This Italian Life: People and Places

By Phyllis Macchioni

When journalist Phyllis Macchioni announced that she was moving to Italy, her father said, “Remember this: Italy is the land of the plague, the Inquisition, dark and dank dungeons and rapscallions who skulk around in the middle of the night looking to cause trouble.” She went anyway. Now, twenty-five years later, Macchioni shows us the Italy she loves, the Italy she got to know one person and one place at a time. From His Tremendousness, Giorgio Carbone, a bewhiskered grower of mimosa flowers who became the Prince of Serborga, a small sovereign state high in the hills above the Italian Riviera, to Enrico Pieri, the sole survivor of one of the worst massacres of World War II, her stories of people and places in Italy might make you laugh or maybe cry, but most certainly they will touch your heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phyllis Macchioni
• Release date: Oct 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310538896

Phyllis Macchioni

Phyllis Macchioni is a writer/journalist who has written extensively about Italy and things Italian, since moving to the Italian Riviera twenty-five years ago. Her articles have appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail, The Washington Post, The Pittsburgh Gazette, The Chicago Tribune, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Women’s Wear Daily and many international publications, including special projects for the Italian Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

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DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my Facebook friends.

Without your kind words and encouragement

this book would not have been possible.

READERS WRITE

Comments from Facebook and Blog readers.

Loved going on your journey with you! Every post is such a delightful read.— S.S.

I may never visit Italy in person, but I travel through your writing. Thank you.—K.F.

Love reading your amazing stories. Just beautiful!—L.A.

Thank you Phyllis. This brought back so many beautiful memories.—J.M.

Reading your blog and listening to Pavarotti. Can’t get any better than that!—C.S.

I love reading everything you write.—D.L.

Phyllis, I thank you for giving us so much insight about Italian life.— J.C.

Wow, Phyllis! Your sense of adventure and discovery makes me want to run off to Italy! Thanks.—J.F.

I could not believe your story when I read it because Carla and Aldo are clones of my husband and myself. Bravo to them for their fight to survive and to continue to live a meaningful life, and to you for writing their story so that I know my husband and I are not alone. Sometimes God leads us to places that surprise us, leading me to read your beautiful story of Carla and Aldo was one of those times! — R.C.

Phyllis, you bring la bell’ Italia, che mi manca tantissima, a little bit closer. Grazie mille.—C.F.

You make it sound so lovely. I want to be there too.—C.L.

Phyllis, you inspire me...you live in the moment...taking in all that surrounds you.—A.M.

A fantastic read, love your stories immensely! Thank you so very much.—D.D.

Beautiful! Thank you for sharing. I love the way you lived your life! Fascinating!—M.F.

Phyllis, you are a very courageous lady. I love your life, your stories, your experiences. I admire your pioneer spirit.— M.P.

GENOVA AND LIGURIA

or, Good Grief, I’m Really

Here, Now What?

I always knew I was going to go back and claim my place in my father’s homeland. I just didn’t know when, and I didn’t know where.

The Adventure Began Like This

In 1990 I sold my furniture, packed my bags, said goodbye to Philadelphia and all my Philly friends and moved to Italy. I always knew I was going to live there, what I didn’t know was when and I didn’t know where. I only knew I was getting ready.

The pieces began to come together during a trip to Italy in the fall of 1988. As I stood near the harbor in the small town of Lerici, and looked out over the sapphire blue water of the Mediterranean, I knew I had found the place my heart had been searching for all these years. Liguria.

As soon as I got back to Philadelphia I began pouring over maps and reading everything I could find about the place. Liguria is best known as home of the Italian Riviera. There are hundreds of quaint little villages all along the coast and in the hills. But I would need to work and it didn’t look like there would be a lot of work in a quaint little village with a population of 800. Not unless I intended to buy a boat and set out to sea.

The only viable option was the port city of Genoa, which seemed to have everything I wanted. It was a real city on the sea, close to Tuscany and the south of France, plus it was home to a thriving international shipping industry. I was convinced they could use a smart, English speaking person with a lot of business experience like me, even if they didn’t know it yet. It didn’t matter that I had never been there. I was in love with Italy, in love with the idea of living there, in love with the idea of reclaiming my Italian heritage and that was all that mattered.

I gave myself a year to put my affairs in order and set my moving date: May 12,1990. I had to keep pinching myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I thought a lot about my Grandmother that last year. In many ways it was the years I spent with her on Lodi Street, in that solid Italian enclave on the north side of Syracuse, New York that prepared me for the life I live today. Sometimes the tangy scent of provolone cheese hanging from the ceiling of my neighborhood grocery store, or the old men in the piazza arguing about politics takes me back to those days on Lodi Street. The sounds and smells are the same. There was a reason the neighborhood was called Little Italy, for that is exactly what it was.

Moving house and home is a lot of work and sorting through your worldly goods is not an easy thing to do. It’s a little like being a Roman Emperor. A thumbs up on this, a thumbs down on that. The next day I would change my mind and put the thumbs down things in the thumbs up pile and vice versa. My books were coming with me, all of them, that was a given. Dishes? Thumbs down. Linens? Some. Italian beds and American beds are not the same size, so no bedding except of course my down comforter. A down comforter on the Riviera? I would have to think about that.

