| XXX |
|
|
A Solitary Sojourn.
Nel metto del cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai una selva oscura
Che la diritta via era smarrita
Saturday. 18 June 2005. Forty-six hundred miles away from the Eternal City and four hundred and sixty travelers crammed in Gate 6 of JFK International waiting for the evil-eyed, I-don't-give-a-shit-about-your-back-problem-you-are-not-getting-an-upgrade counter clerk to call our row for boarding purposes. Standing online. Fifteen minutes to a middle seat, I realize. The white wine and vodka soda chasers aren't going to be enough for seven or eight hours. I struggle with the childproof casing of light blue pellets that promise me sleep. I wish the PM on the Tylenol package stood for thanks for coming, enjoy the flight. Stop and go down the aisle. Silver hair, blue hair, no hair - I must be the youngest person on this plane. Relief in my row. Two girls. They share youth in appearance only. I smile and take the open aisle outpost to their incessant conversation. They wear Salty Dog tee shirts, middle-Connecticut accents and a homely relationship. Dizzy with the fortune I was dealt, I immediately question their S&M and Bible study status. Did I say that out loud? Drunk with bad alcohol and aspirin, I wish they would kiss before I recline myself down to sleep. I cock my head and smile at the girl close to me with gold-rimmed eyeglasses. I close my eyes expecting the warmth of her friend's Altoid-infused breath fogging her Lisa Loeb glasses. That is a sweet dream. Dreaming of Sicily. Catania and bordering Mt. Etna. The Baroque style in gray lava stone, stucco and pastel frescoes. And salt. These people are the salt of the earth. Surrounded by artistic splendor and moral squalor. The occult and the rational. The fashionable flock to Ortygia and the architecture buffs to Andrea Palma's Duomo in Siracusa. The tourists to Taormina and the Wine Spectator types to the west and the vineyards of Planeta. If you are connected, perhaps a lunch at Palazzo Biscari in Catania. The moments, Dumas described, as indescribable. "To be summoned up in a memory by closing one's eyes." We land on time in Rome. My connection to Catania is two and a half hours from now. I walk slowly towards my departure gate, pass the Duty Free shops and stare at the cigarettes and booze. It is early, around 8AM, early enough for a drink according to the fine folks who run the Frescobaldi enoteca in the terminal. Luce, Lucente, Moretto, Colazzi. Colazzi, three-dollar Colazzi. I am in Tuscany, 2001. On a two-week tour of Italy with my ex. The adventure begins at an agiturismo seven kilometers from Florence. After a day trip to the Renaissance city, we get lost in our rented, black Alfa Romeo driving back to the villa. We slam the brakes and push a cloud of dust up on a sign that translates to, We Sell Olive Oil. We follow the arrow up a gravel path lined with cypress trees. Atop the hill, we are in a rotunda of treetops with a balcony overlooking the Duomo that dominates skyline of Florence. A majestic view. We exit the car and rush to the edge. [Insert Dumas statement here.] Turning back to the car, in search of the trip's camera, I am overwhelmed by towering gates guarding a driveway that could only lead to a family history of Florentine statesmen. The art and the tapestries behind those gates, inside on those walls, I ponder, until shuttered by a golf cart coming up the hill we drove. It bounces at the top and disappears down a covered roadway. Olive oil we surmise. In the car, we follow the path of the golf cart. It opens to vineyards. Acres and acres of the purple and green stuff. Olive trees a plenty. We drive to where the golf machine is parked. We knock on the doors of a dilapidated barn. Find the driver, an older man, with his sons perhaps. The man walks past the lumber and tools they are using to refurbish the place. To another barn we follow. This one is just as dark and dank. However, filled with rows of jarra, terracotta jugs about three and a half feet high and just as wide, maybe bigger. Offing the wooden top, the man takes a plastic measuring cup that holds about a liter. He dips it in the jug and fills half the cup to show us the rich, green oil. Yes, that is what we came for. He fills two glass bottles and leads us out back to yet another barn where a single cash draw sits on a metal, four-legged folding table. In the corner, a shiny new stainless steel fermentation tank sits. Inside, thick purple grape juice bubbles waiting to be bottled. Past the tank a door opens to rows and rows of barriques. Vino. He asks us if we want to taste. Not speaking good English, he repeats himself, but the benefits of traveling with the ex is her fluency, the product of a six-month study in Siena. The man, who I am liking more and more, pours three hearty plastic cups of the Chianti. We swirl, sniff and taste. Drinking from the tank when the wine is undone made me question the man's choice of pouring such generous glasses. But seeing him hold the cup to the light, eye the contents and down the liquid, I did the same. Give me two. He opens a closet door, we spy the cardboard cases stamped with the Frescobaldi name. He pulls the bottles, carries them to the table, and opens the register, which contains, no money, but a glue stick and some labels. He attaches the labels to the bottles of wine. Colazzi, a pencil drawing of a mansion-villa atop a hill overlooking a vineyard. Not much different from what you would find on the bottle of a first growth Bordeaux, a Lafite or Haut Brion. The sign at the Frescobaldi Wine Bar at Fiumicino Airport, "Colazzi, Wine Spectator rating of 90 - very good/great." Forty-three Euro a bottle. Boarding the plane to Catania, I eye my ticket and the letters and numbers above the seats. A window, I am pleased. I will take aerial pictures on the descent. The abundant acres of grapes, oranges, lemons, olives, homes, villas, beaches, mountains and deep, blue sea. The collaboration of colors. The landing strip. And the Welcome to Sicily sign. My row. A well-dressed, blue pinstriped, older man was sitting in my seat. At my window, without question or care. I eye him up and down, white shirt, and solid silk tie, in pastel. Flavio Briatore, I name him under my breath. The ex-patriot, who left Italy to manage the Renault Formula 1 racing team in Britain. Bastard. Flavio stole my seat. Flavio monopolizes my armrest. Flavio bed Heidi Klum. I hate this man. Obviously it wasn't Flavio, and my weariness from the wine consumed at early morning intervals, put me back to sleep for the duration. I woke to a stewardess taking an empty glass of mineral water from Flavio and the plane coming in hot over the sea. Without a window to comfort myself in the direction we were heading, I figured we were in for a water landing. My head was pounding and I was invisibly nervous at the sight of all the other passengers without similar fear. Don't you realize we are going to die, I screamed to myself. Get the sleep out of your eyes, maggots, and let's storm the pilots. This is our lives those cowboys in the cockpit are messing with. Just as I was prepared to take matters into my own hands, the plane bent a left turn, hard. No relief. The pilots were diving us in nose first, Olympic in quality. The plane leveled. I settled to the feel of tar under our wheels. Arrival Comes
Post 1 - June'05 Back to home...
|
|
|