Sectioned-Off

My friend Bettina once told me that her mother compared the family unit to an orange. As each child left home, it was like a section being pulled away from the fruit.

Some images become embedded in my brain, and that one took hold.

Today, as we drove our daughter to the Pisa Airport for her flight back to New York, and earlier this week as we drove another daughter and her husband to the Florence Airport for their flight to Washington, I kept visualizing those orange sections being torn away.

John and I are lucky that we have grown children who enjoy spending vacations with us, and we with them. We are a good group together. I'm not saying that we are the Brady Brunch. All of us are strong-willed and sensitive, so there is usually a little drama.

Some of us have tempers and others of us pout. We have lots of little quirks among us, including one who will not eat red meat, two with a tendency to hypochondria, one who will argue almost any point, another who has a tendency to organize everyone and everything, another who complains about firm beds, one who views everything in mathematical terms. The list continues.

Yet we laugh a lot and like being together. When the vacations come to an end, they are never happy to leave and we are never anxious to see them go. When they get back home, the girls describe themselves as suffering from P.I.S.S., or Post Italy Stress Syndrome.

I will mope for a few days, and John will sympathize. I will look around at the people in this small Tuscan village and wonder if they are the ones who are living right. The businesses are all family run, grandparents are helping to raise the children, children don't leave. That seems attractive to me. Blame my Mediterranean blood.

In a week the girls will have their P.I.S.S. under control and I will stop thinking about segments being ripped away from the whole orange.

In the meantime, that is all I can think about.

"Call Me Walter"

Walter Cronkite died a few days ago at the age of 92, but the type of newsman he was died a long time ago in American television. Always dignified, respected, and not concerned with his appearance, he was a soothing presence even when delivering the most horrific news. I don't know anyone who didn't like him.

I am in the Tuscan hills as I write this, so I have not seen much news coverage of his death. I can imagine the accolades, the news clip of him announcing President Kennedy's death, his colleagues talking about what a professional he was, how they wanted to be like him, how much he was trusted.

I have my own personal memory of him that I would like to share.

It was New Year's Day of 1998 or 1999, in Vienna, Austria. He was there, as he always was, for the New Year's Day concert in that city of music. After the concert we were invited to the residence of the American ambassador, Kathryn Hall, for lunch. It was a buffet set-up, with free seating.

As I was standing at the buffet table, no doubt contemplating whether I should start my New Year's resolution diet that day or wait until January 2, a familiar voice came up behind me and asked, "What do you recommend?"

I turned to come face to face with Walter Cronkite. Of course I had seen him at the luncheon, but he was surrounded by people wanting to bask in his celebrity. He had that wonderful warm voice, and a friendly smile, and I think I suggested the ham.

We chatted a little at the table and then I went to find a seat with a friend.

"May I join you?" came that same familiar voice.

"Why yes, Mr. Cronkite," I said, "I would like that."

"Call me Walter," he said, and sat down.

I don't remember everything we talked about, but I do remember that he asked me questions rather than talking only about himself. He had a twinkle in his eye. He confessed that he had a weakness for dessert, and asked which one I thought he should have. He took a bite of mine. He was a charmer in the nicest possible way.

Later John mentioned to him that we were thinking of moving to New York when our time in Vienna came to an end.

"Oh, you should," Walter said. "You come to New York and we'll have some fun!"

We exchanged cards and numbers.

We never moved to New York and we never saw Walter Cronkite again, either. It doesn't matter.

Maya Angelou once said or wrote something to the effect that you might not remember what a person said or did, but you would always remember how that person made you feel.

Walter Cronkite made me feel good.

Roughly Speaking

There are people who can attend a dinner party with international guests and ask, "What language are we speaking tonight?" and converse in any one of them.

There are those who say, "After you learn one foreign language, the others come easily."

There are some who declare that it only takes three months to get a firm handle on a new language.

I am not any of those people.

There is a joke that people who speak three languages are called tri-lingual, two are bi-lingual, and those who speak one are called American.

That would be me.

I spent the first three months of seven years in Vienna, Austria telling people that I did not speak German until I was informed that "Nicht sprechen Sie deutsch" in fact means "You do not speak German." I always thought the baffled expression that this caused meant that I should say it again, more slowly.

We have been coming regularly to Italy since 1985, and in 1995 we took the giant step of buying and restoring a casa colonica (old farm house) in Tuscany. I have been learning the language ever since, and despite immersion courses and the Rosetta Stone series, I have not progressed beyond that of an advanced intermediate student.

