticcini in offerta. Dopo aver oliato la macchina da cucire, riprese a spolverare i mobili del corridoio, gli scaffali e le vetrinette. E poi tornava con la mente a quel coso avvolto nel mistero, che tutto sommato era un semplice costume di carnevale. E più lo guardava e più aveva voglia di toccarlo. Nacque una curiosa dipendenza. Dopo il brodino delle dodici se lo teneva sulle spalle, e così faceva dopo il caffè delle sedici e la Milde Sorte del tardo pomeriggio. Quando andava a dormire lo stringeva tutt’intorno, tipo burrito e quando si svegliava non se lo toglieva di dosso per ore. Iniziò così a indossarlo. Se lo portava in giro per casa e lo usava per Dal dottore, seduta sulla sedia, aspettatutto: come accappatoio dopo la doccia, va soltanto il verdetto definitivo, delle come cuscino per la cervicale, e a volte lo semplici parole che l’avrebbero riportata alla realtà, al suo cancro vorace che le 57

offuscava i pensieri e le giornate. «Due mesi, solo due mesi» le avevano detto l’ultima volta, e lei s’era rassegnata. Vide il dottore arrivare dalla sala analisi. Aveva una cartella in mano e le spalle distese.

Il suo sguardo posato era fermo sulle ultime righe di un foglio.

«Avanti dottore non perda tempo…»

Il dottore si sedette alla scrivania, adagiò i fogli accanto alla foto del figlio mascherato da dracula e la guardò negli occhi.

«Signora Pandolfini», esordì, «da quello che vedo da quest’ultimo esame qualcosa è cambiato.»

Giuseppina alzò le sopracciglia e replicò: «Non ho capito, che vuol dire?»

«Voglio dire che le lesioni al polmone, quello rimasto, sembrano in regressione…»

«E quindi?»

«E quindi credo…beh senza dubbio, che ha un altro anno di vita.»

Giuseppina deglutì e tirò fuori un fazzoletto rattrappito dalla manica. Dopo un paio di strombazzate lo raggomitolò e lo ripose nella borsetta.

«Non so cosa ha fatto signora Giuseppina», continuò il dottore, «ma continui con le medicine che le ho segnato e mangi tanta verdura.»

to? Hai capito cosa è successo?» e s’aspettava una risposta, ma la risposta non arrivava, perché dopotutto era solo un costume, un semplice costume di carnevale ben lavato e profumato.

Si sedette davanti al telefono e il respiro diventò gravoso. Voleva che la cornetta si alzasse in modo autonomo e atterrasse su di lei. Desiderava poi che quella telefonata fosse già stata fatta, e che qualcosa succedesse, così si toglieva il pensiero. Ma era difficile, sul tavolo da gioco si stavano buttando fishes pesanti che avrebbero rotto il tavolo, frantumato il pavimento e sgretolato tutte le fognature a decine di metri di profondità. Giuseppina sudava.

Si alzò, fece un giro per casa e rigirò le fotografie. Fra le tante c’era lei col povero marito in riva al mare, e poi di nuovo lei con Serenella e Trilli che le dormiva in braccio, e altro, tanti ricordi. Si accese l’ultima sigaretta del pacchetto e buttò fuori il fumo con molta calma. Dalla nuvola che si formò scorgeva le rotelle dei pattini che passavano, le urla dietro a una palla, i momenti delle favole che finivano con gli occhi chiusi. Dalla finestrella del corridoio intravide la piazza del paese che dopo la tempesta ricominciava a vivere, qualcuno ripristinava i pali della corrente, qualcun altro riapriva il negozio, dei bambini saltavano dalla fontana. Giuseppina dette l’ultima boccata, schiacciò il mozzicone e tornò al telefono.

«Niente dolci e niente sigarette», disse lei Coi suoi occhialoni da vista scorreva le col sorriso stampato, «come sempre.» pagine di un’agendina. Si fermò su una Giuseppina non riusciva nemmeno ad pagina in particolare e puntò il dito su aprire la porta di casa da quanto le trema- “Serenella Clinica” scritto a penna. Alzò vano le dita. Una volta dentro andò in la cornetta, fece il numero e rimase in camera e disse al suo costume: «Hai capi- attesa. La voce di un centralino rispose 58

poco dopo: «Istituto dell’Immacolata Era tutto scarruffato e col muso picchiettava per entrare. Più lei lo guardava e buonasera.» più lui picchiettava. Lasciò la presa dalla «Buona…sera», rispose lei, «sono la cornetta, andò in cucina e dal frigorifemadre di Serenella Pandolfini.» ro tirò fuori una scatoletta di tonno. Ma «Le passo il reparto, un momento.» cosa sto facendo? si chiese. Guardò il micio e guardò il frigo aperto. Lui eccitato «Sì grazie.» prese a strusciarsi alla persiana e seguì Una musichetta leggera di uno spot data- tutti i movimenti di lei. Con la scatoletta to partì in sottofondo. A Giuseppina sfug- in mano Giuseppina aprì la porta e uscì giva il titolo del brano, ma riconobbe il ri- fuori, poi versò il tonno in un sottovaso. tornello e nell’attesa si lasciò abbindolare Lui dal davanzale fece un grande salto e da quelle note. Poi iniziò a guardare i in due secondi aveva già la bocca piena e i muri intorno a lei e notò che tutti i quadri baffi sporchi. Dopo una stiracchiata sparì erano storti. Di traverso vide pure il ran- nel vialetto dietro il terrazzo. dagino appollaiato sul davanzale, che «Ehi micio, non ne vuoi più? Vieni ce n’è stavolta la guardava. ancora» disse lei.

«Sì chi è?» disse una voce dalla cornetta, Lui non si voltò e lei lo seguì col tonno più giovane e allegra. in mano. Lo vide zoppicare a zig zag con «Seren…» rispose Giuseppina con la voce la coda ritta, aveva una zampina che gli spezzata «…sono la mamma.» faceva male. Passò fra i vasi, annusò un «Io ho una mamma che si chiama Gi- cactus e proseguì lungo il muretto che portava al giardino. Giuseppina lo vide useppina.» acquattarsi dietro il cipresso, quello dove «Sì lo so, sono io» rispose coi lucciconi s’era impigliato il costume, ma una volta «Serenella ascolta, ho un altro anno!» arrivata lì vide qualcosa che giorni prima «Sai che io ho un gatto che si chiama Tril- le era sfuggito. Un lungo bastone di legno era appoggiato all’albero e la sua lama li?» rispose la figlia. incastonata era ricurva e affilata. La sua Dalla cornetta Giuseppina sentì arrivare punta terrificante scintillava su tutto il qualcuno, il rumore degli zoccoli degli giardino e Giuseppina si sentì mancare le infermieri era inconfondibile e si faceva gambe. Le cadde il tonno. sempre più nitido. Una voce entrò nella cornetta e interruppe la conversazione: Quella falce, giorni prima, non l’aveva proprio vista.

