Natural Italy
I am recovering from my car accident today, so I will simply share these beautiful pictures from the Italian countryside. They bring such peace to my heart. 🙂
We made tisane with this scrumptious lavender.
To Life! Italian Style
I am so excited about this weekend! My aunt and uncle, Janet and Clint, are coming to visit from Canada and we have grand plans for delicious meals and girlie days and movies and popcorn and long walks and much visiting. 🙂
It’s been a doozy of a week. Pain has been my close companion. I have severe endometriosis and it’s been giving me grief this week so I canceled everything and have been resting, resting, resting. Thankfully the pain is easing up now and my world is getting brighter again. 🙂
It’s actually been kind of lovely to step away from life for a bit, to huddle under a quilt, read books, write, or just look out the window and think. While this week may have wreaked havoc on my body, it’s done wondrous things in my soul.
As I’ve been working through the aftermath of my youth spent in a religious cult, I noticed that I have kept a lot of stuff from those years. Books, music, movies, mementos, things that I used to create spots of beauty in that dark place, or allowed me to escape, if only for a brief moment, the traumatic situation I found myself in. Some things I kept as “proof” of what happened, feeling I needed them to validate myself or my past. Others were trinkets I had kept from my abusers, oddly enough. I was so starved for their approval and affection, that I clung to any little scrap they tossed me. I have them all.
But this week I realized that I don’t “need” them anymore. I don’t need to keep evidences of false love, reminders of darkness, or even my feeble attempts to make a bit of heaven in the midst of hell. I don’t need them because I have real love in my life now, I have healing and friendship and peace. I don’t want those things cluttering up my physical or emotional life.
So last night, when my pain miraculously ebbed for a few hours (yay!!), I became a One Woman Clearing Machine!! I went through boxes and bookshelves and bins and sorted my little heart out. I filled box after box with books and movies, decorations and clothes, linens and, mercy, who knows what all! The “bad” stuff I tossed immediately – shuffling outside in the dark, in my slippers and pjs to the apartment dumpster because I didn’t want them in my house one moment longer. 🙂 All the good things I’m going to take to a Woman’s Shelter. I hope that they will bring comfort and solace to another hurting heart, and perhaps give her light in a dark place like they once did for me.
Afterward I eased myself down onto the couch, surveyed the stacks of boxes by my front door and had a little weep. Understanding, awareness, change, they’re all good things, but they hurt like blazes along the way. Then I sighed and smiled and felt like a huge weight had been lifted. And golly, is my office ever clean! 🙂
So dear ones, in the spirit of new beginnings and fresh starts, I thought I’d share some peaceful and oh-so-green pictures of the area around the Italian villa my friends and I stayed in last spring. I hope they delight your hearts as much as they do mine. 🙂
Lane wending through the trees to an olive grove.
Battered and buckled old church door.
Hazy look into the valley at Perdifumo, Italy.
I could spend a happy hour sitting here.
I’m exceedingly fond of this door. And the little stone bench.
I dearly wanted to fix up this little place.
Sure would love to know the story behind this.
The wall, the path, I love it all.
Just because he’s cute. 🙂
Happy Weekend, dear ones!
Villa Bliss
After posting about the lovely Villa Trotta this week, I had a request for more photos of the villa and surroundings from my photographer friend Justin. It’s a place of such tranquil beauty and happy memories that I was delighted. I hope you enjoy them. 🙂
A grape vine found one of the lanterns
Lovely wooden chair on the tiled balcony overlooking the valley
Retaining wall at the villa
Shuttered window on the ground floor
Sun-warmed stone bench
Sunset view from large terrace
Where we dried our laundry. 🙂
Steps leading up from the lower terrace
Steps leading up from the olive grove
The olive grove below the villa
The view from my bedroom window
Perhaps next week I’ll share more photos from the surrounding area. 🙂
I’m so looking forward to the next few days! I’ll be resting, visiting rellies at the beach, reading Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus , and watching Churchill’s Bodyguard.
I wish you all a wonderful weekend! 🙂
Morning in Italy
It was a glorious spring morning at the Villa Trotta, an idyllic escape perched on the side of a mountain outside Perdifumo, Italy. I awoke and pushed open the shutters, delighting in the cool breezes that billowed the lace curtains and sent loose papers scuttling across the tiled floor.
My dear friends – Nat, Trish, Becks and Viss – were still sleeping soundly, so I crept quietly down to the terrace…
…to sip on juice, write in my journal…
…and watch the world wake up.
I’ve thought about the villa so many times these last months, remembering the peace and serenity I felt on those early mornings when everyone else was asleep. I loved sneaking down in my pjs, rummaging quietly in the kitchen for something to nosh on, easing myself into a creaky wrought iron chair and sitting, just sitting and looking, for ages. The peace of that place seeped into my soul, giving me courage to let some not-so-peaceful things bubble up and be faced with honesty and grace. It felt so good to write and write, pouring my heart out onto pages that others will never read, settling my heart and mind, free them from the bondage of false thinking, false guilt, incapacitating fear. How I treasure those sunny mornings of healing and renewal.
