A New Day Has Come?

A famous Italian philosopher from the 17th century, Giambattista Basile , once wrote that history is like the wheal - what goes around comes around, cyclically, and if only human kind were cleaver enough to acknowledge this we would live in a perfect society. Nevertheless, his words imply that people are not smart and that we are bound, collectively, never to learn from our mistakes. Many a time my nation and my hometown, Napoli, have gone through some radical governmental changes which have brought about new waves of expectation and enthusiasm - with some, short-lived results. Today is a new dawn for Napoli. In "the city that does not sleep because it's too busy stealing", where the official government is only second to that of the mafia a new major has just been elected by 65,7% of Neapolitans - a young, determined ex judge who has infused this almost dead, semi-comatose, city a newly found sense of hope.

Has a new day come? I pray it has - and if it really has, I pray even harder we will have learnt at least something from our mistakes of old and make change a long lasting occurrence.

Only one hundred steps away...

I recently re-watched a beautiful movie called "I Cento Passi" (One Hundred Steps). It reached international acclaim a few years back together with more popular movies about organized crime, a denunciation of Mafia and its effects on the lives of many people who coexist with it. "I cento passi" (one hundred steps) was the distance between the Impastatos' house and the house of Tano Badalamenti, an important Mafia boss, in the small Sicilian town of Cinisi. The movie is the story of Peppino Impastato, a young left-wing activist that in the late seventies (when almost nobody dared to speak about Mafia, and several politicians maintained that Mafia did not even exist) repeatedly denounced Badalamenti crimes and the whole Mafia system using a small local radio station, with the arm of irony. In 1978 Peppino (30 years old) was killed by an explosion. The police archived the case as an accident or a suicide, but his friends never accepted this thesis. Note: This is a true story. More than wenty years after Peppino's death, the case has been re-opened. Tano Badalamenti, meanwhile, has been convicted in USA for drug traffic. I thought again about it this morning, whilst stuck in a traffic-jam caused by an abandoned vehicle on the side of a narrow city road. The car hadn't properly been abandoned by its owners. The car had previously been stolen and, under the owner's refusal to pay money to get it back, the robbers burnt it and left it on the side of the road, a so called unpaid "cavallo di ritorno" (return horse). You see I often wonder what you think about this. As a southern Italian, even if from a rather privileged background, I am aware and accustomed to all these idiosyncrasies. Weird. Weired that one can live so close to injustice, those physical hundred steps that suddenly become conceptual, ideological, moral and back and be accustomed to it.


"I Cento Passi" - Modena City Ramblers

PMT: Italian Style!

When I say, "PMT" women throughout the world will immediately know what I am talking about. For the men...mmm...well, think of your girlfriends, your wives, your sisters, your mothers, even, at that time of the month when they say "oh, I feel so bloated", "does my bum look big in this" and generally are uneasy to be around. Alternatively, think of Bridget Jones in full depressed mood scraping mould off the last piece of cheese off her fridge! I am not a particularly PMT prone person. I used to HATE it when my best friend's girlfriend used to emotionally blackmail him by blaming her every selfish outburst onto her, alleged, PMT!! What? A PMT that is 360 day long?!?!?! Anyway. The inspiration for this post comes from a minor cultural difference I noticed today for the first time since I moved back to Italy. When I was studying in the UK I looooved to lounge around in my pj's for as long as I could, especially around does days..I mean I salute the Brits who can do depressed, feel sorry for one self so well (obviously this is a huge generalization). But, blame it on the weather, blame it on a major drinking culture, my observation of the English has brought me to form an opinion on the above explained matter: people drink a lot, it's colder and feeling miserable seems to be more of an option, I guess. When I was in England, it was a piece of cake to walk into any supermarkets, fill up my basket with junk, comfort food and wine, wearing track suit bottoms, trainers and pinned up hair, no make up, looking as scruffy as one can look and go back home and have some "quality time" with one's couch, watching cheesy "chick flicks" and crying like there's no tomorrow! No wonder I put on weight! Anyway. This afternoon I walked not into one, but two supermarkets and I came out both times empty handed...well, should I say with a celery stick and a bag of chestnuts! I felt guilty and looked upon as some sort of alien every time I even set eyes on a piece of choc! You see, Italian women just don't do self pity! As a response to life lemons', they ask for tequila and salt! They put their designer shoes on, go to the local spa, get their hair done at the salon and hit the shops before going out with some handsome, perfectly groomed Italian stallion! That's PMT Italian style! Right, I am off for tonight! Byeeeeeeeeeeeee

