Back from the Future

photo credit: "The Time Machine" 1959 MGM

I was chatting with a colleague yesterday who comes from a village of less than 500 people 70 km from Alghero. Whenever I seemed exalted at how kind the Algharese are, she would sneer and say, “that’s because you’ve come back from the future.” Her statement intrigued me as I never considered myself futuristic by any means. Anzi, I tend to think of myself as someone with more traditional values stuck in a modern life.

“People are still traveling on donkeys!” she exclaimed. “Some day I’ll take you to my village to see for yourself.”

“Fantastic!” I said, “That’s what I live for - time traveling.”

I first came to Italy four and a half years ago. It was July, 2005 and the opportunity arrived in a sort of serendipitous way. I had moved to Paris from Los Angeles merely a month earlier and the idea of traveling from one European country to another for under a hundred Euros seemed too good to be true. But that’s Europe, it was true, and it was the beginning of my traveling adventures.

When I arrived for a visit in Italy, completely open and unprejudiced (because I knew nothing of the country or culture) I found myself so totally enchanted that I knew I had to live there someday. Perhaps, I thought, Italy was my destination instead of France.  The “colpo di fulmine” (stroke of lightning) that I experienced was so bewitching that various inspirations awakened and the excitement grew very quickly.

One of those inspirations was to visit all of Italy. And I mean ALL of it. Which I nearly did, from north to south to east to west and beyond the sea onto the island of Sardinia where I am now. The traveling was exciting but also exhausting. The excitement raised the bar on emotion and the hours I spent on trains, planes and in automobiles started to add up. To be honest, I never really knew if there was a true purpose behind the passion I felt for this country and culture, but I knew I had to do it, rain or shine. And when the money ran out, I went back to plan A and reassessed the madness.

I found jobs wherever I could. At times they were in the north of Italy and at times they were in England and France. The travels continued outside of Italy on several occasions, but something always called me back. So I returned much to the dismay of my family in Montreal.

Another inspiration I received on that first trip was about cooking. I was in Umbria the day this happened. I had just finished eating lunch and somehow I was able to discern every ingredient in the food which tasted like pure sunshine on my mouth watering lips. I had never experienced such ecstasy whilst eating, and that is when I knew I was going to finally learn how to cook properly, although it took a few years to get there.

Two years later I was living in Perugia. I had gone there to study Italian at the Universita per Stranieri  and on my free time I started studying vegetarian macrobiotic cooking. I do admit it was fun, interesting, and quite tasty, but I was limited by my very small kitchen in my small apartment which sort of put a damper on the inspiration .

By then I had been living in Italy over a year. The honeymoon period was officially over as the reality started to sink in. I had been working, studying, traveling and meeting different people from different places and I had some close Italian friends, but I still felt like I was missing something, and that something was missing. There is a strong undercurrent in the Italian culture that cannot be taught. It can only be experienced in all its beauty and darkness.

When I first moved to Parma a friend of mine recommended a book called “The Dark Heart of Italy,” which I always meant to read, but never got to since I was busy doing so many other things. The time to read it had arrived when it became clear to me that no matter how many people I spoke to, the truth would never be revealed- perhaps because they didn’t even know it themselves. The book explained it clearly though, and confirmed my suspicions: Italy is la dolce vita (the sweet life) but it’s also run by powerful cults such as the mafia, the Vatican and everything in between including Berlusconi’s posse and the many other organizations that make up the different parts of the country.  The saying, “power in numbers” applies here. The bigger the group, the more powerful, and Italians try to do everything in groups.

After reading the book, I loaned it to a friend who then loaned it to another friend and today I haven’t the slightest idea where it ended up (and if anybody reading this blog has knowledge of its whereabouts, please let me know as someone here wants to read it.) But like gossip, which travels quickly in il bel paese, the book may have also started its own traveling adventures.

I left Italy shortly after that. I realized I could never wrap my head around the chaos and the darkness and negativity that exists in a place that I loved so much. The flip side of the sweet life is a life of corruption, danger, violence, possessiveness, jealousy, and all the adjectives we’ve read about in history books when the Romans were in power and people like Julius Caesar were poisoned. Power is an aphrodisiac after all and the glory days for Italians have long been over. What we have today is the memory of bygone days of an era of power and beauty.

Back to the future therefore, means that evolution has stagnated somehow. I come from Canada and have lived in the U.S., places that have much less drama and history than Italy, but much more advancement in other ways. My fascination with history brings me here, in places where the pride for the past still exists and where the passion for the sweet life seems to extol advancement of another kind. 

I bring them the “future” by teaching the English language, “American” (“America” refers to the continent not the U.S.), culture, cinema, music and popular activities such as yoga. In return I get to learn how to cook and speak the language of love. 

I am now fluent in Italian and have prepared spaghetti con le cozze fresche, con cipolle saltate, zucchine, funghi, vino bianco e formaggio Parmeggiano (spaghetti with fresh mussels, sauteed onions, zucchini, mushrooms, white wine and Parmesan cheese), riso allo zafferano saltati con aglio, cipolle, pomodori freschi e funghi (saffron rice with sauteed garlic, onions, fresh tomatoes and mushrooms) and torta al cioccolato con cocco e un centro di cioccolato fondente spolverato con zucchero vanigliato (coconut chocolate cake with a dark chocolate center dusted with vanilla sugar).

Quality may not be found in the attempt to group up and create some form of organization, but it will be found in the cooking, the paintings, the clothing and of course the art of seduction, which is at its very core, an art in itself.