chissa scrissa

 ...in questa terra tormentata e bella e calda e ospitale e gentile e luminosa

email di fabri

Scrissa was the imagined ideal place, where the olive trees were old and gnarly and where we could return to the roots of the sacred silent places. not a sound of a car in sight; the land rolling down to the distant sea; at our backs a wall of rock rising up into the deep wild woods and mountains of the Aspramonte. we imagined spending a week up there cooking over olive branch fires and sleeping under the stars.  "chissa se andremmo a scrissa?" was the eternal question; the uncertainty but the longing for a good scrissa future.  who knows if we will go to scrissa? in the end scrissa eluded us.  i got a phone call from fabrizio this morning saying that he was still thinking about heading up there himself sometime, taking some time to be with himself and reflect about things.  i began to feel that my time picking olives was up.  i wanted to begin heading back north anyway, even before the big argument between fabrizio and gisella.

surprising, but the olive tree is not as strong as you might think.  the branch was about the width of my arm.  it was a young branch.  it wasn't an old dry one.  it was fresh and green - seemingly strong - but when your weight pushes it down when it is far from the central trunk. .  . crack!  it was only two or three metres. that big long ramified branch came crashing to the ground, bringing lots of olives and opening up that side of the tree.

"potatura zen", says fabri with a grin.

the zen way to prune.

i am not so concerned when a crunching splintering sound reaches my ears while fabri reverses the jeep.  the man from the olive presser runs out to retrieve my mangled glasses.  i prefer to see them mangled than to lose them, i tell him. when i loose them i am always aware of their ironic irrecuperableness, ever shadowed however by the gleaming possibility of their recuperation.

in the olive grove at the table at lunchtime, a car drives past and beeps the horn at us.

who is that? if it is him, fabri growls, i will hit him with a stick. 

why? i said.
apparently he had saluted fabrizio the other day, addressing him as un pezzo di merda, or some such derogatory term.  it can be considered a friendly way to salute each other here, says fabri, but fabri was having none of it.
but why would you retaliate? i ask.  how will responding to an insult with an insult help?  if you are strong and confident in yourself, then no-one can insult you, however hard they try.

people use a different language here to communicate, glowers fabri.  for example, if a scotsman were to come to the village and open a restaurant, at some point someone would come and ask him for money.  if he didn't comply, he would suffer the consequences.  that is one of the reasons why there are practically no tourist facilities along this beautiful coast. the mafia.  the newspaper showed us a photo of the damage done by fire to the museum of historical instruments in reggio calabria.  plenty old instruments burned and plenty old books too.  why would anybody do that?  fabri and giz are in no doubt that it was the hands of the mafia.  some sort of personal grudge with someone associated with the museum? i speculate.  who can know the macchinations of the mafia? says gisella.  (in words to that effect)
not two weeks previously, when i had met up with finlay and fabri in reggio calabria, we spent an afternoon sitting in the sun drinking beer outside that museum, waiting for it to open - which it didn't.

finlay left for poland.  why do you want to go to poland? fabri had asked him.  especially at this time of year when it is cold up there and warm and sunny here in calabria and you can still swim in the sea? however, i can understand his choice of the cold northern winter. at least the simple action of firmly choosing his own path. whatever cold lessons will be learned there will be learned there.

i have arrived at francesca's house, tucked between the steep sides of a little rocky olive tree valley near rossano. it is a beautiful place she has created, full of art - terracotta sculptures and paintings on the wall and the plants grow with an uncommon radiant beauty.  you walk into the greenhouse and the grand rows of lettuce and broccoli  and pumkins shine greenly strongly slowly vigorously sweetly fascinatingly i don't know how to describe the experience of being with those plants.  

last night we had a french supper.  anything anyone said had to be in french.  maia had missed her french class that afternoon, so we had to help her to recuperate. "bon appetit" everyone says as francesca serves us plates of steaming creamy pasta.  ils sont bons, maia remembers from her workbook.  bons.  i tell her she has to speak through her bon nose.  we pinch our noses with our bon finger and thumb with a view to growing bon accustomed to bon speaking through our noses.   bon bon bon.     ils sont bons.