Torrione

Today I stopped by my mother-in-law’s place to drop off a few things and pick up some olive oil she had in the basement.
The normalcy of that statement comforts me but although life goes on that sentence is far from normal.
Linda’s building, the one she and her husband built in the fifties with 7 other families and where Silvia was born in their fourth floor apartment, appears from the outside to be in good shape. There are just two nasty cracks on the north wall, and the garden has overgrown. But like much of the Torrione neighborhood, it is still off limits. The uneven quality of the cement in the late fifties means that the stability of the building is compromised. But the garage is still accessible to drop of the girls’ old books and toys and pick up a big bottle of great local olive oil. Two of the five liter bottles survived the quakes but will not make it past our summer salads.
Torrione was one of the first big post-war neighborhoods built after the second world war. Just below the Spanish castle, across from the rugby stadium.
The name “torrione” comes from the rough brick tower at the main intersection just two buildings down from Linda’s building. It wasn’t actually a tower, just the last leg standing from the aqueduct that brought water from Gran Sasso to the nearby Roman city of Amiternum. It withstood 2000 years, it’s half as tall now, surrounded by ancient red bricks.
It was once one of the three gateways to the old city and the only main road that crosses the city still passes through. Many of the shops have reopened, but very few people have come back to live - or park there before going to work downtown (with now downtown, why bother?).
The sensation is a mix of optimism (two bars, two great bread stores, and other activities have reopened. Others have installed kiosks in the neighborhood and moved in. My doctor’s office is in a small building and he’s been back for two months. But virtually no one lives there anymore. It’s as though an ember is still burning under the ashes, but the fire still need fresh wood to burn again. How much fire will there be before winter?

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)

It's the little things

(This was published elsewhere, but I feel it's should be here too, as a record. it was from a month and a half after the earthquake) 

It’s in the little things – that I begin to touch what happened. Over a month has passed since we had to leave our homes at three-thirty in the morning, grabbing what we could as we rushed over the stucco flakes and other debris out of our house into the dark morning to find the hotel in front of us already down, folded like a layer cake of cement and steel.

I have been so busy getting on with life – finding a place to stay besides our car farther and farther from home, going back for essentials – and the cat – with the firemen, getting on with work in Rome, and just getting on with life with the girls here in Montesilvano.

It’s the little things. Last night we were driving to Navelli, the family house there is in much better shape than our house in L’Aquila but the aftershocks continue and most people still sleep in tents at night. The girls missed their friends there and we needed to get some fresh clothes. A song by Irene Grandi came on the Radio and we all started singing to it like in some cheesy movie and I started to cry – silently because I didn’t want them to miss a word.

The experts say that during earthquakes the best thing to do is duck under something that can protect you and wait it out. Which is impossible if you are a parent. As the floor rocked and everything shook and rattled and roared for almost half a minute, Silvia and I ran to the girl’s bedroom to get help them climb down from their beds. There’s really no room for thinking about what’s going on, being a father or a mother guides you.

A woman I saw on TV through the window of our cousin’s house (no one wanted to be inside so we watched TV from the garden), filmed in front of the pile of stones that was her house said something so simple yet full of truth.

“These are only stones, only bricks. I can put one on top of the other again. But my family and friends are the real bricks, and they are still here, and that’s what matters.”

Flying in.

Driving to L’Aquila this morning gave me hope. But then it always does, even before. From the hill town of Navelli where we spend much of the summer, past the devastated but once enchanting and hidden Castelnuovo di San Pio. The morning light tinging a slight burnt orange the slopes of Gran Sasso to my right somehow magnify the feeling that it’s more than just the infancy of another day. The road construction and heavy vehicles slowing me down seem just incidental as I move towards where I used to live. 

Hope. 

Helping L’Aquila Soar Again

To everyone who loves Italy,

I grew up in Wisconsin but have been lucky enough to call L'Aquila my home since 2001. My wife, Silvia, teaches Renaissance history at the university here and my daughters, Sofia and Emily are in school. Fortunately all safe after the Earthquake less than two weeks ago although, like thousands of others, we don't know when, or if, they'll be able to live again in our apartment. This message isn’t about us - our car wasn't destroyed and thanks to the hotels on the coast we have shelter and most things we need for the immediate future. I have work to get back to in Rome.

Reconstruction in the long-run and getting people into stable shelter and some normalcy will take time. To date a third of the buildings surveyed are unsafe to live in, and the historical center has not been included in that survey yet. Tens of thousands of people are in the tent communities in and around L’Aquila and many more are guests in hotels like me, or with relatives in Rome and elsewhere.

I have been told that the media in the US and UK have already moved on to other subjects (no Americans like me died or were seriously injured), although many grass roots groups - mostly connected to academia or the Italian-American communities are still very active.

With a few friends, both in the US and England, we noticed that we could help both the people of l’Aquila and the city and region that we love. We started with the first English-language group on the subject on Facebook ( L'Aquila Renaissance - Helping L'Aquila and Abruzzo , http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=66535648631&ref=ts)

We have also set up this petition in favour of L’Aquila and the villages and towns around it: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/laquila-renaissance/signatures.html

For now the group tries to give information on how to donate form the USA (often tax deductible). The list is incomplete.