Cultural Full Immersion

They often ask me if I ever missed home, felt homesick during the time I was abroad. Strangely enough, I doubt I ever did. Inevitably, there were times when I missed my origins, 'what it's good about the land of my nativity', our unique way of 'doing things', 'living life'; times of slight frustration over occasional lack of cross-cultural-communication abilities. Other than that, maybe due to both my flexibility and the British tolerance to coexisting realities, I have always comfortably felt like a cosmopolitan, a citizen of the world. My return to Italy it's a big surprise for everyone - me included. Nonetheless, it is a rather comfortable surprise, fluid, 'flat as a pancake'. Currently, it feels like when an exchange student goes abroad and experiences the culture and folklore of a different country. That's a very similar experience to my 'Italian Full Immersion', with the added value that this time it is not a holiday, it is lasting and it is mine. I like that. The always filled with busyness life of the Wee Italian Chick, has not chased to be so. As a result, the past few weeks have been oozing with Italian-ness.. Based on a 2003 novel by Antonio Pennacchi, Il Fasciocomunista, "Mio Fratello E' Figlio Unico" (literally "My Brother is an Only Child"), it's a fresh and refreshing product of contemporary Italian cinematography I had the pleasure of watching on Monday night. Directed by Daniele Luchetti, starring the now super-acclaimed, by both public and critics, Riccardo Scamarcio (the hottie off generational movies such as "Tre Metri Sopra il Cielo" and"Ho Voglia di Te"), tells the story of two brothers growing up in the immediate post WW2 and, in doing so, with incredible irony,acumen,lightheartedness, narrates the story of a changing country from a political, cultural and social point of view. Another movie I recently watched about a changing Italy it's leftwing genious director, Nanni Moretti, latest work: Il Caimano.Il Caimano is an open accusation of Berlusconi's politics, corruption and popularity.Nevertheless, in Moretti's words, 'Il Caimano ' is not only a political film. He stated that the film deals mainly with the cultural vices of Italian people, and also the story about the dissolution of a common family. Is this the sign of change?

Stereotypes (part I)

On one of my last flights from England to Northern Ireland, I came across an article in the Easyjet magazine about the stereotypical differences amongst European men and women. After all, it is a 35 minute flight and at 6 am I am rarely in the mood for profoundly intellectual thinking - so trashy magazines normally do the trick. The writer presented a blatantly over-simplistic description of moody-ever-super-slim Parisian women, never-failing-punctual German men and overly stylish Italian ladies wearing big sunglasses even after sunset. When it came to Italian men, they were described as impeccably stylish, perfectly groomed and possessing the irresistible charm of a thousand Casanovas. I inevitably giggled. I am often amused when people abroad have these mental images, stereotypes, fantasies, dare I say, about foreign citizens. In E.M. Forster's novel, "A Room With A View", the gentle ladies of England are warned against the brute, passionate nature of the Italian males. I just love that book. It is like the much cheekier, more raw, even kinkier version of Jane Austen! What causes me hilarity is that, from personal experience, I am not entirely sure on whether the Italian male is raw passionate, incurably romantic or merely arrogant and sleazy. Even though I have always known it to be in my nature to be an observer of people around me, how they behave and interact with each other, I have noticed this inclination has increased ever since I made a return to the Homeland. In Notting Hill, Anna Scott recites the lines "Rita Hayworth used to say: ' They go to bed with Gilda and wake up with me'." To which William replies: "Who is Gilda?" and Anna Scott says: "Her most famous part. Men went to bed with the dream; they didn't like it when they would wake up with the reality." I wonder if often it is the same with stereotypes. Many people dream, fantasize about others in the hope they will be better than what they have, often forgetting that it is what we are intrinsically that makes us unique, not or national identity...right?