«Sì pronto chi è al telefono?»

Tu, tu, tu, tu…Giuseppina non poteva continuare, aveva la mano saldata alla cornetta. Gli occhi sgranati guardavano nel vuoto. Si voltò verso la cucina e vide che il micio era ancora lì alla finestra.

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v

dErAcinAtEd Irene Palermo

Born of Athena’s victorious spear and Poseidon’s wounded pride, they were

divine creatures on earth, living just around the corner straight down the road we used to ride as kids, I see us darting on the gravel, I hear us laughing in the fields, I feel the rays of the scorching sun, burning our pale skin.

I roll down the window

welcoming the warm dry wheat a cloud of thick crimson dirt sits in the passenger seat when the sudden screech of brakes dissolve the torpor of what it used to be, and I realize I got lost on the way home, driving in circles on the back of my hand going up and down the dirt roads that intersect on my palm.

I see dirt where I once saw green.

I see carcasses of bodies scattered on the fields to my right, to my left 60

severed limbs, busts piled on top of each other, fresh pearly droplets still dripping from open wounds.

I was only gone two months.

A deafening silence lingers on heavy puffs of red air with my every exhalation I rub my eyes but— I cannot see I cannot hear I cannot feel.

I’m a stranger in my body I’m a soldier tottering through the trenches panting, stumbling, trudging.

Take cover!

Bare trees are no shelter.

Without shelter game’s over.

Feet in earth, hands on knees I usually wake up at this point but— I’m not a soldier, I’m just a girl wearing a pair of blue Chucks, I’m tiny 61

Alice in the Room of Doors surrounded by giants naked, with arms raised to the sky I reach out, feeling the rough rind scratching my palm.

It is too late, I’m sorry.

I lean my forehead against the trunk.

There was nothing we could do.

I crawl down, curling up on the ground.

We did everything we could.

I press my fingertips in the debarked surface, I can feel the earth under my fingernails, in my knotted hair in the space between my socks and the soles of my shoes.

The Greeks used olive trees to celebrate athletes, the Romans

to honor their citizens, but we we had to see them fall fighting a war that wasn’t for us to win paying the price of human mythical invincibility, the underestimation of a bug’s power and I I may not have heard the arrival of the buzzing army but the calm after the storm is arguably worse.

I may not have seen dozens of arms embracing trunks, branches holding bodies but I know exactly how they felt like Bernini’s Apollo holding onto Daphne.

He placed his hand where he had hoped to find a beating heart, but just like us he ended up caressing her stone-cold skin embracing the branches, as if they were still limbs because that’s what we do.

We cannot bear to look at the things we broke so we turn them into something beautiful: a kitchen table, a nightstand, a trivet.

We raise totems to honor the gods in the middle of a crimson desert and ask for their forgiveness because that’s what we do.

Photo: This photo was taken in an Apulian countryside in the province of Lecce and depicts the terrible consequences of “Xylella fastidiosa,” a bacterial plant pathogen transmitted by insects. which has affected the centuries-old olive trees in the area.

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silEnce on thE AlbAn ridGE Scott & Trang Crider

On a cool, clear late-winter afternoon in Marino, we stepped up into the Cotral bus from Roma to Velletri and found seats, but rode only as far as Albano—one of the Castelli Romani, the small hill towns south of Rome—to explore the ridge of the crater lake, Lago Albano, at the acme between the lake and the city of Albano. We climbed the steep streets north from the city center up the crater’s side to find the ruins of the Roman amphitheater (almost at the top of the crater’s ridge) and explore the grounds of a Capuchin convent (at its very top). In both places, we were the only people there, and we weren’t sure we were allowed to be there. Travel encourages you to transgress.

The amphitheater was built for the second Parthian legion in the 3rd Century CE, but its seating is now worn down to mossy nub, and its floor, to grassy field. The Albans like to hold concerts here in the summer; that winter day, it was not open.

We walked along the fence above the amphitheater that let us look down into its natured culture, but fretted that we could not enter. We continued to explore until we found an unlocked door only slightly ajar, shot a conspiratorial look at one another, and slipped in. Holding hands, we passed through its side entrance, and found ourselves looking up from its floor at the faded seating on one side. The other side is gone and must have

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nestled against the top of the crater. Trang looked for a good spot for a photograph while Scott mistakenly dreamed of Seneca and Plautus, Latin literature’s demi-Shakespeares, even though the entertainments here were of a more sordid character. They fed human beings to wild animals. The Colosseum in Rome marks one of its spots with a cross to remind visitors of the persecution of Christians, the history of violence there and the violence of history everywhere. There are no markers here. No people.

No sound other than birdsong. We take in its quiet loveliness, not mindful of its faded traces of brutality, then keep going up the crater’s side.

The Convent, Il Convento dei Padri Cappucini, is Franciscan, and the structure and grounds are marked by St. Francis’ simplicity, his austere yet joyous attempt to live out the Sermon on the Mount. The Church itself was not open, but we wandered into an empty courtyard, again alone and again unsure of the rightness of our being there.

We figured Francis wouldn’t mind.

We hear that the Church has a lovely painting of St. Bonaventure dreaming of St. Francis, but we did not see it that day, and we confess Bonaventure annoys us because his biography of Francis not only lifted so much from Thomas Celano’s earlier biography, which Bonaventure then tried to have suppressed, but also edited out of the record Francis’ pre-conversion courtly gallantry involving wine, woman and song, no doubt thinking that saints must always have been saintly. Francis and Clare knew the good life less fully understood before they gave it up for the good life more fully understood.

From the entrance to the courtyard, we could look down the crater to Albano, across the valley to the Tyrrhenean sea; from within the courtyard, we could look down upon Lago Albano, its mischievous surface grey in the late afternoon sun. That surface changes color continually during any day and throughout whatever season you are in, but its customary metamorphosis of color runs from mint green to aqua marine, from aqua marine to grey. Eduardo De Fonseca makes an extraordinary claim in his Castelli Romani: An Account of Certain Towns and Villages in Latium (in WC Cook’s translation): The Capuchin church, dedicated to San Bonaventura and erected by princess Gonzaga in 1619, stands on the hill summit, overlooking the most extensive panorama to be enjoyed in the whole of the Castelli. From its pleasant elevation two totally distinct yet equally grand views are obtained, one over the lake, Monte Cavo and the adjoining localities, and the other over Albano, the plain, and the distant sea.

It’s true, and we could see across the lake Monte Cavo, the highest point of the Alban hills, once home to the Temple of Jupiter, now recognizable by its hideous cell towers.

