Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Change and Continuity

A lot has happened since my last post. My wife Carlotta arrived, and I rented a car to meet her in Milano, revisiting some favorite places, seeing some new things in those places and finally visiting some new places I've long wanted to see along the way. More old favorite places, old friends and new discoveries on the way back, in time to celebrate our 26th anniversary just steps away from where we first met 29 years ago.

Our anniversary dinner highlighted how things had changed over those 29 years, but also illustrated elements of continuity that I find quite encouraging. We ate very well at La Cantina di Arianna, waited on by it's namesake, granddaughter of Domenica Medori, who was legendary for her cooking as a host mother to many Civita program students over the years. I have fond memories of getting wine from Domenica in the cantina that still flanks the restaurant and seeing her husband Mario's horses in the stalls now occupied by the dining rooms, when Arianna and her older sister Antonella (who also works at the restaurant) were young girls. One might lament the lost of those traditional spaces and uses, but I find great comfort and hope in the fact that they remain in the family and have been beautifully transformed to provide the locals a way to make a living from Civita's ability to attract tourists and vacationers from all over the globe.

Even more encouraging is the fact that Domenica and Mario's daughter, Rossana, and her husband Antonio have moved into the old family house above the restaurant. It is true that they are one of just two couples who remain full-time Civita residents, along with Tony (the other being Ivana and Mario Loretti, who live above Ivana's souvenir shop). But several old Civita families have kept the family homes and use them for vacations, weekends or festival celebrations. It has been surprising how many of the "civitonici" I met 29 years ago still have a strong presence in the town.

That was very apparent this past weekend, one of the two main feste held in Civita each summer featuring La Tonna, the donkey race around the main piazza. I was surprised to see my host "brother" Sandro Medori, still riding 29 years after he won the race in '84 (and many more before and after that, I hear). While there were still many tourists in town for the festa, it was the old Civita families gathering in their family homes that struck me as a sign that the town was returning to the civitonici after the summer crush of tourists.

As we ate our anniversary dinner at the corner of the main piazza that night, I was also touched to see Raffaele Mostarda - grandson of Signora Agnese, who ran the one and only restaurant in town for many years - playing soccer in the piazza with his young son Lorenzo. I remember watching Raffaele playing soccer in the piazza in '84, when he was a bit older than Lorenzo. Now he carries on the family tradition with his wife Manuela, running the Osteria al Forno di Agnese, one of three excellent restaurants in town run by longtime Civita families (see my second post about the other, Alma Civita).

The restaurants, bruschetterie and bars have struggled the past couple weeks since some damage was discovered in one of the beams on the bridge, causing it to be closed to the motorbikes and mini-tractors that have replaced the donkeys to haul goods up the bridge since '84. It has been nice to experience a return to the quiet of the town in those days (though the business have been shuttling goods up before and after the guard is posted at the foot of the bridge). Seeing the donkeys in town made me think of the changes and trade-offs. Instead of dodging donkey dung on the streets, we have the noise and exhaust of the motorbikes and tractors - at least the noise fades and the fumes blow away.

No comments:

Post a Comment