Familiar and beautiful things
Taking my mother to Italy

July 14, 2007

A few weeks ago I took my 89 year old mother back to Italy and my 20 year old son, who had never been there. He took over 4,500 digital photos but we were constantly looking for batteries...LOL

What impressed me most about Italy this time was not what had changed but what had not changed especially the old friends, more than 30 of them who acted as if no time had passed at all. Some of them I had not seen for 27 years, while in the case of my mother, she had not been there in 37 years. Not only did friends treat us with great kindess but so did every Italian we had any dealings with...they were especially solicitous of my mother...

In Rome we were hosted by the Persian film maker Parvin Ansary, whom I interviewed for Iranian.com in an article entitled: "The last colony" back in 2003. She is the aunt of one of my best friends and first Persian friend, Touss Sepehr, whom I also wrote an article about: "My Friend Touss," whom I went to both Parioli Day School with and Notre Dame Int'l School in Rome in the '60's.

We also spent time with Jim Guida and his family in the Parioli district of Rome. Jim Guida and I went to Notre Dame for 5 years together, then to George Washington U. in DC at the same time and finally we worked together and were neighbors in Tehran for 5 years back in the '70's before we finally went on different life paths. Now the interesting thing is that while I was visiting Touss's aunt and telling her about Jim Guida, whom she didn't know, but whom Touss had known while we were in Tehran, we figured out that her two grandchildren are going to Mary Mount Int'l School in Rome, as are Jim's two sons. Although they were not in the same year classes they knew of each other but had not been introduced... so I had come half way round the world to introduce them to each other when they went to the same school... another one of life's little ironies.

Back in the 1960's we had intermural basketball tournaments in which NDI varsity played other American schools from all around the Mediterranean. There was a team called "The Livorno Lions" from the Livorno American High School at Camp Darby, the US Army Base. The Lions never won but they had great spirit. One of the reasons that I decided to take my 89 year old mother back to Italy besides her obvious love for this country, was to attend a reunion at the final graduation ceremony of the Livorno American High School, which is closing after 50 years. My mother taught for 10 years at the elementary school affiliated with the high school on the base. She was the only faculty alumni to attend the event. It was reminiscent of the closing of my old school, Notre Dame Int'l in Rome, which also closed but back in 1988 after 40+ years; not without sadness and nostalgia but also with pride for our past glory...

The amazing thing to me was to go into the same ice cream store in Tirrenia, where we had lived near the base and find out that it was the same owner's daughters who now ran it where I had enjoyed their ice cream 46 years earlier. At Villa D'Este, Tivoli, while touring it with my son, I realized that the last time I was there was 46 years earlier with a schoolmate from Parioli, Nick Mattoni and his family. I picked up my cell phone and I called him in L.A. from there and blew him away after not having spoken to him in about 10 years.

In Rome I went to the same tropical fish store which had supplied me fish for my childhood and life long hobby and found it now run by Aldo's son. It was the same everywhere we went. In Pisa, we went to a restaurant called "I 7 Nani" (The Seven Dwarfs), where our late former neighbor, the Greek Sea Captain Anastassio Kouvaras, would take my brother and I when I was 11. When I told the wine steward this, he went and brought out his mom, the chef, out of the kitchen to meet us and she said that her dad would have been the chef then and then she regaled us with gifts of bottles of wine and post cards from the '50's and posed with my mom for photos and exchanged e-mail addresses.

In Siena, I went into a stationary store (Tabacchaio) on the right side of Piazza del Campo as you face the tower and I told the proprietor, whose name I did not remember that I had been an artist in Siena 36 years ago and had sold him two little statues I had made. He said: "That would have been my father and if you wait 15 minutes, he will be here and you can say hello to him."

The point of all this is that it is a welcome change from Silicon Valley, where whatever you own is obsolete in 6 months. Some people may feel my story only reveals a stagnant economy where a person is stuck in the economic class into which they are born but I cannot help but feel that there is a certain sense of psychological security and a sense of well being that such continuity remains and that a person can count on always being surrounded by familiar and beautiful things, places and friends that give a soul peace and comfort.