When the girls woke up, we donned sundresses and other summery garb…
…jumped in the car and wound our way down the mountain to find a grocery store. It was a gorgeous drive – the hillsides festooned with wildflowers and the sea shimmering a vivid blue.
We managed to find our way around town and emerged from various stores arms laden with flour-dusted loaves of chewy bread, fresh mozzarella, Nutella, tomatoes and massive bell peppers, Greek yogurt and bottles of wine.
Back at the villa we changed clothes then lay like lizards on the hot tiles, soaking up every bit of warmth, snoozing, reading, writing, occasionally propping ourselves up on our elbows for a good chin wag before drifting back to our solitary reveries. Bliss.
That night we made our first dinner: pasta with homemade sauce, green beans roasted with olive oil and sea salt, salad, bread and red wine. Trish made our centerpiece…
…and we dined happily as the sun set.
After dinner we went for a stroll, finding the perfect bluff from which to watch the sun set over the sea.
We celebrated our first full day day in Italy with mismatched mugs of hot tea and an assortment of Italian cookies and pastries, including cannoli, which were every bit as good as Becks told us they would be. 🙂
It was a beautiful day.
Roasted Green Beans
Ingredients:
1 pound fresh green beans, snapped
Olive oil
Sea salt
Directions:
- Toss beans with a generous amount of olive oil and sprinkling of salt.
- Spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet and bake at 450 degrees for 10-20 minutes, tossing occasionally for even cooking.
- Beans are done when they’re slightly charred.
Memo, The Beautiful
It was spring in Perdifumo, Italy where I was staying at a fairytale villa with my friends Becks, Nat, Viss and Trish. It was our last day before driving to Rome to meet up with my brother Ryan and two more friends, Ben and Stace, for a 10-day drive through the Balkans, and we decided to spend it exploring the mountain villages near the villa. After a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs with tomatoes, Nutella spread on chewy bread and hot coffee on the terrace, we loaded up and headed out along the windy roads.
We passed ramshackle stone houses, discovered the abandoned home of a duchess, and delighted in the simple details of white sheets drying against ancient stone.
After exploring and walking for a couple of hours, our tummies were rumbling and we were in dire need of sustenance. We had stumbled on the tiny village of Laureana Cilento – a place that charmed us with it’s quiet, narrow streets and unbelievably jolly and kind townspeople who waved at us from school windows and came out of their homes in aprons and house slippers to smile and nod.
On our way in I had spotted the Il Blu di Prussia Cafe and was smitten.
More antiques shop and artist studio than cafe, I was confused as I stepped inside, feeling like I was in someone’s living room. But then the owner, beaming and welcoming assured me that yes, yes, it was indeed a ristorante.
His name was Memo The Beautiful. He told us so himself as he clasped his hands to his breast then flung them out dramatically. We fell in love with him instantly. 🙂
He brought us limoncello and Coke (American rubbish! he informed us ;-)) out on the terrace, apologizing that they make everything from scratch so it would take some time. Apologize? Seriously? We were THRILLED! We sat out under some beautifully flowering trees and visited away happily as we sipped our drinks and waited.
Finally, all was ready. He led us grandly as if we were visiting dignitaries and seated us on antique chairs, around an antique table, surrounded by old books, chandeliers and and his own exquisite Old World paintings.
Then the feast began.
Memo served us antipasti: roasted peppers, eggplant, artichokes, puffy fritters, locally cured olives, sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, marinated lima beans, asparagus frittata, an assortment of hard cheeses, fresh bread and a lovely red wine served from a jug.
Next came homemade gnocchi with wonderfully savory Bolognese sauce. The gnocchi in Southern Italy was completely different than Northern, more like pasta than soft dumplings.
This was followed by the best roast chicken I’ve ever had in my life, with exquisitely crunchy skin, moist meat, and outrageously amazing potatoes crisped in the chicken juices, fluffy on the inside.
Before dessert we were granted a respite with luscious strawberries, still warm from the sun.
We leaned back in our seats and groaned as Memo and his lovely Aussie wife came out to visit with us while the walnut ricotta cake finished baking. Memo instructed that we must ALL come back to Italy so that he could find us good, Italian husbands. 🙂
Dessert arrived shortly, cool, creamy and and absolutely delicious.
With scarcely pinch of space left in our tummies, we still found room for sips from the tray of frosted bottles filled with homemade liqueurs, delighting in the strong flavors of lemon, almond and anise.
As our lovely dinner came to a close, we hugged our new found friends farewell, promising to visit them again some day. Then we were off to explore the mountain, finding a wonderfully overgrown castle and a secret garden we spied through the big blue door.
It was a beautiful day. 🙂