And then, before I knew it – the year had passed.

I arrived in Genoa the morning of May 13,1990. It was warm and sunny, one of those perfect days, the kind you wish you could press between the pages of a book and keep forever. My hotel was in the center of town, chosen for its proximity to the historic center more than anything else. Part of the plotting and scheming during my year of preparation was deciding which part of Genoa I wanted to live in. As I had never seen an historic center in an Italian city that I didn’t love, Genoa’s historic center seemed a logical choice. Again, the fact that I had never been there didn’t seem important.

I had read that Genoa’s historic center is a maze of winding alleys known as caruggi in local dialect, and that the caruggi are lined with tall narrow buildings with shops and restaurants on the ground floor. It has also been called a Kasbah, a melting pot, and an old-fashioned rough and tumble port city. To me it sounded exotic, wonderfully romantic and I couldn’t wait to get there.

Following the hotel clerk’s instructions I walked toward Piazza De Ferrari, took a right at the first little street and hurried down the stone paved incline into the heart of the old city. It was deserted. In the distance church bells were ringing out the hour. It was 1 o’clock – lunchtime. All the stores were closed, their entrances protected by grimy metal pull-down shutters that resembled garage doors, all securely locked and double locked with enormous padlocks.

It was as quiet as a tomb. I walked along the cramped alleys that were shrouded in shadows; the midday sun blocked by the tall buildings, watching my every step. Then I looked up and locked eyes with the North African drug dealers and prostitutes who were leaning against dirty, graffiti covered walls. There was no one else around, just the drug dealers, the prostitutes and me, and all I could think of was I had just made the biggest mistake of my life.

But I hadn’t made a mistake at all. I scratched find apt. in historic center from my To Do list and found a small, apartment close to the sea in an area called Genoa Nervi. Little by little my new Italian life took on a rhythm of it’s own. I learned to drink coffee standing up, to grocery-shop in grams and liters and measure in meters. I learned to live with my quirky neighbors and not to take their indifference personally.

Oh, are you here again this summer? said the woman next door, a woman I had said hello to every single day, summer and winter, since I had moved in. Her behavior was in direct contrast to that of other Genovese I met who took me under their wing. They introduced me to their doctors and dentists, electricians and plumbers, important contacts in a society where it is best not to trust anyone you don’t know. They taught me to live in the moment. The future, they said, would arrive all too soon. And so it has.

As I think back on those early days I realize just what an innocent I was. I also realize how fortunate I have been; I have met wonderful people who have held my hand and guided me over the rough spots. I have had the privilege to see Italy through their eyes and I am beginning to understand how their long and often embattled history affects who they are today. And while I freely admit Italian logic still eludes me at times, I now find myself agreeing with them more often than not.

There was a time when I told myself I was only going to stay in Italy until I got tired of it, and then I would return to the United States. But 25 years have passed and there are still no boxes filled with my worldly goods piling up by the door waiting to be shipped back to the States. Nor do I think there ever will be.

The essays in This Italian Life – People and Places are about the joy, spirit and resilience of the people I have met and the places this wonderful journey has taken me. As you read them you will discover Italy the way I did, person-by-person, place-by-place. And as you get to know the Italy I know, I think you’ll understand why I am more in love with this Italian life now than ever before. But let me back up and start with some of the adventures of my early days in Genoa.

* * *

Sometimes a small act of kindness can mean so much, especially to a foolish woman living on her own in a foreign country.

The Kindness of Strangers

In the early days of my Italian life, I taught English at a small private language school in the center of Genoa. They paid me under the table as I was sort of illegal, that is I was in Italy legally on a tourist visa but I didn’t have a work visa.

Sometimes when I would come into school the owner would give me a sign, raise her eyebrows or roll her eyes, and I would understand the Guardia di Finanza, the enforcers of the Italian Internal Revenue Service, were in the office inspecting the school’s books. Her look was a warning for me not to say anything. As long as the police didn’t hear my accent, they would never suspect I was working without legal documents.

The Guardians of the Finances knew the language schools hired illegal aliens, especially English mother-tongue illegals, but stereotypes being what they are, they were on the lookout for blonde, California types and wispy English Roses, not someone who looks like me. Since I really am Italian, and I look Italian, I could stand there and smile and no one was the wiser – as long as I kept my mouth shut.

Illegal mother-tongue English speakers were a hot commodity in the world of language schools, a two for one. We actually spoke English, and we didn’t complain if the schools kept us off the books. Given a choice, the schools preferred to not pay all those niggling, nasty taxes the government liked to collect like Social Security and employer contributions to the health care system.

And even though I knew I was not being paid what Italian teachers or foreigners who were here legally were paid, I was happy to have a job. I had been in Italy for six months with no income and a lot of expenses, and my bank balance was in the almost red zone also known as dangerously low.

I was living in a small apartment in Nervi, a small seaside borgo about a half an hour out of Genoa. With no car, my means of transport to and from the center of the