As I got off a bus at Piazza Di Argentina one afternoon in Rome three weeks ago, I was struck by the Roman ruins there which I had taken for granted or hardly noticed as a student. Being surrounded by antiquity gives one a sense of continuity with the past which the constant upheaval of modern life does not provide... in fact the constant changes contribute to our existential nausea...

Also with the ancient heritage comes a cafe society in which people talk about everything under the sun, everyday, with friends, neighbors and strangers while in the good old USA people pay therapists to listen...

Sounds of Siena at Dawn
Silently the darkness turns to light
And then the swallows begin to stream
Their whistles, the first sound to greet the day
Followed by the drone of courting male pigeons
And the shrill chirping of baby sparrows in the eves

The air is clear, still and cool in early morning
And now the Tuscan hills are rolling to the horizon
In every direction studded with dark majestic cypress trees
Amid a tapestry of golden wheat and silver gray olive orchards
Here and there fields of red poppies and the portent of jade vineyards

Now the clatter of rising metal shudders
Shopkeepers' repetitive sweeping of stone pavers
A row of vespas suddenly parked in front of Garibaldi
As well as a few blue city busses and the sound of footsteps
Buon giornos, the rattle of coffee cups and hissing espresso machines

Another day begins in the heart of this medieval town
Like every dawn has risen looking for me these past long years
Thirty-five in all, the only difference now is that I am here this time
In the place that I have never left in my nostalgic heart and longing soul
In the Contrada of the giraffe, a woman dear to me awakes and readies for work

In a few hours all of this I know so well
A family name for every house and palazzo
A memory of someone's laughter at every corner and alley
Recollections flooding my mind like the wheeling swallows above
It will all return into the treasure chest I carry in my mind and I am gone

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Hi Brian, I just read your story and I enjoyed it and I agree with you about many things. I like always to go to America, a big country ,huge space that welcome many people from all the world. I think different peole make this nation so interesting and advanced technologies reach every corner of the world, but when I come back home (Italy) I like the swallows and their whistles in the morning and I like being surrounded by familiar and beautiful things, I enjoy say hello to my butcher and say "how are you today?",to go to my grocer and speak with my friend about weather and food and yesterday my neighbour asked me " when are you come back and how was your trip?" I know it's so cosy and unusual in other contries and exactly, there is a certain sense of psychological
security and a sense a well being and for this reason I think American people love to come here.Nowaday some people follows the fashion without a critical eye and every thing is obsolete in 6 months and people pay therapist to listen. I disagree with it. Let's stop a moment! It's beautiful to admire a sunset or a dawn, to chat with strangers or friends, to smile to a child, to help an old man to cross the street, maybe also it does make sense in our life.
A hug to all

When I lived in Rome, I knew the people in the shops, bakeries, and outdoor market by name and they knew me. I'm back in the States now and live in a neighborhood where I walk everywhere, but it's not like Italy - not even close. I'm not sure why, but some of the vendors I shop with day after day act like they've never seen me before, and I've lived here 2 1/2 years! I'm outgoing, smile a lot, and have been told I'm very approachable so I think it's sad people feel the need to keep such distance.
Martha

It is not by chance that people do not know eachother here. Teenage depression is the number one illness of our youth and loneliness and alienation are a huge problem that therapists and drug companies throw pills at. There is no real community. When the media talks about black community, gay community, hispanic community, intelligence community, it is a misuse of the word, these people are a common interest group, a political entity, a statistic but they do not know eachother personally. The problem is that we have a very mobile society in which people are constantly moving, changing jobs, etc and there is no loyalty from employers or from employees... it is called greater economic mobility but we pay a high price for it. When I compare my childhood with that of my children it makes me cry...I roamed the woods and the beach and the neighborhood with my friends, had parties, sleep overs, etc. here in Northern california summers come and go and no one comes to play with them and the phone never rings for them and their childhood is almost over...people drive around in little bubbles of steel and glass and do not take public transportation which was a huge source of socialization in Italy...I never owned a car in Italy in 13 years and road trains and buses everywhere and talked to people all day long...when I lived in an apartment building in Livorno we knew everyone in the building and there was always someone to help my mother with groceries or with car trouble, etc.

