NewDayNews Recovery Forum
Posted By: Jane <Send
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Date: Tuesday, 15 November 2005, at 10:23 a.m.
One of the things that happened in the Naples house was that we climbed Mt Vesuvio one day. Elkanah piled a bunch of us in the Landrover. Never mind seatbelts, we were crammed in there. We drove up the side of the volcano until we reached the visitor center. I don't know if we had to pay, but in either case Elkanah would have taken care of that. The path up to the top of the volcano was just a small one. It went up at an angle on slippery tiny volcanic rocks. There was no railing but we were young and nimble footed. I was in the beginning of my pregnancy, just barely showing. At the top of the mountain I was amazed to look down into the crater and see vapor coming out of the ground. I didn't know what I expected to see, no lava surely, but steamy type of vapors coming right off of the sides of the crater. It was a bit creepy. On the way back we stopped at the gift shop. Meshach bought a pretty little chain with a polished stone pendant made from the rock on Vesuvio. He tried to give it to me but I wouldn't take it. I was already feeling ominous feelings of dread that I might be paired up with him.
Another little memory of the Naples house: Two of us had been on the road for about a week. We got back to the house and no one was there. It was wierd for absolutely nobody to be home. The house had no food and we were hungry. We went down to the fennel field next to the house. The harvest had recently been done but there were a few straggler plants still clinging to life in the dirt. We picked a couple of them. Then we went to the farmer that lived behind the house and bought some eggs from him and a bit of cheese. We went back up to our house and rustled up a nice omelette with sliced fennel salad. It seemed to so strange to be alone in that huge house by ourselves. Within a few days other people started coming home.
Another Elkanah moment: This was during the time period after the RNR and of course this was a group of people from Mothers Eves team. There weren't the usual constrainst about sex that there were in the regular Family at that time. So there was a lot of casual sex going on. I remember being upstairs and Elkanah was very amused that there were three women pregnant by him at the same time. One of the women was Bithia, the other was the Italian woman with the little girl and the other was a young blonde teenage American girl that visited our home on a regular basis. I always wondered where that girl came from and why her parents let her have so much freedom. Well it turned out to be false alarms for the Italian woman and for the teenage girl(thank God), but Bithia was indeed pregnant.
One time Bithia and I were alone on a train for a few hours. I don't remember where we were going. She was one of the midwives in the Family. She talked with me about the birth process and what to expect. I of course had no idea of what was to come. Total ignorance on my part. The only information I had were two Deborah letters about having babies and a couple booklets of testimonies of women from the Family who had natural child birth. The testimonies tended to be very glowing about how easy it was and skipped right over any of the hard stuff. Bithia on that train trip tried to teach me about the breathing. I remember us practising together; puff, puff, puff, blow out. Something like that.Another memory: This was kind of gross but it's funny how certain things stick with you. A group of us had gone into the city of Naples in the Landrover. There were several mommies with kids, including the Italian woman with her young daughter. We were going to litness near some of the touristy areas. At one point we were parked in a parking lot but hadn't left the vehicle yet. The Italian sister told Elkanah that her daughter needed to go to the bathroom. Elkanah told her to let her go outside next to the car. I remember he was rather disgusted when she didn't just pee, but I was rather disgusted that he would tell her to go potty in public.
Another memory: I was starting to feel very protective of my coming baby. I had nothing for it. No clothes, no diapers, no bed, no stroller or carry-pouch. So I rummaged through the forsake-all area under the stairs. I found an old tattered baby buggy carriage that was broken, but the bed part was still in good shape. It was a nice blue corduroy material, a bit dusty but I could clean that. So I took the bed part, leaving the wheel part because it was ruined. I cleaned it all up and there I had my bassinet for the baby. I started gathering any extra baby clothes but there were many at the home because so many women had babies or were pregnant. So on the road I started provisioning clothes or other baby items from the stores and door to door at apartment buildings. One store gave me a stroller. A brand new bright orange stroller. The Italian ladies were so kind and gave me bags of clothes. The shops gave me bottles and diapers. I don't know what I would have done without the kindness of the Italian people because the only thing I got from the forsake-all at the home was that bassinet.
Last memory for now: We sometimes would take the Circumvesvio train to get to our house or to travel near our house for litnessing. One of the stops was at Pompeii. I remember looking outside the window at the ruins of the town. We in the Family believed that Pompeii was haunted and full of evil spirits, so of course we never went there, even though we lived right close. They were excavating Herculaneum at the time and there were scaffoldings all over. That was the first time I heard that there was another town besides Pompeii that had gotten covered over by the volcano. Sitting in the train we could look right over the walls into Pompeii. I was curious but also afraid.
These are just a few memories of that huge old house near Naples. There was a rumor that a plane had crashed into it during the war. I don't know if that was true but it could have been. The house was certainly old enough.