Up above lake and mountain, above city, valley and sea, we yielded to the courtyard’s silence. We dwelt in what William Wordsworth calls in his Prelude a “spot of time”:

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There are in our existence spots of time, That with distinct pre-eminence retain A renovating virtue, whence, depressed By false opinion and contentious thought, Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight, In trivial occupations, and the round Of ordinary intercourse, our minds Are nourished and invisibly repaired; A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced, That penetrates, enables us to mount, When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.

This efficacious spirit chiefly lurks Among those passages of life that give Profoundest knowledge to what point, and how, The mind is lord and master—outward sense The obedient servant of her will. Such moments Are scattered everywhere, taking their date From our first childhood.

Time opened a vast space for us within a brief interval of only minutes, and in that courtyard spot of time, we surveyed the Alban world as though children seeing Eden.

Even the birds were still. We said nothing, only smiling to one another, lifted up by the elevating virtue of the place between the lake and the sea, nourished and invisibly repaired.

Afraid we would be caught, we hurried from the grounds.

v

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ThErE is A plAce Antonia Caserta

In Florence there is a place I go to seek respite from the frenetic city, the chaos of everyday life and, above all, my noisy mind. It has become an oasis of sorts. It is a place that, simply stated, makes me feel good, whole, where for a few moments I can put all things aside and be open to something greater. And no matter where we live we each have this place—a peaceful spot that fills us and nourishes our spirit.

While the physical surroundings may be different for each of us, if we so choose the essential function of this place, what it represents and what occurs there, remains the same for all.

When I lived in Bologna, that place for me was San Luca, a basilica set on a hilltop just southwest of the city center. My reward after walking the nearly four kilometer stretch and climbing the steep 600 portico covered steps was a boundless view. To the north the red rooftop city sprung up from the Emilian plain. To the south the verdant slopes of the Bolognese hills gave way to the distant, jagged Apennine mountain range. Such beauty. Many times when I was faced with a decision or felt unsure about my future I would walk up to San Luca, as pilgrims had done for years before, and offer up my questions, doubts and uncertainties. This place brought comfort and served to remind me that I am equally as vast and expansive as the view before me. Like many, I would even search for San Luca in the distance when returning to Bologna from my travels. From the highway the Basilica would grow larger, appearing ever more prominent over the horizon, like a lighthouse beckoning weary travelers home and signaling their safe return after a long journey.

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Bottega Bici di Firenze Marion Younan 5x7 in ink and watercolor on archival watercolor paper 67

My spot in Florence is along the Arno and I love coming here. I first stopped in this place a few months after moving to Florence at the end of a particularly frantic day of apartment hunting. I had just seen my last apartment and was feeling a bit heavy-hearted, unsure as to how to move forward. As the sun set, I looked out at the city, towards Ponte alle Grazie and further on to Ponte Vecchio, and then across the Arno towards San Niccolo’ and up to Piazzale Michelangelo. Under the autumnal golden light the city seemed to glitter in the most perfect way as if subtly, silently nodding to me, at once acknowledging and answering that which I was holding unresolved in my heart. I immediately felt peaceful, supported and not so alone. Since then coming here has become a necessity.

This place, this stretch of greenery along the north bank of the Arno River, reminds me that I am the punto fermo among the chaos. The city whirling and spinning around me. And me. Still. Observant. On any given day the water seems to reflect, complement, or stand opposite my mood. Everyday it is different, shifting I notice, just like me. Some days I sit so long I watch the sky turn magically from day to night, the sun shyly dipping behind the Oltrarno, leaving only a blazing trail of vibrant colors. Other days I watch rowers effortlessly glide along the river, their canoes like sharpened blades silently, precisely cutting deep grooves. My eyes follow every ripple the oars make, concentric circles one expanding into the next until I no longer distinguish the first from the last. Mesmerized yet mindful. Entranced yet aware.

Some days Florence is cast with a mist, a fogginess that seems to hang there like a veil, motionless, thickening the view. In the late autumn evenings, on seemingly dreary days, few people are here. The blades of grass remain still, damp and heavy from the earlier rain. Gone are the warm hues of fall—shimmering gold, bright reds and vibrant oranges—and instead Florence is bathed in muted blues and pastel grays. Even on days like this coming here soothes me. During the colder months on beautiful, bright afternoons I sit under the warm embrace of the mid-day sun. Sometimes I race there at the end of the day in time to catch the sunset, bidding farewell to all that came to pass asking the last rays to burn the defeats and heaviness of the day. In that moment I am renewed; I hold tight the thought that each day is filled with endless possibilities and that tomorrow will be a new day, with new beginnings.

There are times when the Arno never fully runs over the weir, a connector that crosses the width of the river halting the flow of the water. A dry walkway appears making it possible for me to walk out to the middle of the river. With the water behind and before me, I feel small yet mighty, as I stand in the shadow of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. There is an unmistakable and indescribable energy I feel moving around and within me. It lies beyond the sound of honking motorists and zippy vespas, beyond the chatter of nearby Florentines and the chiming church bells.

It exists at the merging of the gentle breeze brushing my cheek, the flickers of light dancing on the stones, and the far off murmur of trickling water. It is the awareness 68

that I am not separate from any of these things. It is a sense of oneness, a connection with something that exists just beyond words.

In these places we come seeking beauty, peace, clarity, comfort and, most of all, connection. Connection to another. Connection to nature. Connection to self. The couple strolling hand in hand at sunset. The teenagers riding their bikes along the rivers edge. The artist, sitting back against a tree, meticulously sketching the beauty of the city before nightfall. The contented loner walking her playful pup. And me. We are different but here in this place for the same reason.

Connection is lived in the present moment and these places become invitations to live in the now if we so choose. When we connect to what is being offered to us in the present, we begin the process of opening up, of becoming both deeply grounded within ourselves but also expansive and liberated. An awareness begins to unfold and space is created. Within this space new ideas, insights, solutions, and new ways of being come through. These physical places allow us to cultivate awareness that in every moment life is speaking to us, if only we remain open to see the gifts we are being offered. The subtleties of life—the rhythmic swaying of the grass in the summer breeze, the peculiar cloud formations floating by, the naked tree branches stretching upward, the flower buds breaking through the earth after a long winter—go unnoticed, dismissed as everyday occurrences. By remaining in the present moment these experiences instead are seen under a new light—gifts, tiny miracles that color our lives. Over time, as we continue to cultivate and live in this awareness, we come to understand that this experience is available to us not just in certain conditions and in certain places, but in every condition, in every place, regardless of the circumstances, if only we connect to the present moment. In doing so we become receptive to the greatness that surrounds us, to the greatness that pervades all things. It is then that we come to deeply know that within us there is too a place where this greatness resides and where it has always existed.

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Interview

with Videographer & Creative

Kylie Flavell

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Kylie Flavell is a video maker and creator that has made YouTube her medium.

Her videos are immersive experiences that cover a range of subjects from life in Italy, to cooking, to travel and exploring the country, to poetry and reflections.

