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Catch up Part 3
Entry 58 of 70 | show all | print this entry |
The generosity may have been enough to last us a lifetime, but it certainly wasn´t where the generosity was about to stop for us. Italy was another experience of being absolutely doted apon, to the point of feeling unbearably guilty.
Italy was an immensely special experience for me. With my new found ability to converse in my favourite language, Italian, I had the opportunity for the first time in my life to speak with my family in Italy. I have always known them and felt close to them, since the first moment I met them, but never have I been able to tell them stories and understand what all the sounds coming from their moving lips have meant. This was a first and a very exciting feeling for me. I felt high with the energy from it. I felt unspeakably happy when I could tell them what I did in school, and I felt unbearably sad when I could understand my Great-Aunt as tears rolled down her cheeks and she talked about her husband who died 10 years ago, just as their oil and wine company was beginning to take off. She is 80 years old now and has created a magical family business, kissing a photo of her husband every time she takes people down to the Frantoio where the oil is made. True love, I am sure.
The first night in Italy was special for an entirely different reason. Nicole and I had the most open and honest talk that we have ever had. We talked about all the feelings that had been welling up inside of us, needing to get out. We told them to each other, the only people who we thought they needed to be kept a secret from. But it was the best thing we could have done, and I think it stunned us both that it was happening. But we grew a lot that night. We learned so much, about each other and about ourselves. We talked all night, until sleep eventually won. But everything was much more real and colourful the next day. The curtain of grey was slowly being drawn and we were Maia and Nicole once again.
We picked olives for three and a half days and learned about the process of turning olives to oil. The weather blessed us once again and we raked little black olives off the trees, onto a net or a blanket, under the tuscan sun. That´s how it is done, with little rakes that children use to play in the sand. You comb the tree, and the olives drop onto a big net, or a picnic style blanket if it is a small tree. That is what we did, the small, piccolino trees. It was a pleasant feeling, to be helping the family and spending the day outside doing some work, getting dirty from the earth and the trees.
The food was as it always is with Italian families... delicious and absolutely excessive. It is a pointless battle... a diet in Italy. Although I did learn how to say it in the hopes that it might help... dieta, dieta, piacere... sono piena! I am full! The oil drenched food was a delight to the pallette and we savoured the tastes and enjoyed all the treats.
That was perhaps the week that has flown by the fastest so far, maybe because we were working all day, maybe because Nicole and I were getting along so well. But before we knew it, it too was over and we were both at the train station, one of us heading south, the other heading north.
I had decided to backtrack right back up north to see my sister for her two day stopover in Europe, and Nicole was on her way in search of a beach down south. It was sad to say goodbye to her, and to Ilio who I had the joy of seeing as well. He spoiled me rotten as usual, but unfortunately we didn´t have as much time to spend together as I would have liked since he was running around like crazy. But we have a date for sushi in only a few short weeks now, which I await with anticipation, as with everything that awaits me back in the land I love to call home.
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