***To Be Continued***

Stereotypes (part II)

***Continued from Part I***

In part one, we have explored how stereotypes may often be the result of over simplistic analysis and unrealistic fantasies, which are unlikely to be met in real life. In this new chapter, I would like to assess the nature of the Italian men and how they can be categorized. Specifically, we will analyse the Neapolitan men as they are my prime source of observation. Like Neapolitan ice-cream, they come in three flavours: Lo Scugnizzo, il Macho Latino and il Figlio di Papa'. The fist category is what we will call, for ease sake, the "Scugnizzo"literally rendered into English as "Street urchin"; traditionally this term acquires a completely different meaning, however, we shall utilize the word "scugnizzo" to describe a category of Neapolitan men characterized by the following qualities: scugnizzi are incurable 'grown up kids' who generally tend to despise higher education, people in authority and all that law and knowledge encompass. They make a cult of their outward appearance: all of their clothing items are carefully selected in the respect of the latest trends and their hairstyles modelled upon the newest fashion - paying no attention to whether a certain style will suit them or not, neither to if the cost of the item may cause them to go in debt or even steal. Their image is identifiable amongst many: gel hard hair, structured like an engineering master piece (ideally sleek flat side parting and spikes at the back); piercings (generally one diamond on the left year); over-powering after shave fragrance, big labels tops, trousers, shoes, coats. They drive brand new scooters (most likely stolen) and listen to neo-melodic Neapolitan music or techo/house - loud. Tendencies to chauvinism, violence, rudeness, sleaziness and illegality. Expressive and extroverted emotional outbreaks to be expected. However, it is to be highlighted that the "scugnizzi" can be tender lovers, respectful sons and responsible parents, able to live by "honour"...whatever it takes.
The second category is every foreign woman's dream, il Macho Latino, the super hot, perfect body, sexy talking bold, daring and reckless ultimate manly man. Il Macho Latino, like his scugnizzo cousin, places a great deal of attention to his outer persona. Every item of clothing is indeed chosen with maximum attention to detail, tailored like a fitted glove to accentuate and valorize every secret of manly charm. Labels and brands mean very little compared to how something is supposed to make him look. The Macho Latino's, like their Barbie sisters, do not give much importance to their "inner beauty" - they may read about philosophy, history and poetry but that's because, of course, history has proven that it always works to pull. Jewelry is worn like a winning prize, with pride and arrogance, the more the better. The gym becomes a real sanctuary of beauty and beauty parlor's their weekly confessions. The Macho Latinos are witty, handsome, proud, self-confidence yet often lonely, shallow and dissatisfied. Commitment is,for obvious reason, not an ability on the Macho's list. Does it need to be?
Last but definitively not least is the "Figli di Papa'" category, the "Daddy's boys". Life has been fine and dandy for them: they come from a good, often excellent household. They have attended the best schools, lived in the best homes, eaten the most delicate foods, travelled the globe, speak several languages, wear fine clothes, go to university. Their summer attire consists of white linen trousers, striped white and blue shirt, blue pullover over their shoulders, designer trainers, big sunglasses, golden tan, golden Rolex, soft long-ish hair gently blown away by the sweet sea breeze as they sit onto their boat. Characteristics? They have everything, but rarely comprehend the value of what they have. They can be sleezy strong of daddy's money ~ not knowing that money doesn't always buy everything.

When Stories and History Meet

"Aurevoire, Big Luciano!"

By now everyone in the global community has been bombarded with images of the, undiscussedly, greatest Tenor of all times, "Il Maestro" as he was known, "Big Luciano", the Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, sadly departed yesterday morning in his villa in Modena, Italy. From the BBC, to La Repubblica, Le Monde and other news agencies from all over the globe have grandeously celebrated and reverently mourned what El País describes as "A divine voice that has been silenced" . I get the impression most people expect us to mourn. After all we are Italians, right?: we are bound to be emotional, extrovert and overly expressive. I have sometimes tried to detach myself from the stereotype, but as I heard the news yesterday and re-watched some footage of Pavarotti's career several times, I became sad. Pavarotti represented, with his voice and international involvement, a positive image of what is beautiful, precious, rare, unique about our Land. He was an icon, a pillar. Like "the Olympic Torch", carrying the flame of sportive spirit across the world; like the Eiffel Tower in Paris reminding the French about their heritage, the "Big Ben" in London, Clocks in Switzerland, Clogs in Holland, Guinness in Ireland, "Big Luciano" was an institution for my country, and we all loved him like as if he was a member of each one of our families. We grew up watching him singing at every significant event of our lives - every new year's day, at midnight, the opening of the Olympic games, the "Pavarotti & Friends" charitable events. Music was his life and his music accompanies every Italian like the soundtrack of our lives, passionately stroking the most sensitive cords of our spirits, pride and love. Now that he has gone, exactly two days after Gigi Sabani, an iconic representative of Italian comedy and television for over thirty years, it's like as if a brick had been taken out of an old castle. Even though its base stands strong of ancient values formed and reinforced throughout history, it's most intrinsic beauty has been robbed of a precious element and we sure will miss you, Big Luciano!

