Seasons in Basilicata

by David Yeadon

  Pasquale continued to stare at me, and I wondered if my poor Italian and gestures were not adequate to convey the magic of that special weekend, and only the weekend, delight. So I added another anecdote, a description of our “weekend bread” experiment with our local baker in Aliano, which we’d enhanced by adding an even wider variety of ingredients, including chopped olives, capers, anchovies, and peppers—a real multicolored mélange of ingredients and flavors.

  Pasquale was still looking at me curiously. And then, to my surprise, he said, “Okay. I’ve never try, but I will explain to the new baker and together we make.”

  “It’s so good,” I said, still finding it hard to believe that “weekend bread” did not have its origins in Italy, and also surprised by Pasquale’s quick decision. Basilicatans usually like to riflettere (reflect on things), sometimes forever.

  “It sounds so beautiful,” he said.

  “You’ll make a fortune,” I said.

  “A fortune would be very nice,” he said and laughed the laughter of a happy truffle hunter with a fine new dog.

  As we were leaving I was presented with a box of pastries, a huge loaf of still-warm bread, and three fat salamis from Graziella’s mother.

  This was all most unexpected, I thought, and Potenza is looking better by the minute. And that’s where the three of us went next “…for your real surprise!” said Antonio.

  WE STOPPED by a cemetery below the old city, a vast complex of family vaults exhibiting a remarkable array of creative designs and loculi, those tiered compartments for coffins. There were hundreds of them, six tiers high, with “sideway” compartments of around three by eight feet. Little electric lights flickered; flowers graced many of the slots; and hundreds of those porcelain-etched photographs stared out at us. Antonio had stopped by the entrance to the cemetery to buy a bunch of daffodils and, after we wandered through the mazelike confusion of loculi, he stopped at a tomb, rolled up an elaborate stepladder contraption on wheels, climbed to the top level (the least expensive level due to the precariousness of those ladders), and placed the flowers in a specially designed container by a memorial panel. I couldn’t make out the name from the ground.

  “Come and see,” Antonio said. Graziella grinned in anticipation. I climbed somewhat hesitantly up the swaying contraption and found myself looking at a marble panel with the name Giulia Mango carved on it. The significance didn’t hit me until Antonio explained, “Mango was Giulia Venere’s maiden name. And this is where she is buried. Look at her photograph. You will recognize her.”

  And there she was: Carlo Levi’s witch-housekeeper, guardian of the dark secrets and even darker pagani ways of Aliano. Her face was obviously far older than the one Levi painted in 1935 (she died in 1974), but it was her eyes that galvanized me. Deep, piercingly black, and looking right at mine as if she were still alive, they sent a scurry of fear down my spine to my toes. Antonio sensed their power too. “Amazing.” he murmured. “She is…here!”

  Later he explained that, as far he knew, he was the first to trace her burial place in Potenza. “Much research in the records and then…voila! I finally found! I reach her. So, was this a good surprise for you?”

  “Excellent,” I said. “And congratulations on your research.”

  “Thank you,” he said with a satisfied smile. “Now, more surprises.” So—it turned out to be another typical “day with Antonio.” He and Graziella drove me around parts of Potenza I’d never explored before, and I found it to be a far more interesting place than I’d first thought, especially when we ended up at a just-completed house of an architect-friend of Antonio’s. Perched on a hilltop with an encircling panorama of mountains and valleys, the house was the epitome of stone-wall solidity. I congratulated Antonio’s friend on the feng shui elements of his site and his bold Norman watchtower-like design. He responded with an invitation to visit his wine and prosciutto cantina, a bunkerlike place where we sampled four of his 2002 vintages. I left with a couple of bottles of his best blend of Malvasia and Aglianico grapes—my final surprise of the day.

  And I vowed that if Antonio ever offered surprises again, I’d be wherever he wanted me to be in a flash. Even Potenza.

  A Free Day

  Thankfully, tranquil interludes floated between the escapades and adventures with Sebastiano and Antonio, and there were few interludes that Anne and I enjoyed more than a totally unexpected free day.