Each episode she posts transports the viewer to an almost fairy tale reality, with careful attention to detail, sound effects, music and a consistent focus on finding the beauty and magic in every day expereinces. They hearken back to a cinematic past while always remaining quintissential “Kylie.”

We talked about some of the difficulties of following your dreams, the satisfaction when it pays off and how the fairytale always comes with witches and dragons. However, that’s all part of the adventure. The following excerpts have been edited and our full conversation can be found on the podcast.

Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts to hear our full conversation when it comes out.

Interview and Podcast conducted by Lauren Mouat.

On choosing a creative life Lauren: What was it about Italy that made you want to give up the career you were building in Australia and move here with no exact career in mind?

Kylie: I suppose I wanted to live in a way that felt more cinematic and more poetic and I found that every year that I’ve been here (by now it’s been on and off for about 10 years of living in Italy) so yeah it’s definitely become that sort of fairy tale for me but when I say fairy tale I mean even the low moments are a fairy tale - the wicked witch and the Dragons!

Lauren: They’re part of the fairy tale too - you need to have the lows in order to have the highs!

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Kylie: The hero’s journey, you know that traditional narrative where you really are slaying the dragon and “fighting off the wicked witch” and all of that even if the wicked witch is just your expat anxiety.

Lauren: I do agree that you find what it is you’re looking for. So if you are someone who thinks nothing works out, that gets confirmed over and over. And if you look for the beauty in the world, then you might be someone who moves to Italy to be surrounded by beauty and then within that context find even more and more wonderful things around you.

Kylie: I think any foreign country I’ve moved to - it just amplifies whoever you are as a person. So that’s always something that I say to people who are considering moving to a foreign country: whatever you are it will be amplified so just to keep that in mind!

Lauren: That’s so interesting because so many people want to move to escape themselves and the truth is they will be even more themselves if they go. You’re kind of stripped bare in a foreign country. Do you think that if you had stayed in Australia you would have made such a creative life for yourself?

Kylie: I suppose I’ve just always had a real innate sense of adventure and I just really respond well to living as an expat - I love the challenge, I love the stimulation, I love that sense that you are, I don’t know, perhaps it’s a sense that you are in a constant state of growth, right? And of course people can grow and evolve in their home country but for me it really works to be living in a foreign speaking country. It makes me constantly alert and aware of my flaws and my growth and that’s how I love to live, I suppose.

Lauren: You like the challenge.

Kylie: Yes! But that said I mean I suppose I was always doing a million projects back when I was in Australia as well and so I was already in a creative role. I think some people write to me and they’re doing something that they hate in their home country and then they have this idea of moving to italy to follow their passion. I was, I suppose, I was already pursuing a passion - it was one of my dreams to run a magazine and interview people around the world. It was a business magazine that I was editing and I was writing long feature articles and one of my first loves is writing so I really loved that. But then I achieved what I wanted to achieve there and then I was wanting something more. The more for me was saying, “OK can I be creative and also be living in a place that is very sensual and very ancient and very stimulating culturally?”

So that was the missing piece for me.

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Why Film? Choosing a creative direction

I asked Kylie why she chose film over any other creative medium that she’s passionate about – writing, poetry, photography – and she told me the story of how her first job in Italy was hosting a TV show in which she traveled across the country, conducting interviews. But she was frustrated by the slowness of the production, of making compromises on her artistic vision. Ultimately, the production company sold the show but didn’t pay up, leading to some long, drawn out legal battles with no satisfying conclusion. This was her response to the challenge: Kylie: I just thought the whole thing might be easier if I teach myself to do every single person’s job on the set and then I will have the flexibility to go and do what I want without having to try and convince others. I just thought when I was kind of screwed over by this production company, I thought, Right I’ve got two options here. I could really wallow in self pity and think “Ah how unfair is this!” but I thought, No I’ll just see this as: that was my film school and I put it down to a really great year of learning.

Then in a way it worked out really well because I think all of that injustice and that drama sort of pushed me to learn every single role and then it sort of set me up to then have really great flexibility because I could travel the world with all of my film equipment on

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my back and I found opportunities I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Lauren: Your ability to take total creative autonomy over the film medium, I think is is very rare. You’re totally in control of the videos that you make. Would you be willing to work with a team again or have you found your groove on your own?

Kylie: I guess I’m not in a position financially where I could take on someone as an employee and that’s a lot of responsibility and I think I like the fact that I only have to be responsible for me. I know that I’m a survivor you know how it is like I know that having €2.00 in my bank account - it doesn’t scare me anymore. Or having to work 80 hours a week -that doesn’t intimidate me or get me down. So yeah, I’m not opposed to working with others but then when I’ve gone back and done little projects where I work for the team - Oh my gosh I forgot how much time is wasted and how expensive things are. When I’m working on my own everything’s a lot more authentic in terms of being able to conduct more intimate and personal interviews.

Lauren: What’s your aim with your YouTube Channel?

Kylie: I suppose what I wanted to do with You Tube is - because I started in TV and then went to YouTube - I wanted to bring the production quality of TV with the authenticity and intimacy of YouTube and and combine the two. I want to create a community of people who are bit freaky like me but it’s certainly not really the recipe for success. If you want to be followed on Instagram or YouTube or anywhere on social media, you probably shouldn’t take the path I’ve taken!

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On Not Giving Up Lauren: Can you tell me about a time when you almost gave up on this dream of being able to make your videos exactly as you wanted?

Kylie: Oh there’s just... so many! I suppose putting yourself online with all the negative comments is really difficult and if you add not being able to pay rent and really being in financial difficulty and then also having your dream, your professional dream not work out and then feeling also alone because maybe you haven’t you got a support network around you. You think, “I’m putting my heart and soul into it and it’s something that gives me a sense of purpose - I believe in what I’m doing!” But it can be hard.

A lot of people say that you just need to find your passion and that’s the hardest part but I don’t believe that because I found it, I’ve always known what makes me happy and what I’m passionate about but I think there are lots of other steps that you have to overcome before you can make the whole puzzle work.

Lauren: What do you think is worse: The inner demons (self doubts) or the outer demons which are often online trolls leaving hateful comments?

Kylie: I think they are one and the same really, because oftentimes people are saying stuff in the comments and messages that you’ve already considered yourself or a lot of the time what they say has absolutely no element of truth at all. It can still get to you and you need to be really really strong at working out that detachment and not seeking applause and not seeking any kind of validation from the outside which is kind of counterintuitive because... isn’t art made to be shared?

Lauren: Often people don’t even get to the point of putting what they’ve created out there and it’s true you’re going to get some negative comments but you’re also going to get some positive ones from places you never expected. You know if you put yourself out there, if you are vulnerable, you are at least also exposed to the positive reactions too.