"Shaddap You Face!"

I felt we can all always do with a little 'cheering up', a short moment of happiness and positive, worry-less thinking. So here it is a little gift of """"Italian""""" joy! This song makes me smile every time I hear it - likewise I pray that it manages to bring a wee smile onto your faces as well. And to anyone who doubts us, mocks us, for any thought that hunts us and makes us sad, lets implore that emotion to "Shaddap You Face"! (Hey!)

C'era Una Volta..."Once Upon a Time" Does Not Mean "Happily Ever After", Right?

One week into my newly re-found Southern Italian life, I am already starting to notice the differences. Despite the sun, the good food, the relaxed attitude to life, the excitement of things to be and all that, I am beginning to being confronted with a new thing in a familiar place. The reality of being an adult and no longer the teen-ager who left home five years ago, it's truly starting to sink in. Last night I watched a repeat of my favourite television program from when I was in junior high, a political satire programme entitled, The Pippo Chennedy Show. When I was thirteen, it was iconic. We all watched it, the nation was in hysterics for its clever ridicule of the late 1990's society we were living in...with its faults and prides, idiosyncrasies and contradictions, common places and taboos. I used to laugh my little head off with my friends, or by my self. Last night I waited for the show with great anticipation: I sat there, sang along the opening tune (I was ever so surprised I could still remember the lyrics, one of those events that makes you giggle), listened to a few jokes (most of which were still, scarily, appropriate to the current government and political scene..) then got bored half way through. I was initially adman to resist all the way through the show, out of respect for what it once represented for my generation, then became sad at the thought of things that have passed, gone, belong to a time that is now past. Tonight I went to visit my younger sister at the youth camp she is attending this week. Loads of her friends were there (some of them are the younger siblings of my friends); many familiar places, many familiar faces..I even met this guy I used to have a major and I mean MAJOR crush on age 12!!! He had become fatter, shorter than I remembered him to be. As he came towards me I smiled (he must have thought I was nuts, but probably didn't have the faintest idea that what I was laughing about is the thought I ever even liked him!!!).
What I have realised is that you can't put new wine in an old bottle, clean clothes on sweaty arm-pits. You have gotta move on, and stay truthful to who you are.

Spot the Difference...

A taste of my "old life" - The view from my bedroom on Tuesday 17th July 2007 at 12.29 pm.

Saturday, 21st July 2007 12.29 pm...what was in front of my eyes just yesterday...38°c..sunshine...the beach...crystal clear waters...ahhh!

... can you spot the difference?

Public Service Announcement

I am currently out of office and unexpectedly surrounded by a myriad of cardboard boxes.Please leave a message after the tone - will be back as soon as I manage to surface again!!! - 4 days to the big day.

Hurray! Even I Finally Did It!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen! Having tried pretty much everything in life, I am proud to announce you that today I have had my first ever taste of MUSHY PEAS! I used to think I'd reached an all times low with "fish 'n' chips, shocked myself enough with Scottish Haggis, proven my point by eating Croccodille meat, experienced a true 'taste-sensation' with beans on toast, but no, oh no: there behold -lunch time on a gloomy and rainy day I was sitting in a traditional chippy in Manchester city centre with a pot of tea and plate full of fish 'n' chips and mushy peas with buttered white bread...(I am really praying Matt will never find out about today's lunch..doh!)