  One might assume that, as we were living the simple life down there in the wilds of Basilicata, free days must have been more the norm than the exception. And to some extent, I suppose, that’s true. We were largely the master and mistress of our minutes and months. And yet, time got filled, social obligations were met in a punctual fashion, and new people to talk to popped up like porcini in the bosco (forest). Before we knew it, another day would be almost over and it would be time for sambuca and prosciutto on the terrace, a modest bit of mingling during the evening passeggiata, and a leisurely dinner enjoyed, usually to a background of Bach or Mozart or occasionally, if the mood was right, a little jaunty slide guitar and Texas-drawl country-and-western music, followed by a few book chapters before bed.

  So, when a whole day unexpectedly offered itself, with no constraints, we greeted it like we used to greet a spell of hooky from school: just like kids.

  And this free winter day was indeed unexpected. Of course we were disappointed to miss the festivities of a long Sunday family lunch at Rosa and Giuliano’s home in Accettura, but it couldn’t be helped.

  We had prepared for the event with salivary anticipation, wrapping a few gifts for the family, and we’d set off at the alloted time to drive up the hill out of our village, admiring, as always, those surging vistas of mountains and distant ridgetop towns and…snow.

  Snow!?

  We hadn’t thought to go out on the terrace to check the terrain that morning. There were fleeting shards of sunshine piercing through the curtains, so that was enough to encourage us to be on our way. But snow? We definitely hadn’t expected that. Admittedly it was only on the highest slopes, up around Stigliano, but that’s the way we had to go. It looked ominous, with Lord knew how many hairpin turns and vertiginous swirlings (we always lost count after seventy or so) along battered roads on the hour-long journey to Accettura.

  “Why not just give Rosa a call?” Anne suggested, always cautious when it came to skiddy hairpin turns and the like. “Make sure the roads are clear.”

  “Good idea,” I said, especially as we were just passing our one village phone booth.

  And it was then that I noticed how cold it really was. Down on the piazza there was no wind, but up here, right where they put the phone (of course), blasts of frigid air froze my fingers to purple in seconds as I dialed Rosa’s number.

  We exchanged our usual effusive greetings and she told me she was “just making the pasta” for lunch.

  “Rosa, it’s not even eleven o’clock yet. It’ll go very soggy by one o’clock!”

  “No, David,” she said. “I’m making it. Rolling it, not cooking it!”

  “Oh, all right, of course. Always homemade pasta on Sunday. I forgot.”

  “They’d kill me if it wasn’t,” she mumbled, but I could tell she was smiling. She was justifiably proud of her homemade pasta.

  “Rosa,” I said, putting on my let’s-get-down-to-business voice, “I see a lot of snow over your way….”

  “Oh yes, there’s snow all right. And ice.”

  “How are the roads over top?”

  “Very icy. I just said.”

  “So…is it safe to come over?”

  “Depends what you mean by safe, doesn’t it?”

  “For us, Rosa, in that little DoDo they farmed off on me at the rental place.”

  “Well…” She seemed uncertain. And then she made our decision for us. “No, I reckon you best stay where you are.”

  “What about our lunch?”

  “Come next Sunday. And call me Wednesday morning, too. Giuliano says he m
aybe doing another pig next week” (not a particularly enticing prospect after my earlier pig-butchering experience).

  “You don’t think that…”

  “No.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry. We were looking forward to a big feast.”

  “All the more for us, isn’t it?” she said with her sly Italian-Nottingham humor.

  “Oh, very nice!” I said.

  “No, seriously, leave it today. There’s likely going to be a lot more snow. Come next week.”

  “Okay. Love you. Hugs to everyone.”

  “Aye, all right.”

  “You’ll miss us though, won’t you?”

  “Who’s this speaking then?”

  “Good-bye, Rosa.”

  “Bye. See you next week. Love to Anne.”