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The creative beauty of restriction Kylie: I think one of the the best and worst things about You Tube is that it rewards frequency and this has been a constant battle for me. But I have just bowed down to the monster of YouTube and said, OK fine I’m going to play by your rules and publish every Friday. And while I’ve hated that it’s also been incredibly good for me creatively because it doesn’t matter if I think it’s perfect or if I think it’s ready, I just have to finish it and I have to start something new every seven days. That frequency of production means that I am forcing my brain, and my heart I guess, to get a lot faster and say, “Just have confidence in that” or “This is the way you’re doing it this weke and that’s that,” or “That’s the segment you’re going to choose, that’s the sound bite, that’s the color grading, the music and I know that I’ve learned a lot from that because I have this self imposed deadline every Friday.

How to find your voice while dealing with self doubt

“The thing that is really going to help you

Kylie: I think often what works for endure is when you get to that point when me is, I have my times where I’m reading widely and I’m getting inyou’re not influenced by other people’s spired but I don’t really follow people work, you’re actually just really hearing who are doing stuff that’s quite similar to what I’m doing. So I will follow your own voice.” people or consume work by people who are doing totally different things from me. I think if I were to, I don’t know, follow someone who is in a very similar environment to me and kind of with the same tone, it just can get a little bit difficult to really have clarity of creative voice.

I do think if you’re still at this stage of thinking, “I’m not quite sure if I found my creative voice or I’m not quite sure if my tone is really my own,” then it’s good not to follow people who are doing exactly the niche that you want because I just find you gotta be really strong person to not accidentally copy other work.

Lauren: You need to give yourself room to grow and to believe in your message.

Kylie: the easiest thing that you’re going to be able to maintain over the long term is something that is really authentic to you and and not even even if you find that your voice is is not as as as beautiful or as exciting as someone that you really admire like one of your creative heroes but that’s fine.

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The thing that is really going to help you endure is when you get to that point where you’re not inspired by other people’s work, you’re actually just really hearing your own voice and you say, “I know my tone and I know what world I want to create and what sentiment I want to create and this is this is me.” I think once you find that, that’s wonderful.

How is your work going now?

Kylie: For a long time I was just doing the work that pays or that gets you the experience or that teaches you something and and so finally being at the stage where I can wake up and kind of follow my desires or my curiosity and let that dictate what I film and what I put out to the world, I mean that’s something I’ve just longed for my whole life and I’m finally at that point and I feel really really grateful.

You can find Kylie Flavell on YouTube and Instagram.

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Let me recount to you my story Parallel Text Pietrina Salvatici Misciattelli Bernardini nasce a Orbetello, in Toscana, nel 1933.

Cresce tra la Grecia e l’Italia con la sua famiglia, composta dai genitori e i suoi tre fratelli, e questo continui spostastamenti, fondamentali per la sua formazione, saranno però responsabili di quel sentimento di profonda nostalgia che non la abbandonerà mai. Scampata con la sua famiglia alla Seconda Guerra Mondiale, vive il dopoguerra in Sardegna dove conoscerà l’amore della sua vita, Gregorio Misciattelli Bernardini, rampollo di una nobile famiglia umbra.

Con lui proverà sentimenti mai provati prima, compresa la paura di non essere accettata a causa del rigido protocollo della Nobiltà italiana che voleva per Gregorio una moglie dello stesso rango. Ma, come per ogni favola che si rispetti, il lieto fine era previsto e i due innamorati hanno potuto vivere il loro grande amore. Pietrina oggi vive in Umbria accanto ai suoi quattro figli, dieci nipoti e due bisnipoti.

Pietrina Salvatici Misciattelli Bernardini was born in Orbetello, in Tuscany, in 1933. She grew up between Greece and Italy with her parents and three siblings. Moving frequently between these countries was fundamental for her development, but also a reason for a deep nostalgia which would never leave her.

Having survived World War II with her family, she resided in Sardinia after the war. There she met the love of her life, Gregorio Misciattelli Bernardini, heir to an aristocratic Umbrian family. With him she experienced feelings unlike ever before. This unfortunately included the fear of not being accepted due to the rigid social protocols of the aristocracy, which demanded for Gregorio a wife of the same social class. But, like in any self-respecting fairy tale, a happy ending was ultimately in the cards, and the two lovers were able to live out their great love. Pietrina lives today in Umbria with her four children, ten grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Il seguente estratto proviene dal libro di memorie che ha scritto nel 2014, tradotto da Ellen Craig.

The following excerpt is taken from a memoir she wrote in 2014, translated

by Ellen Craig.

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Italiano Piera Salvataci Misciattelli Bernardini Spesso vieni a fare il bagno allo stagno, ti senti vecchio, inadeguato, desideri disperatamente inserirti nell’allegria di quei giovani amici, è difficile, il divario fra la tua età e la loro è minimo, per loro il passato è rifugio, per te baratro di dolore, l’avvenire è ridotto a l’immediato, il domani una incognita.

Una mattina come tante, il cielo terso, il volo argenteo dei muggini, la difficoltà a poggiare i piedi sulle conchiglie taglienti, come pensieri faticosamente trattenuti per non sconfinare in ricordi dolorosi. Alle tue spalle senti un passo incerto e titubante, un ciao appena sussurrato e improvviso, ti giri, una figurina armoniosa dal sorriso appena accennato e timido dietro una cascata di capelli biondi che celano e scoprono il viso ad ogni folata di vento.

Ti alzi e stringi una mano dal tocco deciso, mentre la voce di Attico pronuncia, ‘Piera questo è il mio nuovo amico Gregorio’.

Non mi vuoi guardare ma anche io non voglio guardarti, anzi ti ignoro completamente e continuo a osservare un punto in lontananza, tu ti senti vecchio e io piccola e puerile, consapevole della mia bellezza, sento che rappresento tutto ciò che vorresti sognare, ma anche tutto ciò a cui ora non puoi aspirare, non hai nulla da offrirmi, ti senti solo un involucro al quale la vita ha strappato il cuore e i sogni.

Ma sono giorni sereni, trascorsi fra scaramucce, bronci e risate, impulsi repressi, atti gentili, ma volutamente indifferenti intrecciati a silenzi prolungati, lo sguardo che si sposta verso un salto acrobatico dei muggini, e la tua lotta, ancora faticosamente vincente per non posare lo sguardo su di me, la fatica di rispondere alle mie domande con leggero sarcasmo, mescolata allo sforzo di soffocare il desiderio di accarezzarmi i capelli, di vedermi arrivare trattenendo il desiderio di corrermi incontro.

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English Translated by: Ellen Craig Often you come to take a swim at the tidal pool. You feel old, inadequate, you want desperately to insert yourself in the exuberance of those young friends. It’s tough, even though the divide between your age and theirs is minimal. For them the past is a refuge, while for you it is an abyss of pain. The future is reduced to the immediate; tomorrow is an unknown.