***I am now officially ready to leave the country.***

Miracles Do Happen

Recognise this handsome young man in the picture on the left? He is a little 'plumper' now but indeed, this is Diego Armando Maradona, El Pibe de Oro, "the golden boy" as he is was known in my childhood years, is the man who made Napoli football club, the Neapolitan people and a whole generation feel unforgettable and unrepeatable emotions on a football pitch. Simply sensational. Regardless of other undisputed talents I have come across in my life time (Ronaldo, for Brazil, Christiano Ronaldo in Manchester, David Beckham, etc..), no other player had the same charisma, velocity, tactic, exhibitionism to single-handedly (La Mano de Dios, comes to mind, ahahaha!) **Caution please: Sheer comedian talent at work here** destroy a whole opponent team!!! Pure class. Anyway, those where the good days for our local team, when we won all the time: the scudetto,twice, UEFA Cup, Super Coppa Italiana...good days, good days indeed. Then the decline: between 1990 and now it's been a succession of disastrous events (we went as low as serie C for a couple of years) but Sunday, oh Sunday, was a wonderful day - after 11 years (can't believe it's been that long) NAPOLI is back in SERIE A!!!! Happy days, happy days! Here are a few pictures of the celebrations in Naples - heck do those Neapolitans know how to party!!!

Spiraling into Costant Universal Flux

Remember good old uncle Heraclitus? Despite the terrifying nastiness of my classical Greek tutor in school, the woman who made three years of my life an utter misery, I have always manifested a respectful fascination for the ancient Greeks and their philosophical efforts. I don't remember a great deal about Heraclitus really, but his Πανθά ρέϊ (Pantha Rei, apologies to the Greek scholars here present, but I don't have a spell check for Greek characters..) everything changes, everything flows, the universal flux (as some have interpreted it), is a concept that has stayed with me and has acquired increasing significance over the years. At a youth camp few weeks before I left for England and Bible college, a newly met friend gave me a passage of Scripture from Isaiah which loosely translated is "You will set forth with joy and return in peace". At the time, that verse gave me a lot of encouragement because somehow I felt like as if God himself was commissioning my departure and sealing a pact of constant vigil and protection over my experience and development. I look at the past five years and I can so very definitively see that. I left home aged 19, with a great deal of passion, zeal, enthusiasm and, yes, overpowering excitement and blissful happiness. However, I was very much like a caterpillar.. I felt ugly, unworthy of love, crooked,inexperienced, unfinished, arrogant in her ignorance, strong of her smallness, overwhelmed by possibility, scared by opportunity, incredulous of dreams. That ever changing, moving, passing of time forces that caterpillar to shake, shiver, evolve..I wonder if caterpillars actually ever wonder if all that pain is worth it in the end..how many times even when people around us encourage us by giving us a picture of what all the hardship will be "worth in the end", it is still hard! Five years later is still 'me', just an adult version of me. Despite the trials and difficulties, the joys and the sorrows, the good, the bad and the damn right ugly, it is still I, still the ugly caterpillar, now enabled to spread my wings to fly. Many times have I complained over the past five years why had I been endowed with the gift to fathom the possibility of flight, a big blue sky to fly, but no ability to actually fly; how many times have I actually felt that my wings had been cruelly plucked out by some unkind giant..what I had not yet realised is that I was still a caterpillar and my wings had not yet developed enough to fly! "Every thing changes, everything flows", and now grown, reinforced, changed and hopefully matured, I venture back to the parental nest as a daughter, as an adult, as a woman.

Moving back to Italy six weeks from tomorrow, can you believe it?

Ho Voglia di Te - The Update You Have All Been Waiting For

A brief phone call, the sound of what used to be a familiar voice and it's like as if time had never passed. Ten years, whatever stage in life you may be at, it's a long time. When we were last together, his little sister was only three. She is now a teen-ager. When we last were together, we used to think the Spice Girls were the next big thing. At the age of thirteen, everything seems like a major struggle, a drama. You think that your greatest achievement will be to get out of high school, yet you dream big: senselessly and fearlessly. You think that you know what real love is. I think you do; I think that when you are thirteen you know a lot more about emotions than most people would give you credit for - it's just that that wonderful little butterfly is bottled up in a glass jar by hormonal tempests, inexperience, youthfulness. Ah, to be free like a thirteen year old again, but with the experience of a 24 year old! I think this is just what happened to me yesterday. A brief phone call, the sound of an all too familiar voice made me feel emotions I did not think I could feel ever again. We talked for quite a while and I felt happier than I have been in quite sometime. In my previous relationship, I was always trying too hard to impress this un-impressible man, thus forgetting myself, the real me, the things I love, the person I want to be; I was on the phone to this wonderful person from my past and I suddenly felt like a re-invigorated, spring butterfly who is no longer afraid to show her true colours, her true self. It was a wonderful symphony. It was easy and beautiful to be me. I even wrote a small poem about the revitalizing emotions of the past few days. I felt like poetry, beauty, sunshine, laughter, wonder. At the sole thought of this wonderful young man. To the point: I only managed to get through to him the day before I left - he was all and beyond I thought he would have become, well on his way to making his childhood dreams come true. Unfortunately, we couldn't meet, but we parted with a lot of joy and the prospect of seeing each other again next time I am home in a few weeks time..."Ho voglia di Te", is the title of an iconic teen-age novel and homonymous Italian movie by Federico Moccia. It literally means "I feel like you", "I have a desire of you" sort of. Self explanatory?!

