Countryside

It was my favorite uncle’s birthday yesterday, not that you should say such things, “favorite uncle”, but it’s true. The one, when I was 18, I wrote my college application essay about. The one that introduced me to Pygmalion, Peter O’toole, male flute players, flowers planted in a garden, Jane Austen.

It is weird I suppose to be in Italy, listening to the tapperelli rise in your neighbor’s apartment, and the teapot heat the water until it softly whistles, in order to fill the French press coffee maker or to place the milk in the steamer on the smaller right burner of the stove. A cup of coffee so carefully prepared that it is only right to be nestled gently in my hands and pulled close against my face. The eggs will be prepared next, a dash of milk added, which is why the carton still sits on the counter, now. The toast and herbed oil goat cheese will play host to the eggs that will be scrambled in a small decaying Ikea frying pan.

I pause my typing to check the milk, to see it being warmed slowly by the blue gas below. I will prepare the meal and think of home.

I wrote to my uncle on his birthday, a simple email, not a card, and he would have loved a card. I had tried to write a letter last week on the hotel stationary at Stresa and I did, sealed it, and put it in my bag, to be mailed on Monday. I thought he would love that I was near Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms, and he would have. But I couldn’t send it. The words felt hollow, so, it is Saturday and it sits on my desk, unopened and unsent.

Just an email,

“I have thought of you a lot lately, but I suppose that is nothing new. And not because of birthdays or because of talk of dinners in Cazenovia that I will not be able to attend. No, it is a picture of you, wandering around your garden, with your cat ahead or behind depending on the day. It is a vision of you from a distance, as I turn up the dirt road, to go to the swamp. The swamp I named Ophelia's. You are far away, but you feel so near, making my heart feel big, just at the thought of you being there, on the land, a place I can't seem to stop longing for.”

His response back, simple and beautiful

“It is amazing how it is always the little things-- digging in the dirt and planting flowers or a new shrub, walking up a dirt road to a swamp, looking across a lake or a field and seeing something that reminds us why we're here, walking around with a cup of tea following a cat to no particular place at all, smelling the fall air and watching the leaves drop from the maple tree-- are the things that save us, that help us make sense of this life that often makes no sense at all.”


So, as I sit here in Italy, I can’t help but think about the people in upstate New York. Autumn brings a sense of nostalgia and a haunting allure that makes me miss it all. The flag football games, the battles over new turf fields, the lessons planned in the Moore Memorial library, the paint debates between my parents, questions about America posed late at night. It is hard to be so far away.

“We are going out to the country tomorrow! I’ll drive!” Mike texted.

A simple text message to remind me, right now, my place is here. A place where a friend quotes Jesus, Buddha and Rilke to help you make sense of things. Or where peeing your pants because of laughter, can happen three times in two years, and holds joy and no shame.

Because I am here, I have Amy, Mike, Robert, and Mary,(skype dates with Justin and Annie) along with Lisa, Jenna, Julie, Driedre, Zach. Because I am here, I have both upstate New York and Northern Italy, and today, as I head to the countryside that feels better than good.

Now, I will sing to the courtyard and wash the dishes I have dirtied, as I listen to my neighbors recycle their wine bottles in the bin below.

There was a time when I said, “My dishwasher was the best gift I ever received…” This is not that day.