One morning, like so many others, the sky is clear, the silver flight of the mullets ever present. You struggle to place your feet on the razor sharp seashells, like thoughts held with difficulty so as to not run over into painful memories. Behind you, you hear a tentative and unsure step, a ‘Ciao’ barely whispered, and quickly, you turn. A small figure is there, harmonious in her hint of a timid smile behind a cascade of blonde hair concealing and hiding her face at every rush of wind.

You rise and shake her decisive hand, while the voice of Attico says, ‘Piera, this is my new friend Gregorio.’

You don’t look at me and I don’t want to look at you either. I actually ignore you completely and continue to stare at a point out in the distance. You feel old, and I small and childish. Aware of my beauty, I feel that I represent all that you would like to dream of, but also all that you cannot aspire to. You have nothing to offer me, you feel you are simply a shell from which life has stripped your heart and dreams.

Nevertheless these are tranquil days. We pass them with quarrels, frowns and laughs, suppressed instincts, actions that are kind but deliberately emotionless, interwoven with prolonged silences. You hold back the longing to run and meet me when you see me arrive. Your gaze turns toward the acrobatics of the mullet fish as you process an internal struggle to not rest your gaze on me, and you succeed only with difficulty. You strain to respond to my questions with light sarcasm, concentrating fully on smothering your desire to caress my hair.

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Italiano Aspettare il mattino per potermi rivedere e inventare poi ogni mezzo perché non intuisca e non veda quello che sei, un uomo assetato d’amore, bisognoso di sogni e di speranze, ti appelli disperatamente a ogni sorta di logica.

Secondo te io merito una vita diversa da quella che mi potresti offrire, speranze, futuro certo, una vita che tu, nelle tue condizioni non mi puoi garantire, ti crogioli in una gelosia mascherata da indifferenza totale, provi antipatia per Enzo, bello scultoreo, gentile e affettuoso, e per Piero, premuroso e leale, credi che ti faccia ombra la sua serena costanza, la sua assiduità.

Gite in barca, risate, poi la capitolazione totale, resa incondizionata ad un sentimento, che nonostante la tua determinante volontà e le argomentazioni piene di logica ferma, ha proclamato vittoria.

Mi dichiari così tuoi sentimenti e le ragioni per averli voluti nascondere mimetizzandoli sotto una indifferenza esasperata, quanta fatica inutile, quanti giorni persi... ma io ti sorrido e ti dico ora e per sempre, ‘anch’io sono innamorata di te’.

Quante volte, nella nostra lunga vita insieme, abbiamo ricordato questo momento e quei giorni felici? Sempre, come fosse ora.

Lunghe passeggiate a Cagliari, la nostra meta preferita era l’orto botanica, mi illustravi le varietà delle piante e mi parlavi delle miracolose proprietà della terra, la commozione velava la tua voce, mi raccontavi ei tuoi terreni non più tuoi, del tuo mondo, della tua verde regione, e lentamente, in punta di piedi entrai nella tua vita.

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English In the mornings you wait for the moment when you can see me again. But when I arrive, you create any artefice possible so as not to seem who you actually are, a man thirsty for love, hungry for dreams and hopes. You turn desperately to any kind of logic.

It seems to you that I deserve a different life from what you might be able to offer me - hopes, a certain future, a life which you, in your condition, cannot guarantee me. You wallow in a jealousy masked as total indifference. You feel dislike for our friend Enzo, handsome and sculpted, kind and affectionate. Also for Piero, thoughtful and loyal, you believe that he overshadows you with his calm steadfastness, his dedication.

We go for outings in the boat, joking around. And then the total capitulation, unconditional surrender to a sentiment, that, despite your determined wishes and your arguments full of rigid logic, has proclaimed victory.

You declare to me your feelings and the reasons you wanted to hide them, camouflaging them under an exasperated indifference. What a useless effort! How many days lost! But I smile at you and I say now and for always, ‘I am also in love with you.’

How many times, in our long life together, did we remember this moment and those happy days? Continually, as if it were today.

Long walks together in Cagliari - our preferred place was the botanical garden. You would show me the vast variety of plants and when you spoke to me of the wondrous properties of the soil, emotion weakened your voice. You told me about your lands that were no longer yours, of your world, of your green region Umbria, and slowly, on tiptoe, I entered into your life.

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Italiano Sapevo che il tuo passato aveva segnato per sempre il tuo carattere, ero consapevole che vivere con te sarebbe stato un altalenare fra altezze infinite e precipizi dolorosi, ma non importava ne dove o come, desideravo solo condividere la mia vita con te, percepire il senso di protezione e amore che mi davi, certa che mai più avrei vissuto un amore così grande.

Mi portasti a conoscere i tuoi genitori, tuo padre affabile e sorridente, tua madre invece, troppo gentile, troppo affabile, troppo tutto, fui avvolta da un senso di freddo e di proibito, un nemico invisibile che non conoscevo, mondi diversi, convenienze cementate nei secoli, una realtà che senti ostile ma non capisci, leggi ataviche che non comprendi.

Avevo diciotto anni, e credevo che il mondo fosse mio, un lasciapassare sicuro, ma non era così, niente di tutto questo, da una parte di quel mondo venivo rifiutata, non ero all’altezza, non avevo illustri antenati o un nome altisonante, ero corredata solo di un amore vero, infinito, troppo poco.

Amori contrastati, famiglie sorde a ogni sentimento, convenienze e ambizioni, matrimoni combinati e ragioni di confini e proprietà limitrofe, diventai mio malgrado la protagonista di una faida contro il vero amore.

Una ribellione impotente, cercavi in infondermi una speranza che anche in te vacillava, ‘vedrai che tutto si risolverà, riuscirò a convincerli che tu sei per me ciò che ho di più importante, non rinuncerò mai a te, dovranno capire.’

Quante parole, quante speranze appena nate e già disilluse, quanti giorni a cercare una via di uscita, poi improvviso e studiato, il tuo rientro alla Regione di origine; un grande amore non può competere contro strategie messe in atto da sapienti strateghi, che nella loro vita hanno anteposto al sentimento le convenienze pratiche 84

English I knew that your past had marked your character forever. I was aware that to live with you would have been a back and forth between infinite heights and painful falls. But it didn’t matter where or how, I wanted only to share my life with you, to sense the protection and love you gave me. I was certain that I would never again experience a love so great.

You took me to meet your parents. Your father was friendly and smiling. Your mother, Ada, however, was too courteous. Too friendly, too everything. She was enveloped in a sense of coldness and the forbidden. She was an invisible enemy that I wasn’t able to recognize. We were from different worlds, hers was a propriety forged over the centuries.

I was 18 years old, and I believed that the world was mine, that I had free license.

But it was not to be, none of this was to be. In that world I was rejected. I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t have illustrious ancestors or an important surname. I was equipped only with infinite true love - far too little.

Our love was obstructed. Families from your world were deaf to our feelings. Traditions and ambitions were what counted, marriages were arranged and reasoned based on borders and adjacent properties. I became, despite myself, the protagonist in a feud against true love.