The point is that when society becomes very large and impersonal and constantly moving and changing people are afraid of eachother...TV isolates people from eachother...people do not collect in cafes and talk every evening after work...

in America we only value change and the future, when something breaks it is cheaper tobuy a new one and we apply the same rule to people. I know several people here who have openly stated that they do not spend time with people from whom they have nothing to gain.

It is very dangerous to generalize like this and there are always exceptions but the fact remains that those of us who have been exposed to Italy and other older countries which still have some cultural uniformity and traditions we can feel the difference...

yours,

Brian

I so totally agree with you, Brian. I have had Italian friends and American friends, and have found that the Americans lose touch the minute they do not need you, whereas Italians would go out of their way to help you even after you were with them for a short while. Being an Asian, I love the idea of being friendly with people, chat with the grocers, the cab-drivers, say hi or smile at people I meet in the lift, and I find that this is very close to how Italians feel about things.

I have a Korean friend who is somewhat like the Americans, in that technology has brought too many changes that as a people they have somewhat lost the human touch.

It was a beautiful story about your trip to Italy, and you are a very welcome addition to our community here at lifeinitaly! Welcome to the forum!

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Thanks Bubbles,
what was amazing to me was that some of my friends whom I had missed on earlier trips to Italy, I had not seen in 27 years and it was as if no time had passed at all...like I had been away for the weekend. Also my friends' children, some of whom I had never met before immediately accepted my son and that was wonderful to see...

It always amazes me that I can spend literally decades in an American city or suburb and never get invited to any ones houses unless they are first generation immigrants right off the boat. 90% of my friends in Northern California are Iranian for example. This may be normal for people who have grown up here and never lived anywhere else but for me it is very unnatural and tragic...You have to join a church or a club just to meet people which is the wrong motive. I remember once when I was acting as a translater for an Italian businessman traveling around the US with him, when we got to Houston airport there was a large sign in the arrival terminal that read:"Welcome Members of the Wild Turkey Confederation." I had a hard time explaining that one to Aldo...what I think is really telling is all the on line dating and match making services...what has this world come to where we would trust what should be the most private and personal thing in the world, our love life to the hands of strangers...and pay them no doubt...

God Help Us,

Brian

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Please visit my new website about my first book at www.zirzameen.com about my experiences in Iran in the 1970's

tante cose,

Brian

Brian - apologies for being a year behind you and everyone else, but I'm only just catching up with (all the great) posts on this site! Thanks for the post, as usual, I enjoy reading them - it makes me understand the difference between good writing and the rubbish I post! I've read, I believe, all of your recent posts, and will search out the ones posted before I joined. If you ever write an Autobiography, please send me a copy (free and signed of course!!) - I'm sure it would make far better and educational reading than the books I have at present!!

Marky,
these are very kind words and I sincerely thank you for them. I am taking the self publishing plunge because so many readers like yourself have encouraged me to write more and so many fellow authors have told me it is the only way to break in these days. It is incredible how much money and hard work and persistance it takes to make it as a writer or even break even and of course there is no guarantee of any return on one's investment. Just the rights and high resolution jpgs from the photographers to use their photos in my book have cost me about $6K so far that I did not anticipate. Basically I have two personalities, one that writes and one that goes to market. My first book is about my experiences in Iran in the 1970's, my second which is completed is another non fiction, about four generations of an Assyrian family, my third is fiction, a sex and romance novel already completed which takes place in Greece and my fourth will be about my childhood in Italy but it is only in the conceptual stage at the moment...
Anyway thanks again for your encouragement! If I am ever in Livorno area again I will definately look you up. I'm going to Germany next month but only for a week on business...

all the best,

Brian

ciao a tutti

thanks to brian or rather 'uncle brian' for that writing..it is so beautiful and makes me want to go visit Rome..
this is my 2nd time in Italy and i have yet gone to Rome...
i've been to Milan couple of times but i didn't feel anything for Milan, maybe because i was cheated there on my 1st visit, right in front of the Duomo..and because of this i hated Milan..

i have yet to venture further down to Roma but maybe after i finished my internship
as of now, i am enjoying every day of my stay here in Italy...

ancora, grazia per la tua bella storia..