Sunday, May 24, 2009

sunday lunch





After the Brancacci Chapel, there is lunch. The Trattoria del Carmine anchoring one side of the piazza has been calling to us all weekend. Little did we know it’s one of our good Livornese friend’s favorite spots in Florence. It is perfect inside. Simple, and warm on the cool, rainy day. The tables are packed with locals. Families out for lunch—they’ll be ordering the beefsteak; or tables for two with older couples out on dates, smiling, flirting and holding hands. We have been eating, eating, and eating, and while we are hungry, we cannot eat too much. We order with reserve. A half carafe of red wine. A plate of prosciutto, a cup of consommé (I haven’t had comsomme since dining at my grandmother’s when I was sixteen!), grilled dorade with lemon expertly filleted by our waiter, tableside. A plate of spring asparagus with a fried egg. I finish with a selection of cheese which is delicious, but proves too much. Caffe at the finish. We take the long way home to walk it all off, and I think I will never be able to eat again, or at least I need to lie down right here on this cobbled sidewalk and take a nap. At least until I find a pair of spring green driving shoes on sale in a store that flauts the convention that all stores are closed on Sunday afternoons…..

Saturday, May 23, 2009

noir











Noir appears like an unexpected mirage on the side of the street. What attracts is the crowd of people leaning against and sitting on the wall front on the river Arno. Glasses of white wine, of Campari Americanos, thin flutes of prosecco catch the fading light. On embassy row, next to the British Embassy, Noir rocks it’s early evening crowd with a dj and club music that sound like the summer beach dances on the island of Ibiza.

I order a Campari, Caleb a gin and tonic. The aperitivo buffet is full of platters of couscous, cured meats and cheeses, olives, rice salad, anchovies, cornichons, Russian salads, breads. Young bariste replace the quickly emptied dishes with new or bring trays of little bite sized crostini or sandwiches out to the revelers on the river. It’s Friday night and it’s the city of Florence. Men and women dress for each other, dress for themselves. Fashion asserts itself: black boots, black jackets, freshly pressed shirts, loose, almost careless hair. The sun sets over the bridge casting pink reflections in the smooth water only rippled by the lone swimming nutria below us. The clouds call to mind 18th century painters. The last glow of light catches the cigarette smoke and the tango between dancing eyes of men and women out on a Friday night.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

how did we get there from here?






Where did Calabria go? Campania? Lazio? Florence? We were just there, and are now not there. We are now here—at home in Vermont. Exhausted computers and sheer mountains, thick walls and poor connections kept us detached from the wider world which was both a blessing and a frustration. How strange to be so reliant on lines emanating from cell towers like so many infinite fishing nets. We will have to travel backward, recapture a week ago, two weeks, three.

My memory finds me in Florence. Almost twenty years ago we lived here. There were no cell phones, no computers, or internet then. We called home a couple of times a month on the orange and black pay phone in the little piazza in front of our apartment. We sent postcards, the backs of which were crammed with images and news. We seemed very far away.

We go in and out of service like we go in and out of tunnels driving on the highway northward. We have made our own slow slouching from the toe of the boot and up the bony ridge of the shin. A drive in a day of sun—there have not been many of late—and the air feels hot. We arrive fairly easily into the center of the city, to the Piazza del Carmine. Luck is on our side. The Signora has returned from her walk with the dogs and is available to open our rooms, and we find free parking a stone’s throw from the towering front door.
Our windows look out upon the cloister we share with the Brancacci Chapel where Masolino's Temptation of Adam and Eve and Massaccio's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden layer the walls with color and perspective.

--Deirdre