Ours was a powerless rebellion. You tried to reassure me, with a hope that even in you was wavering, ‘You will see, everything will work out, I will be able to convince them that you are the most important thing to me, I will never give up on you, they will need to understand...’

How many words, how many hopes crushed as soon as they were born, how many days seeking a path forward. And then suddenly, but clearly well planned, your reentry to your Region of origin, Umbria. Even a great love cannot compete against

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Italiano con nomi altisonanti, nobiltà, doveri, ricostituzione di patrimoni in rovina, con matrimoni mirati a rimpolpare proprietà e tradizioni.

La partenza segnata da un arrivederci straziante come un addio, la tua mano che asciugava le mie lacrime, la tua voce che sussurrava, ‘ti prego, amore, parlerò con i miei zii, li convincerò, aspettami, realizzeremo i nostri sogni, ci sposeremo, vivremo sempre insieme, aspettami.’

Quante battaglie in una guerra di convenienza, tradizioni da rispettare, un titolo nobiliare, troppe argomentazioni logiche, ataviche, contro un ragazzo e una ragazza armati solo di un amore infinito, ma solo amore.

Nel tempo di allora vinsero le convenienze, la certezza che non potevi offrirmi nulla, una tattica degna del migliore scaltro: caricarti di responsabilità più grandi di te, unirle ai tuoi sensi di colpa per lo sfacelo del mondo dorato che non c’era più, la disperazione nel credere di tarparmi le ali per un amore senza un domani.

Forse la lontananza e le lettere sempre più rare, inviate ma mai arrivate, la disperazione sempre più profonda, poi primi dubbi, e infine la certezza di un amore a senso unico, seguita da una cupa rassegnazione, e dalla convinzione che non si entra in paradiso a dispetto dei Santi.

Io il Paradiso lo avevo intravisto, ma ciò che mi rimaneva era solo il sogno di pensare come sarebbe stato viverci e poterci entrare.

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English the intricate schemes put in place by master strategists. Those strategists who, in their own lives, had put aside their own sentiments for practical benefits with important family names, nobility, obligations, and reassembling ruined fortunes with marriages crafted simply to enrich holdings and traditions.

Your departure was marked by an agonizing goodbye, as if a farewell. Your hand that dried my tears, your voice that whispered, ‘I beg you, my love, I will speak with my aunts and uncles, I will convince them. Wait for me, we will make our dreams come true, we will get married, we will live forever together, wait for me.’

How many battles they waged in a war of self-interest, an aristocratic title, too many logical reasonings - ancient ones - against a boy and a girl armed only with infinite love. But only love.

In those days, proprietal conveniences won. Your family convinced you that you couldn’t offer me anything - it was a tactic befitting the most cunning of minds.

They piled on responsibilities that were bigger than you. They folded in your sense of guilt for the destruction of the golden world that no longer existed, and enhanced the desperation in believing it was better to clip my wings rather than to pursue a love without a future.

Perhaps at first it was the distance. Then the letters that were always more sporadic, some sent but never arriving, the anguish always deeper. Then my first doubts. The certainty that this had become a one-way love was followed by a dark resignation, and finally by the belief that one does not enter into Paradise if one is not wanted there.

I had glimpsed Paradise, but all that remained with me now was the dream of it, and my imagination of what it might have been like to truly enter and live my life there.

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Author Bios Flavia Brunetti More than Fire

Fiction Sarah Barnett-Benelli A Kindness

Flavia grew up bouncing between Rome, Italy, and a little town outside of San Francisco, California. When she moved to Tunis, Tunisia a few years ago, she began wondering what the gods might make of modern life in their ancient civilizations: “More Than Fire” is the first short story from a collection of thoughts that began on many flights between Tunis and Rome, where she lives today while she works on her second novel.

Her debut novel, All the Way to Italy, was published in 2018 by Ali Ribelli Edizioni. You can find Flavia on Instagram @whichwaytorome and her writing portfolio at www.flaviinrome.com.

In 2000, then a mature student at Bath Spa University, Sarah studied the literature of the Trecento at the Università degli Studi di Firenze, under the Erasmus scheme. She found it revelatory. Back in England she wrote her thesis on Chaucer and Boccaccio. She subsequently studied Florence in the Age of Lorenzo de’ Medici as part of her post-graduate course at the University of Bristol. Sarah followed up her interest in the writers of the Trecento when she took her MA in Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds in 2006, focusing her thesis on Boccaccio. Sarah has worked as a freelance writer for a regional newspaper, published travel/history articles related to Italy and written a number of literature guides for BrightSummaries. She is working on her first novel, set in Italy.

Andrea Tani Giuseppina della Tempesta Andrea Tani nasce nel 1974 a Grosseto. Dopo il diploma in Ragioneria, si laurea in Storia e Critica del Cinema e aveva una breve carriera come regista di videoclip musicali sia in Italia che nel Massachusetts (USA). Raccontare le storie però rimane il punto fermo della sua vita. Ama giocare a ping pong, viaggiare sul divano e leggere sempre qualcosa che lo incanta. Attualmente vive a Firenze. Non ha mai pubblicato niente.

Sarah’s husband Tony is half-Italian, his lovely family live near Firenze. They visit as often as they can. Sarah and Tony have lived in Firenze, Siena and a village in Umbria. Her passion for Italy has never abated.

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Giovanni Vergineo Ogni Desiderio

ing on her first book of poetry, dedicated to her love for Africa, and the many sacred lands we all call home.

Giovanni Vergineo è nato a Benevento nel 1984, ma vive a Roma da oltre dieci anni. E’ archeologo e guida turistica. Ha scritto numerosi racconti; il suo secondo romanzo, “L’antico vaso andava salvato,” uscirà nel 2022 per Augh!

Edizioni. Nel 2010 è stato finalista del Premio Italo Calvino con la raccolta di racconti “Pippe,” mentre nel 2015 è stato semifinalista del premio “La Giara” con il suo primo romanzo “La Scomparsa delle Cotolette,” disponibile in formato Kindle su Amazon.

Ludovica Cosentini Il Fiato di Dio Ludovica Cosentini nasce a Roma il 5 Ottobre del 1994. Consegue la Laurea triennale in Scienze della Comunicazione ad aprile 2016 con la votazione di 110/110 cum laude e dignità di stampa. Consegue la Laurea magistrale in Economia, Fiscalità e Finanza a luglio 2018 con la votazione di 110/110 cum laude e dignità di stampa. Consegue il Master di II livello in Scienze Economiche e Bancarie “Vincenzo Giordano” a dicembre 2019 con votazione 110/110. E’ finalista di numerosi concorsi nazionali e internazionali di letteratura. Attualmente è iscritta alla Scuola di Politica ed Economia della Fondazione Luigi Einaudi. Dal 1 Luglio 2018 lavora nella Direzione Affari di IBL Banca S.p.A. Dal 1 Agosto 2020 è Consigliere di Amministrazione dell’Associazione Didacqua.