  That was it. Our gargantuan lunch had been canceled. Instead we had a whole free day to do anything we wanted. Anne was disappointed…for about as long as it took to change her expression from momentary glumness to one of a kid with a bunch of free lollipops thrust into her hand.

  “Let’s go back home and snuggle up by the fire,” she said, grinning.

  “We didn’t light one.”

  “So, let’s light one!”

  And thus another one of those all-too-rare freedom began.

  MANY YEARS AGO I wrote a short essay based around this idea of a gift of unexpected freedom. It had happened many times, but one occasion always stood out when, on a whim, we’d canceled one of those weekend-in-the-Caribbean trips at the last minute and somehow managed to get a full refund. In celebration of our unexpected savings, we spent the three days—three whole wonderful, fantasy-filled days—cocooned in our apartment in New York luxuriating in the timelessness of time and enjoying some of the best journeys we’d ever taken together. Journeys into ourselves. In a living room quickly converted, with ceiling-suspended sheets, into a sort of sultan’s tent filled with cushions and pillows and surrounded by our favorite books and our favorite gourmet foods. We’d lavishly spent our refund buying delicacies we rarely if ever had the chance to enjoy and wines that we’d always wanted to sample but could never seem to justify the costly indulgence.

  So that’s how we celebrated our first “WWW”—Wonderful Wacky Weekend: with phones unplugged; blinds closed so that time became fluid, untied to the stages of the day; guitar nearby for impromptu bits of songwriting; a stereo for our favorite music; and notebooks handy for ideas or thoughts or anything else worth recording.

  And after it was all over (we spontaneously added another day to the magic of it all) I wrote a story about this odd and wonderful experience, and who should decide to publish it but the New York Times, and later the Washington Post, and then a number of other magazines, including the National Geographic Traveler, which initially had some qualms about printing an “in favor of not traveling at all” piece but did so anyway.

  That particular free day in Aliano, of course, was not exactly a full-blown three-day WWW, but it’s not so much the amount of time you give these occasions as the kind of mood and spirit you allow to evolve.

  I can’t remember all the details of that particular occasion (some of them are private and therefore would not seem particularly special to others anyway), but I know they included our reading to each other; listening to two Beethoven symphonies (as if for the first time); my cooking some odd but tasty “improv” concoctions whenever the mood struck; and Anne mapping out schemes and dreams for the rest of our lives. Well, for the next year or two at least. And so on. Just hour after hour of doing whatever we felt like doing together and wondering why we hadn’t done it far more often. I mean after all, we are approaching our senior years—with emphasis on the word approaching—and time is not quite so infinite now as it had once seemed way back in our courting days. It had taken on a more considered aspect, an increased realization of its value and its preciousness. And unexpected free days like this one showed just how precious time could really be.

  So, thanks for the unexpected snowstorm. And thank you, Rosa, for giving us the best gift of all—the gift of time.

  And the gift of giving ourselves to ourselves. Once again.

  CHAPTER 11

  Closures

  Musings on “Traveler’s Melancholy”

  I suppose I should admit that between all the adventures and the free days and the sheer exuberance of living in an unfamiliar and always intriguing place, there were moments when the mood would suddenly shift unexpectedly and we’d experience the oddest emotions of utter disconnectedness and moroseness.

  It doesn’t matter where you are or how fantastic the scenery or how outstanding the food or the evening’s diversions—in fact, the more boisterous and roistering the setting, the more likely you are to get that sudden, sodden funk of “traveler’s melancholy.” It usually comes with sideswiping impact when you look around, smell all the unfamiliar smells, see unfamiliar people talking, hugging, and gesticulating in unfamiliar ways, and suddenly you realize that this is their world, not yours. And no matter how kind, considerate, empathetic, and enthusiastically supportive the people of this unfamiliar place may be, you know that, in the end, they will return to their neighborhoods and homes and continue weaving the familiar warp and weft of their own intensely focused lives while you remain the outsider, the observer, the stranger. The ones whom people may be curious about and, if you’re found to be inoffensive or unthreatening, may smile at or even talk to for a while, before easing back into the comfortable nooks and crannies of their own existence.