Tiziano Ferro, "Ti Scattero' una Foto"(Nessuno e' Solo) from the movie "Ho Voglia di Te"

Gimme A Break!

*(From the left: Esther, Shell and the Wee Italian Chick having a picnic in the park on a warm spring Sunday afternoon)

Dear Fellow Bloggers,
Public service announcement: there may be a slight lack of posting over the next seven days since, as from today, I am on annual leave! Yuppy! Happy holiday to me! I shall try to blog again from sunny Italy - that is if, of course, I am not too busy sun-bathing and eating nice food! Blog you soon. Lots of love, Ivonne xx

Is This England, or Not?

~Cultural Learnings of an Italian in Salford~

It is rather strange when people count as history the time and events of your life time. July 1983 is the opening title of last night's movie, "This is England".. paradoxically, this is also the month and year I was born in. If you liked movies in the likes of Trainspotting and Kes, you are most definitively going to enjoy this little gem of British cinematography. Set in a bleak East Midlands town in 1983, it focuses on the life of twelve-year-old Shaun to then kaleidoscopically expand to the Thatcher's government, deprivation, greasy spoons, dislocation, nationalism, skinheads, substances abuse, extremism, racism, violence, the Falklands, England in a compelling showcase of raw realistic acting talent. A side to England not all of us may want to align ourselves with that, crudely, is not the mere shadow of a forgotten past, long removed from us. On the contrary, the parallels with today's England are striking. Unemployment, deprivation and dislocation; loss of identity and an often ignorant, violent and abusive search for national values; a shady government and a country fighting a senseless war which does not belong to us. From the eye of a mere observer, drown into an active personage of a history that is not my own. This is part of the England of my next door British-Bulldog tattooed neighbours who call me 'Miss Bolognese' and ask me to cook for them every time they see me, of the British-Pakistani convenience store round the corner from my house, of my half Maltese florist; this is the England of the paper-round kid who puts through my door a BNP leaflet stating what the party stands for and with an invitation for me and my household (an Italian and a Spaniard at the time) to join them, of the teen-agers I work with and I still struggle to understand at times, of the PMT Chinese lady at the local fish 'n' chips, of those who have curry for tea and leave it all behind for a place in the sun. So, is this England or not? I often discuss with a particular friend of mine what defines Britishness. Like Italian-ness is not defined by loud, football fanatic, poetry-reading, sunglasses-wearing, hairy tanned voracious pasta devourers, I doubt Britishness is described by white ass, tattooed, drunken hooligans, 'stif-upper-lip' fish 'n' chips with mushy peas two bed-roomed red-brick terrace house dwellers ... so, then, what defines Britishness, what makes us who we are?

Il Richiamo della Patria

~The Home Land Appeal~

Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, Il Quarto Stato

When I first moved to England, a whole five years ago, I had never lived in a foreign country before. Despite my academic knowledge of the English language, I had had little opportunities, if none at all, to actually speak English with the natives. Upon my arrival, I bumped into Merle, a delightful young Northern Irish lass, who warmly welcomed me and beckoned me as a dear friend. She talked and talked and talked. As we finished our conversation, I rushed down the phone to my mother complaining I could not possibly live in England due to my lack of understanding of the English language (little did I know about regional accents and dialects)..Shortly after that first encounter, not only I resolved in not leaving, but I also became really close to that girl to the point of gaining my memorable nickname "the Wee Italian Chick" together with a dodgy Irish twang! I have loved living in England (to much of most people's surprise). Despite the lack of regular sunshine, yummy food and exotic scenarios, I have embraced the dales, the streams, the daffodils in spring and the squirrels. The pizzeria has been substituted by the pub and I now don't swing across motorway lanes in as much as I used to. One does not often hear me say this, but I am suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of non-belonging, a spell of homesickness.
Last night I looked around the traditional English pub I was sat at (motive of curiosity and wonder upon my arrival, now transformed into a 'ghost house', the emblem of somewhere I don't belong to any longer, or where,perhaps, I never really belonged). Maybe it is all the Italian dinner parties I have been attending recently, the warm summer nights, my family situation, the self perceived failure at a number of levels in my life.. I don't know. Don't get me wrong: I breeze through an unusual sense of contentment and peacefulness at the moment; yet, I miss Home. I miss my family; I miss my 'historic' friends; I miss that part of me, my Italian-ness, which I have sought so hard to deny and leave behind for the past five years.. Am I going through a 'fifth-year-crisis"?!

What Was Going on Last Night?

7-1 Man Utd vs Roma ... history was made.

The Last Kiss

On Sunday morning I managed to go for a jog in a park nearby my parents' house. 'La Villa Floridiana' is a park that is very dear to me. It is a beautiful woodland of mythological beauty, full of neoclassical statues and overlooking the stunning Neapolitan gulf. When I was growing up we used to dream we lived in the refined Baroqueske villa (now housing a prestigious museum of ceramics), played football, lied on the warm grass on the spring days, gazed at the breathtaking panorama as muses, poets and artists inspired our young minds. It was always my gateway (often my 'runaway') place. It was often our gateway from school too! Whenever we used to bunk off school, 'fare filone' as we say, it is mostly the Floridiana we would be hiding in.. As I was running around on Sunday morning I was constantly distracted by a flood of memories. My first 'proper' boyfriend, Stefano, a real teen-age gentleman, who kissed my fingers better when I cut myself picking hollies for the Christmas play when we were 11. My first kiss; my first date. Holding hands walking around the park, sitting on the bench under the shadow of the big oak tree as he, looking into my eyes, pays me complements carry in my heart to this day..As I was trying to run, I was drown to think of a time when things were good, life was easy, the sun was shining most days. My childhood and early teens have been very happy and I never knew how to be thankful enough for it back then. I was talking to a friend yesterday, ironically walking around a park,and we jokingly reminisced about how sure we used to be of things when we were teenagers. Like stubbornly believing we were the ones who had the answers, who knew what love, I mean "real Love", is. Then we grow up, take responsibility, become less cocky and less confident. We laugh about teenage strops and moods, yet secretly wish we could go back in time, knew then what we know now and still have that waist line! I first watched "L'Ultimo Bacio", The Last Kiss, by Gabriele Muccino (The Persuit of Happyness) when I was 15. Somehow it became an instant iconic movie for my generation and its soundtrack was immediately adopted as the soundtrack of our lives. It is bizarre, however, how it was only years later that those concepts, images and words became truly relevant to our lives. In the movie Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) is a twenty-nine-year-old man who works in an advertisement business and has been living with his girlfriend Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) for three years. When she gets pregnant and he meets the stunning eighteen-year-old Francesca (Martina Stella), his relationship with Giulia moves into a crisis, since he is not ready to reach adulthood. Francesca has a crush on Carlo and dreams of him. His three best friends also have problems with their partners: Adriano (Giorgio Pasotti) has just had a son and has problems with taking the responsibilities of fatherhood, while his wife Livia (Sabrina Impacciatore) becomes very connected to the baby, neglecting their marriage; Alberto (Marco Cocci) has no ties with any woman, limiting to use them sexually; and Paolo (Claudio Santamaria) has a obsession for his former lover. Meanwhile, Giulia's mother, Anna, (Stefania Sandrelli) has a middle-age crisis, jeopardizing her marriage..living in the shadow of times long gone. Eventually their turmoils are quietened down by an unexpected sense of contentment. Growing up is part of life and accepting the passing of time can reserve for us wonderful surprises related to our new age besides arthritis, wobbly knees and wrinkles! So, here is to GROWING OLD!
L'ultimo Bacio, Carmen Consoli