Poetry Curry Patricia Anton Mother Tongue Born and raised in California, Curry Patricia Anton has spent much of her life traveling the globe gleaning inspiration from many lands and cultures. She spent the past 10 years living in Tanzania, building Ohana Amani, a transformative learning center, permaculture farm, ecolodge & regenerative community dedicated to creating Peace Between Those Who Breathe Together. Last year she sold her farm in Africa and moved with her partner and son to Florence, Italy, a place that has alway captivated her heart, and long been a part of her family lore. There she continues her work in resilience, regeneration and the Creative and Healing Arts. She is currently work-

Irene Palermo Deracinated Irene Palermo is a twenty-year-old student from Lecce, a small town in southern Italy. She currently lives in Rome, where she is majoring in English Literature with a double minor in Creative Writing and Communications at John Cabot University.

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Roan Shea We Come Home

Essay Scott & Trang Crider Silence on the Alban Ridge

I am a poet and actor living in Brooklyn, NY. Although I grew up in Massachusetts, Brooklyn was where my grandfather arrived after emigrating from Sicily at age 24. My connection to Italy comes from my grandfather as well as his siblings and cousins who still live throughout Sicily and other parts of Italy. I have only gotten to travel there once, so dreams of returning pile up and up and up.

Transplants from California, Scott Crider teaches, and Trang Crider works in the library, at the University of Dallas, which has a campus for its Rome Program in Marino, Italy, where they resided from 2018-2020, exploring the Castelli Romani and writing about their adventures.

Antonia Caserta There is a Place My name is Antonia Caserta. I am Italian-American; Born and raised in Connecticut I have been living in Italy for ten years, the last five of which have been in Florence. Both my parents were born in Italy and I was raised in a bi-cultural, bi-lingual home, so my love for Italy and all things Italian started at a young age. For the last ten years I have been tasting and sipping my way through Italy, learning the ins and outs of Italian wine. I am a certified sommelier with AIS and I have managed export sales for wineries in the Chianti Classico region. In my free time I enjoy traveling (hopefully soon!), learning (I am curious about everything!), and spending time in quiet contemplation, in nature and with my family and friends.

Memoir / Parallel Text Piera Salvatici Misciattelli Bernardini Let Me Recount my Story Bio su pagina 79.

Ellen Craig Parallel Text Translator Bio on Page 79.

www.antoniacaserta.com/

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Vinita Salomé Nostalgia

Visual Art Alanah Edwards Piazzale Fronte Retro

My working philosophy is based on perceptions and feelings, which have been polished and honed through my diverse international experiences. Through Vinita Salomé Photography, I pool my love of photography with every day experiences and my innate interest in people, travel and culture to capture the extraordinary flashes in the ordinary moments of our everyday lives. Currently learning Italian and have an unexplainable bond with Italy. www.vinitasalome.com

My name is Alanah, and I’m a 21-yearold architectural embroidery artist. I grew up in the south of England, and moved to the beautiful city of Florence when I was 17 after falling in love with the city whilst on holiday here in 2015. I have always had a passion for all things creative, but I fell in love with embroidery as soon as I tried it. My style is minimal and elegant, depicting beautiful places all over Florence, Italy and the world.

You can find my work on Instagram at @ cariatide.embroidery, or on my website: www.cariatideembroidery.com

Aleeshia Maria Tozzi Totò, “L’Uomo Selvaggio” Aleeshia is from an Italian-Egyptian family and grew up in Vancouver, Canada. Since 2016, she has been living and working across Italy in sustainable food & wine, most recently serving as the Hospitality & Communications Manager for the internationally acclaimed cooking school, Anna Tasca Lanza in Sicily. Before that, she was the Communications Manager for The Grand Wine Tour, a pioneering mark of excellence in Italian enotourism. Aleeshia is a Master’s graduate from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Piedmont, focusing her research on the food & wine potentials of Molise, Italy, her ancestral home. She hopes to continue connecting people to the Italian countryside and the cultural value of its food heritage.

Juliana Bleh Spring Street Café, Rome Juliana Bleh is the pseudonym of this Irish expat artist in Italy. Several years ago she developed a dripped-paint technique to mimic her fast sketch style in a Pollack-like method. While falling in love with Rome and also for a Roman man she created this piece entitled, ‘Spring Street Café, Rome’. More recently her artwork has come to incorporate erotic themes based around her experiences as an emotional abuse survivor, BDSM enthusiast and student of the nature of consciousness. This piece, along with her erotic artwork can be found oninstagram @julianableh.

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Marion Younan Bottega Bici Firenze

Editor

I probably would not be an artist today if it had not been for Italy and my annual pilgrimages from Ontario, Canada for the last 15 years. It was in Le Marche that I rediscovered my love of drawing.

It was in Piemonte and Liguria that I filled sketchbook after sketchbook. And it was in Tuscany in 2015 that I decided to become a full-time artist. Of my 250 artworks, over 150 are of Italian subjects, recreated from my own photos.

I’m Lauren Mouat. I was born in California but since 2010, Italy has been my home, first Rome and more recently on the Tuscan coast in Livorno.

Reading and writing are an essential part of my life. When I write, I think.

When I read, I grow. In my time in Italy, I’ve written for numerous publications and I’ve sought to bring writers together in a series of writing groups to share our work and ideas. I’ve also worked for many years as a tour guide and, in discussing Italy’s art and history, I found myself wanting to explore and share more of the contemporary writing and creative endeavours that are growing in and around Italy today.

Italy runs deep in my soul for reasons I can’t quite explain, but which I try to express in each precious detail in my art.

With every painting, my intention is always to make the viewer feel like they are in these special places, standing alongside me – igniting their own memories Open Doors is a way to share enthusiasm or a curiosity to explore Italy as soon as and encourage the exchange of ideas that possible. only art can bring to the surface. My aim is to connect writers and artists to reveal another side of Italy, a country that is so much more multifaceted than we are used to seeing in mainstream culture.

The world is going through vast changes and I believe that what we create now and the conversations we have today, will decide our future.

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Submit your work for the next issue of Open Doors!

Do you have a connection with Italy? Do you live here? Do you travel here? Do you dream of here? Whatever your connection to Italy (even if it’s just enjoying Open Doors), we invite you to submit to the next issue of The Open Doors Review.

We accept literary fiction, poetry and thought provoking essays.

Content is up to you. We are NOT looking for things that are specifically Italy focused. If your work happens to be about Italy, that is fine, but Italy is by no means a theme. We accept work in English or Italian.

Make us think. Make us laugh. Make us cry. Make us question.

Make us swoon. Make us uncomfortable. Make us feel.

For details on how to submit and on our next issue’s guest judge, visit our site: www.opendoorsreview.com

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