My good Italian friends tell me that I speak very well, and if I stayed in the country without interruption for one year, I would be fluent. I take comfort in their assurances.

Oh, I can handle everyday conversations. I can talk about the weather, children, clothes, recipes, gaining weight, even a little politics. I know helpful words for when something goes wrong in the house, like "non abbiamo l'acqua calda" (we have no hot water), "c'e una fuga" (there is a leak), and the all purpose "non e` funzione" (it doesn't work). I can understand the gossip in Chi and Oggi magazines, and I can read and write rudimentary e-mails. But still.

If the conversation begins to move at a rapid clip, I might falter. One misunderstood word could send me down a different fork in the conversational road. We continue talking about totally different subjects until the only thing we have left to give is a dull look of incomprehension.

So many words sound alike that even gifted linguists can make a mistake. I have an English friend who lives here year round and speaks the language fluently. When two Jehovah's Witnesses found their way to her remote home in the hills, she wanted to get rid of them quickly by saying, "Sono salvata gia`" (I am already saved). Instead she told them, "Sono salata gia`" (I am already salted).

When speaking Italian, you must be careful to pronounce the double letters in a word distinctly. In a trattoria when ordering penne arrabiata, for example, be sure to say pen-ne, not pe-ne, or you will have ordered an angry penis. When you greet someone in the new year, make certain you say "buon an-no" (good year) and not "buon ano" (good anus).

I made my worst mistake when we began to renovate our house. I knew just enough Italian to be dangerous. We were visiting a tile store and I was trying to convey that I wanted a kitchen floor with texture. The salesman listened to me and appeared to bite his lip. He called a colleague over and asked me to repeat what I wanted. I did not need a translator to explain that they were trying hard to stifle a big laugh.

When John and I returned to the car, I told him I must have made a verbal boo-boo. I pulled out the Italian-English dictionary and was mortified to learn that "Vorrei un rozzo sul pavimento di cucina" roughly translates as "I would like a rough man on the kitchen floor."

Fuoco in Montagna (Fire in the Mountain)

We were checking out of the supermercato in our little village when the Funky Pop ring of my cell phone played. Because I am incapable of letting a ringing phone go unanswered, I stopped what I was doing to answer.

"Christina, it's Simon. There is a fire below your house. It's not too close but the winds are shifting your way. I'm at your place now."

I was thinking that it is a good idea to answer phones when they ring.

"But don't worry," he continued, "The Vigili di Fuochi (firemen) are here. They just can't find the road down to the fire."

After explaining where the road was, just outside our gate, and listening to Simon explain it in fractured Italian, I told him we would be there in a few minutes.

On our way up the hill, we stopped to let a fire truck pass us.

"I bet they don't know where to go," John commented.

We arrived at the house to find another vehicle on its way down the dirt track, with Simon surveying the smoke in the not too distant hillside below us. He told us he could hear the crackling.

"You got lucky. The winds just shifted the other way. Otherwise, you would have been in trouble, " he announced. Our house is stone, but we are surrounded by trees.

John, always calm when others see a reason to be a little excited, sat down
under the pergola and began to put together a new device for sweeping the pool. Simon and I kept watch on the fire fighting.

A helicopter loomed overhead and we wondered if it would scoop water from our pool or Simon's, but it seemed to have it's own source. It swooped in, dumped water on the smoking area, and then came frightening close to us on the terrace as it made its way back for more. It made at least a dozen swoops and drops.

"I wonder if he gets paid by the number of times he does that," John commented as he screwed together some part of the pool device.

The firemen who had passed us on the hill finally made their way down our road and had to be directed to the fire, though it seemed obvious enough.

"I knew they didn't know where they were going," muttered John.

Eventually the lost firemen found the ones already on the scene through walkie-talkies. Or they could have just followed the smoke.

Fire in the mountain is something that has to be taken seriously, particularly when it is dry and the winds are high. Several years ago a fire broke out on the distant hills and moved so quickly that Simon was ready to evacuate his place. The whole hillside was black and barren for a long time but it has regenerated.

Despite an element of comedy, the fire fighters did an impressive job of putting out the fire quickly.

Meanwhile John got the new pool device together and is eager to try it out.

Rock On

My sister Kim tells me that her father-in-law, in his eighties, fell in his home and was not discovered for two and a half days. After his children, who live in different states, made frantic calls to a neighbor, he was found bruised and badly dehydrated. He has a First Alert bracelet but refuses or forgets to wear it. A few more hours and he would have been dead.

Is it wrong for me to think that maybe that would have been a blessing?