  And one of your little voices suddenly shrieks: “Take me home!”

  Hating to be caught off guard by such subconscious bursts of angst and uncertainty (a fine example of Thomas Jefferson’s “twistifications”), the rational mind whips out its list of “reasons for our visit and all our moving about.” But it’s no use. It’s too late. The homesick feeling is out and rapidly turning everything around you rancid and sour with its sharp, pungent images—ridiculously exaggerated, of course—of your own real home, your own family, your pets, your store, pub, park, favorite neighborhood path. You feel this almost irresistible and certainly utterly nonsensical and irrational urge to dump everything, grab a train or a plane or whatever, and arrive in no time at all back in your familiar armchair by the fire with a glass of good wine and the Sunday paper and the aroma of the late lunch roast, and the prospect of a beer or two later on in the evening with a few friends at the local tavern.

  Fortunately I realized, the more I read other travelers’ tales, that Anne and I were by no means alone in these sensations. There have always been of course eternal itinerant optimists, such as the indefatigable Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor), whose life seemed a perpetual reflection of his lust for travel: “Of the gladdest moments methinks in human life is the departing upon a distant journey into unknown lands.”

  Normally I would agree with such a sentiment, but when those odd moments of unexpected moroseness emerge, I find Frances Mayes (Bella Tuscany) sums up the dilemma perfectly:

  I’ve begun to descend into what I’ve come to call travelers’ melancholy, a profound displacement that occasionally seizes me for a few hours when I am in a foreign country. The pleasure of being the observer occasionally flips over into a disembodied anxiety. During its grip I go silent, I dwell on the fact that most of those I love have no idea where I am or what I’m doing. Then an immense longing for home comes over me. Why am I here where I don’t belong? What is this alien place? Who and where are you when you are no one?

  Diane Johnson (Natural Opium) got it right: “Anyone who has traveled has said, in the middle of some desert or in a moment of intense alienation in a souk, ‘why am I here?’ I have tried to account for these moments of travel ennui or traveler’s panic we have all felt—the desperate wish to be transported by instantaneous space/time travel into one’s own bed.”

  Margaret G. Ryan (African Hayride) wised up eventually: “I’ve done it several times…come to bed in a dark hotel room figh
ting depression, if not downright hysteria, and then wakened to sunlight and beauty and thoughts of what a fool I had been.”

  Gerard Manley Hopkins, however, reveals a more onerous mood: “It can be dangerous to travel. A strong reflecting light is cast back on ‘real’ life and this is sometimes a disquieting experience…. Sometimes you go into your far interior and who knows what you might find there.”

  Alain de Botton (The Art of Travel) suggests other shortcomings: “A danger of travel is that many see things at the wrong time, before we have had an opportunity to build up the necessary receptivity, so that new information is as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting thread.”

  Jonathan Raban, one of our favorite travel writers, describes another problem, particularly frustrating to a writer trying to meld his themes of travel and discovery into something approaching coherent verbosity: “Journeys hardly ever disclose their true meaning until after—and sometimes years after—they are over.”

  Albert Camus turns such adversities into spiritual potentiality:

  What gives value to travel is fear. When we are far from our own country, we are seized by a vague fear, and an instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits. At that moment we are feverish but also porous, so the slightest touch makes us quiver to the depths of our being. We come across a cascade of light and—there is eternity.

  “Stripped of all the trappings of home,” wrote Sophia Dembling (Yearning for Faraway Places), “and with nothing familiar behind which to hide, we are left completely to the resources that live only within us…. It is both terrifying and refreshing and always, always enlightening.”

  And I round out these musings on “traveler’s melancholy” and related oddities of travel with Michael Crichton’s reminders to himself: “I need new experiences to keep shaking myself up.” Pico Iyer has also given considerable thought as to why we travel and has concluded that we do so: