Maybe I am starting to prepare myself. Talked to the accountant and broker today, started cleaning out closets I haven't seen the back of since 1981 (maybe that's because my sister will be staying here with her family during the first part of my month in Italy and I don't want to be dissed about the apartment anymore than I will have to be when she follows me over for the second half.)

I just finished a novel, Glass's Three Junes, that spoke in part to the aspects of New York City that I'll be a touch sorry to leave. But not that sorry!

I am so tired of the political scene here! You wouldn't know it from my weekly cover to cover concentration on the latest issue of The Nation and my regular perusal of the Truth Out website, but even with fingers crossed for a Democratic Party victory here in November, there's a kind of masochism about it all. I want to be in a place where there are some serious leftist opinions on at least the local level in spite of the opera buffa that is the national political scene. Social safety nets may be eroding all over the world, but ours haven't even been given a fair chance- so much so that there is little left to erode. There's a sour Calvinist core here: compare "American Gothic" by Grant Woods to Henri Rousseau's "Carnival Evening" and you get a little of the contrast I entertain about the two continents.

We shall see.

posted by Joanna @ 3/27/2004 03:59:00 AM 0 comments  

I don't say I'm moving to Tuscany (not since that Cortona woman's book showed up in the Brooklyn Heights movie houses - didn't like the book and haven't seen the film, even though a colleague's son had a bit part in it.) And today's New Yorker's Back Page has Roz Chast, one of my favorite cartoonists, making even thinking about moving to Tuscany one of the sure signs that a woman is entering her "Goddess" years! Now, I rather like the idea of entering my "Goddess" years, but I certainly don't want everyone to know that I'm doing so. Thus, I am moving to the Val d'Orcia. I am moving to a village, not a hilltop farmhouse with a swimming pool. There isn't one cypress tree on my property, albeit there are a lot in other parts of the village- mostly in the parks. The views of the landscapes are more sere and more distant than those romantic postcard views. The proximity of the village to the slopes of a big mutha' mountain makes it a bit less stylish than other hilltowns. Only the occasional medieval-fortress-freak tour bus heads up the steep, multiple hairpin-turn road to the Rocca located in the hamlet down from my village. The piazza of my village is sleepy. It's also heavily weighted with stores that meet the needs of the village's inhabitants. Hell, even the bar has been chiuso per malatia for months and months and months. You've got to go out of the centro storico for an espresso, to that modern bar in the middle of a parking lot with lots of video games and i ragazzi coi motorini. Lovely views from the terrace there though.

posted by Joanna @ 3/23/2004 03:34:00 AM 0 comments  

Some months ago I was "googling" the name of my village, looking for history, and came across a website called "Giovani toscani nel mondo" where there was a two year old post from a woman in Argentina whose grandfather was born in Castiglione d'Orcia and so I e-mailed her. She replied within a day or so and it seems that she didn't have much information at the moment but will talk to some relatives. The name she gave for her grandmother is the name of a family who once lived in the very house I bought. This will be great fun to pursue! Can't wait to get at the comune's archives.

These are just some random thoughts that I've dredged up from the last year.

I have to remember to be excited that there are spas galore all around my village. And one very close, free, hot spring pool down by the Orcia river on the edge of Bagno Vignoni. Maybe I can soak under the stars and look up at the Rocca and the castle ruins.

I have to remember that one of the first things I want to talk to the geometra about has to do with taking out a few non-load-bearing walls that divided the huge rooms of the house into small ones.

I see I haven't mentioned that my friend from the organic farm commune (where they have let me play 'farmer' or 'princess' over the last half-dozen years), gave me a lovely antique washstand of ferro battuto (wrought iron) with a mirror, a large ceramic bowl and matching pitcher. My first housewarming gift.

Only twenty-eight more days until the coming trip.

posted by Joanna @ 3/18/2004 05:32:00 AM  

I'm both excited and terrified about starting on the house. I both need the support of the people who want to help and dread their real or imagined expectations, pressure or interference. I can't wait to spend the money to make it what I want it to be and I'm also pissed that I have to give anyone my money.

There will be a geometra waiting to sit down with me on Monday, 19 April. At least, I think so. If I am very lucky, I will soon be slogging through piles of broken plaster in little demolition areas, heaps of musty stuff tumbling down from the attic to the bidone (not to mention some moldy old mattresses from the second and third floors), and great drifts of grit and dust that will make me cough, all the while avoiding scary dangling wires and hoses and a myriad of construction site dangers. Soon is the operative word. It means anytime between May of 2004 and April of 2005.

It is considerably more likely that in the coming weeks I will be bent over plans, haggling about major design details, grousing about the amounts outlined in the preventivo, and dozing in the antechambers of bureaucrats from whom I must get permits. Got to spend time in the garden. Got to become acquainted with the officials at the comune (especially to see if I can get into their historical archives about the village and the house.) The palazzo comunale, by the way, is directly across the piazza from my back windows. They'll see everything that's going on, so I really hope they find me simpatica and my presence in their village molto piacevole.

On Thursday evening, 29 April, my sister, nephew, brother-in-law, and a wonderful friend are all arriving from Australia, prepared to pitch in, get dirty, put up with Spartan conditions, and have some fun. They'll be in and out, doing whatever jobs they can and also giving me space by going off on some independent jaunts of their own. I hope to introduce them to some of my friends and favorite places during the two weeks they're with me.

On Sunday, 9 May, there's a big Slow Travelers' get together in Umbria where I'll get to meet a few people with whom I've been corresponding intensely and renew some ties with some people I met last fall.

I have messages from my friends at the organic farm commune, other friends in LeMarche, and a couple from Vigevano. The latter will come by during their long planned spring trip to Toscana. The former will visit or get me to visit them. I am too rich in friends for the little time I will have. Maybe I should, as Tom Robbins would have me do, "call in well."

"Hi, it's Joanna. Listen, I've been sick since I started working there, but I'm well today, so I won't be in."

posted by Joanna @ 3/11/2004 04:29:00 AM 0 comments  

I bit the bullet and put my blog on Slow Trav. Some don't realize that I envision two to three years before I won't be ashamed to invite guests. I mean the place hasn't been lived in for thirty years! I have the rogito and am e-mailing wildly about setting up meetings with the geometra for April 16th. The only thing that is really keeping me sane is everyone's support- and especially that of Zak and Gary who flew in from Australia today (1 March 2004). We met for a four hour dinner at Guastavino which is a glorious space in Manhattan. They are so reassuring about how all will fall into place with the house, that I am nearly prostrate with gratitude. What great friends!

I keep thinking about the day I first explored the town- all on my own- and then called G & Z from the hotel terrace in Bagno Vignoni. Within two weeks I'd signed a compromesso! I was staying in Monticchiello and I remember calling my sister in Australia to say, "I just bought a house in Italy." She was wonderful: "Thank heavens," she said, "if you didn't do it now you'd never do it! And I'll help you any way I can." I am blessed. So now I think about plaster and paint and persiani and a heating system and internet connections. And it's all really going to happen! My women friends from Vigevano and Urbino and my sister from Australia will all be stopping by this spring to nod and say, "Yes, it's happening!"

posted by Joanna @ 3/02/2004 06:42:00 AM 0 comments