He is a widower. He has heart problems. He has no friends, no hobbies that he enjoys any longer, no one to talk to, no bright spot in his day except his cat. His mind is slipping rapidly but not so much that he cannot exert his will. He lives in Tennessee and his closest children are in Kentucky and Texas. They have invited him to live with them or at least near them, which he refused. What can be done?

In this case, he no longer has a choice. He will live in a retirement community near the daughter in Kentucky. He may find that living among others of his age and near a child will bring him some comfort, maybe even a spark of happiness. I hope so. His grandsons would like to get to know him better.

But who am I to have an opinion about any of this? I don't know what it is like, so far (knock wood, tocca ferro) to have my body parts fail me, to depend on a wheelchair, to have chronic problems that make my day one endless round of pills and pain a constant companion. I don't know what it is like to lose my mind (well, not in that way, anyway), my eyesight, my hearing (though that is going). What right do I have to say, "Cheer up!"?

John's aunt, who lived to be over 100, announced in her eighties that she no longer had any desire to live. She was physically fit, amusing company, and had no serious health problems. "Let the bombs come!" she would say, "I've lived long enough." She had a strong will to die, she said, but lived for twenty more years, albeit slowly becoming bedridden. Of course, if she had really wanted to die, she would have done so one way or another.

I've heard of a couple in their eighties who bought a puppy. Obviously they intend to be around awhile.

My father, 83, tells me regularly that "getting old is not for sissies, honey." He toughs it out by walking every day. He meets friends for coffee regularly. He is interested in the news of the day. He is studying Arabic and does university courses online (yep, he can handle a computer). Importantly, he has friends in all age groups. He accepts invitations to dinners, weddings and parties. He has aches and pains, and takes a nap whenever he sits down in front of the TV, and he buys me walnuts when I ask for pecans, but all in all, he's in pretty good shape.

So what determines the elderly who seem to give up and the ones who keep rockin' right to the end, ageless in every sense of the word? I don't know, but I intend to be among the latter. Inshallah.

The Boss or the President

During the Clinton administration, which we spent in Vienna, we went to see the Boss in concert. With friends, we were able to ignore the staidly dressed and rhythm repressed Viennese, and danced in our seats to a fabulous concert. It was verboten to stand. Verboten is a word they like in Austria.

The next morning I asked John, "Would you rather be a president of the United States or Bruce Springsteen?" He hesitated.

"Would you rather your son be a president of the United States or Bruce Springsteen?" He looked perplexed.

"Would you rather your daughter marry a president or Bruce?" He kind of shrugged.

"If you were a woman would you rather be married to a president of the United States or Bruce?" He just looked at me.

It's hard to get a straight answer out of him for things like that. My answer to all of the above was Bruce. Could you guess? Maybe it was because the Monica Lewinsky encounters were dominating the news at that time and I knew more than I wanted to about the anatomy of our president, God bless him. But I wasn't asking about Bruce vs. Clinton. I was asking about being The Boss vs. the office itself.

I've been thinking about those questions again recently. It used to be that being president of the United States or giving birth to a future one was the highest aim you could have. John wanted to be president when he was five. Lots of little boys did. So did Obama. I fantasized about being a First Lady. That was during the Jackie Kennedy era, when elegance and dignity seemed to live at the White House. That was before anyone knew that the president was screwing women left and right in that very mansion and Jackie was finding unfamilar underwear in her bed. But I digress.

Now, with a truly inspirational guy in the White House, one who has single-handedly changed the way the world sees America and how African American children feel about themselves, I'm thinking that maybe the Boss wouldn't be getting my votes anymore. The presidency seems elevated to me once again. Dignified.

Interestingly Barack Obama was once asked who he would like to be if he couldn't be himself. He answered, "Bruce Springsteen."

A Blog in Me

Has everyone been told they should write a book? Is there a book in all of us? Do you, like me, have family and friends who tell you, "You should be writing!" "You need to write about that!" "Why aren't you writing?"

Doesn't everyone like to write, and isn't it true that you don't always read everything your friends pound out?

For whatever reason, and I have to admit it is laziness, I don't write more than the occasional vignette. I keep thinking, who cares what I have to say? But damn, I don't always care what others have to say and that doesn't stop them from writing and even getting paid for it. I'll never give Charles Krauthammer the time of day, for instance. George Will? Can rarely be bothered.

So, in order to satisfy those family and friends who make me feel that I should at least explore the idea of putting my thoughts to paper, I've decided that even if I don't have a book in me, I think I have a blog post or two.

Stay tuned.