NewDayNews Recovery Forum

Fair Verona (part 1)

Posted By: Jane <Send E-Mail>
Date: Monday, 6 February 2006, at 10:12 p.m.

My first impression of Verona was one of cleanliness. The city seemed so open, big and airy. Meshach and I arrived at the train station. I don't remember if we were met by anyone but we took the bus to Piazza Bra. There is a restored Roman Arena in Piazza Bra. It was quite an imposing sight. We then walked through the back streets, past Piazza Erbe (I think it's called), there was a huge outdoor market in that piazza. Down a narrow street lined with some small vegetable shops and then to an unobtrusive door. It lead into a foyer with an elevator or you could opt to take the stairs. In my condition I prefered the elevator but there were days that it just wasn't working. So even at 8 and half months pregnant I would have to haul my heft up the stairs.

Our apartment was on the third floor,(I think). The door opened onto a very nice foyer with what seemed like marble floors. The ceiling was extremely high. The apartment not only seemed huge and spacious, but it really was. The foyer opened to a hall way. The kitchen was a small room just off the hallway on the right side. I was amazed by the kitchen. It was a tiny room with all the appliances. The sink, the refrigerator, the stove. They seemed so portable. Apparently it was the fashion in Italy to take the kitchen with you when you moved. Everything went, sink and all. I can't explain it right, but it gave a very temporary feeling to the kitchen. Above the sink was a metal rack to place the dishes. After washing them we would simply stack them up there to dry. They drained right into the sink.

I don't remember how exactly I met the Family members at this home. If Meshach remembers perhaps he could fill it in. I believe we were met at the train station, probably by Davide, but I honestly don't remember. The shepherd was Elia Burn Free. What a character he was. A dark swarthy Italian like the Italians from the deep south. He had a way about him that was imperialistic. Elia was a strong leader. He wasn't an attractive guy, but he was a natural leader. And that made him kind of scary.

Then there was Davide. Also Italian. Davide had curly hair, brown rather than black. He was shorter and more stocky than Elia. He played guitar. Davide was more outgoing. Vivacious.

After Davide was Little Elia. Elia Piccolo. He was so cute. He changed his name shortly after I joined the home. He became Angelo Piccolo. He was the youngest one of us there. I was the oldest. At 22 years old, I was the oldest. Angelo was a gentle sweet soul. He played the flute and sometimes would entertain us by doing the robot. I don't know that Angelo ever had a girl friend but lots of the systemite girls liked him.

After Angelo was Matteo by the Grace, a tall lighter colored Italian from the north. He wore the big round glasses that were popular at that time. He was tall and skinny. I fell in love with Matteo because of his calm quiet humor. I knew he didn't love me back but he was kind to me because he knew that I had feelings for him. He also played guitar.

And big surprise...a girl joined right before I got there. Her name was Ornella but she changed it to Sara. She was a typical Italian girl, not really attractive but a whizz in the house. She could do everything, cook, clean, sew, gather edible herbs on walks, take care of babies and apparently men also. Because my Matteo was in love with Sara.

I kept expecting Meshach to leave but he didn't. Then one day he came to me and told me that he had asked Elia if he could join the home too. So now we were two girls and five guys.

Back to the apartment....After the kitchen the hallway opened on the left to the livingroom/dining room. It was a huge room that could be divided down the middle by a sliding partition. Usually we kept it open for the space. Both sides of the huge room had balconies that looked over the street below. The dining room side of the room had a long table with matching chairs. Behind the table alongside the wall was a huge china cabinet. When the dishes were dry they were stored in the china cabinet, along with the silverwear and cloth napkins. Can you imagine...cloth napkins!

The living room side of the room had a wrap around couch thingie with a record player built in to the corner section. There were a stack of Beethoven records on the shelf unit. This room was perfect for gathering us all together because it was so big and spacious.

The apartment had a lot of marble, marble floors and such. It should have been cold but lucky us, we had underfloor heating. I don't know how they did it but the floors were always warm. We didn't have to wear sweaters indoors, or slippers, or shoes. The floor was delightfully warm to walk on.

Turning right after the kitchen would lead to the bedrooms, bathrooms and laundry room. The first bedroom was the one I shared with Sara. It had a huge king sized bed and a very long wardrobe that ran the entire length of the wall. At some point one part of the wardrobe got broken and we couldn't figure out how to fix it. So the door forever hung off at a wierd angle.

Sara didn't speak a lick of english and I only knew how to litness in Italian. At night when we were alone in the bedroom we would have conversations using the english/italian dictionary to translate. Sara was like a mommy to me. She seemed to know everything about everything. She took all of the rag tag ends of baby clothes that I had saved up and she washed every single item, ironed, folded and stacked them all in the drawers.

I was in a state of extreme wierdness. I had just come from the very primative way of living on the beach in Palermo, with Elkanah and his group. I had made a very quick jump from Mother Eves group back into the regular Family and I didn't quite know which end was up. It was awkward having Meshach there because it kept me partially stuck in the old life. I wanted very desperately to fit in and to make a new life with these Italians. I wanted them to like me so much but they kept thinking of Meshach and me as together. We weren't, but they didn't seem to get it.

Our apartment was so modern but from the outside it looked like we were in an alley. We were so lucky to have our own wash machine, but we didn't have a dryer. To dry the clothes we had to hang them, usually out on the balcony off the tiny bedroom. For awhile this was Davides bedroom, but after the baby came it became my bedroom. If we had lots of clothes to dry we would take them up to the roof top. There were laundry lines up there and a fabulous view of Verona to boot. We could see the whole area across the river.

Elia Burn Free had his own room. Being the shepherd he of course had to have his own space. The rest of the boys were in the room at the very end of the hall.

I drew a cartoon once of all of us. Sara was chasing Davide, Matteo was chasing Sara, I was chasing Matteo, Meshach was chasing me, Angelo was chasing butterflies and Elia was being chased by some outside girls. We were all so young but happy to be with each other. I think they considered me more settled because I was having the baby, but I just wanted to be one of them. It would have helped if I could speak Italian.

I never litnessed in Verona. I had gotten out of the habit during my time with Mother Eves group and I just couldn't find the resolve to do it. No one questioned my lack of enthusiasm. I suppose they assumed that my extreme swollen body was a good enough excuse to not walk around much. It was true. I could barely move. My daily chore was to go down the stairs, out onto the street, go a few streets over, do the grocery shopping and then drag the bags back home and up the stairs. After that I was pretty much done for the day. When Sara got home from litnessing she and I would cook dinner together. She taught me certain tricks about sauce, which herbs to use and how to watch for the yellowish tint of the oil on top of the sauce. Sara was amazing. Her food was always so good even if it was just weeds that she had gathered up on a little walk before coming home.

(to be continued)