Hello friends. Many of you are sending texts and emails checking in on me during the European lockdown and asking for updates and photos from the new “homestead” in France. Thank you for your interest and concern. I can assure you, I am doing well. There is no absence of activity on my part, despite Europe’s second-wave of COVID. I find myself in a serene place where I am sorting through a lot of projects and cleaning out the old. There is much work to do around the house (and around my mind). As strange as this sounds, I think the lock-down is an unintentional gift for me, despite the grave reasons that led to the present circumstances. I’m certainly not squandering time.
Although I miss Italia and hoped to be there for Christmas (Natale), I would be far more restricted in my Torino apartment. At least here I have open space and much work to do which keeps me busy. I have decided to stay put for the next few months, and use this time to prepare the house for when guests can visit. My list of friends and family visitors is growing, and I can’t wait to be able to spend time with them and show them this corner of Europe.
So let me tell you a little bit about the environment around me, what I have been up to and why it’s a good place to be during a lockdown.
First of all, I have a lot of privacy and land in a beautiful setting. I only have one neighbor in a large farmhouse up the street from me, which houses three generations of a French family. They have a small animal population and hectares of vineyards surrounding their property. I can’t see their house, but if I listen closely, I can hear their horses whinny during the day or spot the occasional tractor in their vineyards that surround my property.
Upon our first introduction, the senior occupants were able to identify me as, “the one who bought the house from the English people.” They assumed I was also English, until I explained my complicated ethnic profile–American turned Italian turned French transplant.
When I moved into the house, my friend Maurine immediately encouraged me to make some “gardening” adjustments to open up the view to the valley below. I had no idea what type of project I was undertaking, but I agreed with her. It would open up a tremendous view. So, after I finished the painting, I decided to tackle the garden. Again, there is always much work to do when you take on something like that.
I went to the local tractor store and bought the following…hold your shock or applause:
- One Stiga (Swedish-made and Italian owned) tractor. I affectionately refer to her as “Lady Bumblebee” because every gay man needs to give their vehicle a name that sounds like a drag queen. Right now, the “Lady” is the only vehicle I actually own–since I’m still leasing a car every month.
- I bought the Lady a trailer to haul things. Again, you never know when you are going to need to haul something. I can move 250 kilograms of something in that trailer, that’s about 600 pounds of “stuff.” I have found that trailer to be indispensable. Cleaning up this property, requires moving a lot of “stuff.”
- I now own two chainsaws, because one is never enough, right? I operate them with a healthy dose of fear and respect. The last thing I want is to be airlifted off the property due to a chainsaw incident.
- I knew I needed a wood-chipper with all of this garden clean-up I was planning. What I didn’t know was how entertaining a simple wood-chipper could be. It provided hours of stress-reducing fun as Maurine and I chipped for three or four hours a day. Each time we fed-it, we imagined shredding thousands of Trump votes with each tree-branch. (Too soon? I couldn’t resist.)
- I had to buy a leaf-blower. After 30-years in California and seeing how practical they are, it made sense. I am completely surrounded by deciduous trees and it’s autumn. Everyday I am greeted with a never ending display of changing leaves from the several hundred-year old oaks. When the winds blow, a shower of orange, red, and gold drifts down into my yard.
- I have a weed-whacker that also has a “metal brush-cutting disk”. I have no idea how to use the cutting disk. But soon, I’m going to run into something where the normal weed-whacker just isn’t going to cut it. Then I’ll pull out the brush-cutter and the operating manual and figure it out.
My friends in Italia now refer to me as “il contadino” or the farmer. I tell them, “Ma, non sono un contadino. Sono un uomo che sta sperimentando–But I am not a farmer, I am a man that is experimenting.” That is the truth. I’m trying this life on for size, and if it doesn’t fit, I’ll find something else.
Here are some pictures of the house. I’m not very good at remembering to take before pictures, so everything is in its current state. I still want to work on the kitchen quite a bit and the furnishings. Unfortunately, the latest COVID lockdown has limited the availability of most things, but I’m in no hurry. There’s much work to do and the time to do it. I am enjoying it.
So you’re probably wondering about the toad part of the story. It’s one of the more intriguing parts of my arrival here.
The first month I received a nightly visitor. It wasn’t the princely type of visitor..but more on the frog end of the equation. It’s was a toad to be exact. It would arrive at sunset and sit by my front door every night for a few hours. Sometimes it would jump into the entrance, and I’d have to pick the toad up and put it back outside. Sofia was barely interested. She pawed at it one time, the toad croaked, and then she simply ignored its nightly presence. As crazy as this sounds, ( I told you I have a lot of time on my hands) I even would throw the toad bugs to eat. I was curious if it would eat them or not. I’ll spare you the video I have of the bugs being snapped up, but it’s kind of interesting.
Since I believe everything has significance, I had to look up the spirit animal meaning for a toad. I was relieved to read the following, “Toads point to change, finding beauty underneath the surface of something not particularly beautiful or the need to hibernate and go inward.” Perhaps it was a reminder for me to use this calm time to find balance and seek the beauty under the surface.
When you sum up the last seven months of life, it makes sense to pause and go inward: trauma from COVID, a fractured relationship, a rather sudden move to France, a nail-biter of an American presidential election and now all of this time on my hands. I have a lot of space where all sorts of processing of thoughts can happen. There’s much work to do and clean-up above and below the surface. I don’t think it ever ends and it’s always there when I make the time to explore it.
I believe the land and the environment are therapists for me now. My father in America always asks me if I’m walking the land. I didn’t understand him at first, but now I do. It’s impossible not to feel special in this space, and it takes the pressure of the need to be somebody or somewhere else. Actually, I’m enjoying the tasks that I am creating to make my environment comfortable, chaos-free and trauma-proof as we head into winter, a more severe COVID outbreak, a chaotic presidential transition and the prospect of spending the holidays differently.
It appears that France and Italia may open up for the last two weeks of December. I’m itching to maybe take a little trip somewhere and see my amici Italiani. The holidays have always been a great time to travel for me. However, this year, it may just be Sofia, Lady Bumblebee, one hibernating toad and me. I’m sure we’ll keep each other busy. We have lots of work to do!
To my friends in America, have a wonderful Thanksgiving this week. Enjoy the time together, even if you have to adjust to something different this year. To my friends around the world, be well and take some time for yourself. Perhaps there’s a lot of work to do in your future as well. Thanks for following The Spaghetti Diaries, and please share on your social page or via email if you think someone else would enjoy following along.