USA
- NIAF - The National Italian American Foundation have created a Abruzzo Relief Fund & their online donation form is in English. Again here you can make a fast & easy online donation to assist in helping L'Aquila now and rebuild their lives, it's tax free for those in the US.
https://www.niaf.org/relief/Relief_info.asp
Italian Academy Foundation (IAF) has established a L'Aquila relief fund. Additionally, the IAF headquarters in L'Aquila (Bisegna) is open to the victims of the April 6, 2009, earthquake who are seeking shelter. View the IAF website at italianacademyfoundation.org.
Catholic Relief Services http://www.crs.org/emergency/italy-earthquake.cfm
- The Sons of Italy Foundation (SIF) has created an Emergency Relief Fund. View the Order Sons of Italy in America website at www.osia.org.
UNICO Announces Initiation of Fund to Aid Abruzzo Italy Earthquake Relief. website at www.unico.org-
The American Red Cross https://american.redcross.org/site/Donation2?idb=514161456&df_id=1094&1094.donation=form1&s_subsrc=RCO_link

UK
- Global Giving for Abruzzo - http://www.globalgiving.co.uk/pr/2700/proj2695a.html
- Red Cross UK - http://www.redcross.org.uk/donatesection.asp?id=93852&entrypoint=37220_mainItaly

While no one can argue that the human loss is greater than the cultural loss, I am also worried that during the reconstruction, the beautiful old city will be neglected. If I had talked to be before the quake, I would have spent half the conversation trying to convince you, especially those living in or visiting Rome, to come look at this jewel that so few Americans see but is an hour and a half drive from the Eternal City. I hope to be able to push the city like that again soon.

As always, to make sure things work in the long term it will be helpful that people keep on experessing, through letters and email, to officials in L'Aquila, in the Italian government, and in the U.S. government, the Press and other “piazze” in favor of rebuilding the city and not expanding it. Many of us have seen the result of the "modern urban suburbs" created, some never finished, after similar events, In the long term we hope that this group - and what may grow out of it, can contribute to the future of this city just as the world’s love for Assisi and Florence help their rebirth after natural disasters.

Thank you.


L’Aquila, April 16th

Joshua Lawrence
L’Aquila, Italy / Madison, Wisconsin.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=66535648631&ref=ts

Earthquake in L'Aquila (we are all fine - we were lucky, our prayers for the rest)

We woke up at 3.30 a.m Sunday night/Monday morning to a Earthquake that was 5,7 richter but brought down the entire antique city center, and, unfortunately, many new buildings as well. Me, my wife, daughters and extended family are all alive and unscratched. We were able to save the animals two days ago too. But almost three hundred people lost their lives, 1000 injured and tens of thousands are homeless, at least temporarily. I am staying with relatives almost 100 km away now where we can no longer feel the aftershocks. I thank everyone for their words, worries, prayers and offers of help. I've always believed in people, now I believe in them even more. Even if some "people" are the criminals who built the modern buildings that fell - Abruzzo is seismic but usually this magnitude does not bring down modern buildings if they were designed and built properly.

Galleons and Sloops in the Apennines.

The Garibaldi Caffè e Enoteca is another of my favorite little places in L’Aquila. It’s a neighborhood all-hours place kind of like the Bar Pasquino under my apartment in Rome. In other words, cappuccino, brioche and newspapers (in Italian only) in the morning, wine and spirits from aperitivo time until after midnight. Both have pannini and other simple but delectable food at lunchtime, but I’m always somewhere else then.

The place was tiny when I first stumbled in 10 years ago. The walls were lined with bottles, boutique chocolates and fake masterpieces up to the arched ceiling and stacked along a wall like in an art counterfitter’s hideaway. Davide and Daniele the two friendly and attentive young brothers who own and run the place also have a gallery that sells professional fakes of famous paintings. As I write this I have two enormous scenes of venice above me (Tintoretto, I believe) Klimt, Hopper, and Van Gogh above the wall of white wines and grappas in front of me, Renoir, Modigliani, Monet and Bottero to my left. When I first stumbled in back then were the model sailing ships among the wooden chess sets and humidors filling the windows. They also have a small but interesting selection of cigars and a nice little bench on the cobblestone street outside - no smoking in bars in Italy anymore.

Despite being on a medieval street 2000 feet up in the mountains the boats fit in because the place was tiny, lined with dark hardwood, the bathroom was tiny like those on sailboats and after a few glasses of wine the world might start to pleasantly sway. They have added another room since I first started coming here, but the lived in, slightly cluttered atmosphere is the same.

This evening as I’m killing time before I meet up with my eleven year old daughter who hanging out with friends in the main square (I’m sometimes jealous of kids growing up in Italy. Just me, a notebook, and a plate of olives, mixed cold cuts and taralli (crispy dried bread in bite sized curls) meant to dampen the effects of a glass of Pecorino, white wine from varietal native to Abruzzo that is undergoing a sort of Renaissance here. The music goes back and forth between Spanish jazz and Astor Piazzola inspired lounge.

The only thing missing is dinner, but recently Davide and Daniele opened up the Punto G - Piacere della Griglia grill (literally “G Spot - Pleasures from the Grill”) across the street. Strictly carnivores only.

But that’s another post.

carbonara.wordpress.com