Opening Boxes After the Heartquake

I keep thinking of the song from the opening credits of the series Weeds.

"Little boxes on the hilltop
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hilltop
Little boxes all the Same"

The song refers to the houses of suburban upper middle class America, but in my case they are moving boxes - three different sizes, each taped shut with brown tape - all full of the things we, a half-dozen generous firefighters and a half dozen lazy movers pulled out of our house last week in L'Aquila. After four days of trips either with or without plumbers and electricians the towering maze of boxes and stacked furniture is starting to look like a home again. Every room is still full of boxes, but almost all three couches can now be used as (surprise!) couches and not resting places for lamps sand other fragile possessions.
Today as I pulled out plates and glasses from the boxes the firemen wrapped them in I was happy to find that most of the our white, basic Richard Ginori tableware set was still intact, just dusty, as were our better (but stemless) glasses. The wineglasses were nowhere to be found, probably mixed in with one of the piles of debris we left behind in the center of the rooms in Via Giovanni XXIII. .
Everything has to be dusted, scrubbed or washed. White plaster shavings and cement dust are in everything, pieces or our previous life to be washed or scrubbed away or shaken out. One of the smaller oriental rugs is resting on top of a stack of boxes in the living room. It looks faded, as if the colors have been washed away by the sun. It's just the dust of one big earthquake – the “heartquake” as it was re-baptized by many Italians living throughout the English speaking world and hundreds of smaller ones that followed.
The new house is in Pescara, Abruzzo's biggest city and industrial center on the Adriatic coast. We are hoping to stay our stay will be short, even though the idea of having to soon go through the purgatory of moving house does thrill any of us.
As I rest from my boxes someone is practicing a flute nearby. Tonight we drive back to Navelli where Sofia and Emily are waiting out the move up in the mountains. The annual chick pea and saffron feast will be held in ten days and despite the earthquake's damage to the town families have returned as have their summer friends.

Joshua
(also read me at carbonara.wordpress.com)