ferragosto

Sun-washed walls in Tuscania, Lazio (right over the border of Tuscany)

Buon ferragosto! Today is August 15th, otherwise known as ferragosto in Italy, a holiday that dates back to 18 BCE. In Latin, it was known as Feriae Augusti (Augustus' rest) and was meant to celebrate a long season of agricultural labor and the upcoming harvest. I just love living in a country that celebrates ancient Roman holidays...sigh...Nowadays, most Italians spend the 15th of August at the beach or eating a big meal with family and friends. Actually, the majority of August is spent doing this. Shops and restaurants close, all the chic Florentines head off to Forte dei Marmi or Punta Ala (we poor Florentines go to Livorno). In the past two weeks, our neighborhood has become a veritable desert, the exception of course being myself, Alberto and Winnie - the latter of which is always on vacation.

Winnie in paradise

We've already taken a vacation down to the Maremma - the southern most part of Tuscany - and we had a fabulous time. We visited a few Etruscan tombs, did some mountain biking, some swimming (with jellyfish), took a night-time dip in the thermal baths, ate some really tasty local grub and played a lot of chess. It was, in a word, un successo. 

The town of Pitigliano is constructed on a very porous rock called tufo - see how it seems to be growing right out of the mountain? Pretty sweet, huh? It was once an Etruscan settlement and parts of the ancient walls are still standing.

So it seems that we'll be spending ferragosto at home, reading, painting, watching Mel Brooks movies, eating homemade popsicles and on Friday performing the Decameron in the mountains outside Pistoia...actually, that sounds like a pretty good vacation to me!

I is for Ice-cream, from the Alpa-baby series, watercolor on paper, 2013

summer scent, summer memory

Summer in Tuscany is a feast for the senses: the sticky, sweet smell of a fig tree, the color of sunset on custard colored palazzi, the sound of swallows diving for morning breakfast, the taste of sweet melon and salty prosciutto makes your taste buds explode!
Perhaps the sense that hits me the hardest are the smells of summer, scents that bring back a flood of memories from summers past, both in Italy and in Pennsylvania...

Burning wood
August, Girl Scout camp. Right after dinner we did flag ceremony in the field, as the sun was setting, and then we would take the girls back to their camp site and get them settled in for the night. I would build a little fire and then walk up to the mess hall through the woods, in the dark, to get supplies for making s'mores. No flashlight. Just the moon. And the smell of campfires burning. Knowing it was the end of summer, autumn just around the corner, and that this simple task was so comforting and simple.

Three red feathers (watercolor on paper), 2013

Jasmine
My first summer in Florence. Nighttime, near midnight. Sitting on the balcony of Alberto's apartment in Piazza Antonelli, eating watermelon and spitting seeds down at the stray cats circling around the umbrella pines. The scent of jasmine at night would be so strong (and as it turns out, I'm allergic) that it would fill up the bedroom and cling to the mosquito nets above the bed.

Tuscan Moonrise (watercolor on paper), 2013

Linseed oil
Ambler, PA. My grandmother's art studio had a sky-light that would flood the wood paneled space with warm light and make the scent of linseed oil even stronger. It was right off the kitchen, and when she cooked eggs in the morning, the smell of oil paints and linseed mixed with the smell of toast and dippy egg. Dippy egg. Now there's a Pennsylvania word.


In any case, when it comes to senses and memory, Proust knew what he was talking about:

"No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of it origin...And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray...my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea."

- Marcel Proust from "À la recherche du temps perdu"