12.4.10

from biella to alagna.

we woke up on the side of a little hill town, next to the cemetery, the view of the alps bright and costume-backdrop in the distance. i wandered alone into the fogged morning with my camera and found myself in the cimitero with an old lady who introduced herself as 'renata' and showed me all her family members' graves, talked about how pretty my hair was and how old she was and how well i spoke italian. she left me in front of the grave of her mother, covered in bright perfumed daffodils she'd picked that morning from her garden.
elia and i ended up finally in biella, where we watched the world with a backdrop of white black ominous mountains, ate free ice cream, were served dinner of local deer, the best wine in the region, in the house of my dreams. a hot shower a warm bed. we drank one of the world's best beers 'menabrau!' in the oldest and smallest beer distillery in italy and had a panino from heaven. we swang high into the sky and laughed and screamed and giggled our cares away and marvelled at the now-beautiful clouded grey grey sky atop a hill in a village where all the buildings were older than 500 years, sometimes 700. we found a secret closed path, climbed a wall and still couldnt get into the well-guarded castle courtyard. that night we drove to novara with good beer in our stomachs and stopped renata by a river in the woods. we got high and abandoned our apples, pears and pecorino for eachother's embrace. i got lost inthe music and my own thoughts.
the next morning we went with matteo to his little farm where we tasted honey (with pollen!) from his bees and watched them working. i got sweaty in the cool grey spring air from tilling the earth, fighting combatting la terra with hand tools for hours, bruising my muscles and surprising myself at my own strength.
we made a fire in the stove and ate like fucking kings, and had hot chocolate from orgasms and uvette. we drank the water dripping from a broken kiwi branch and tasted the nourishment mother nature gives a tree. we breathed in wet heavy hanging silence echoing in an empty dreary wood. we tested our limits in a sauna heated by our fire and sweated out all that was left was peace and sleepiness. we tried every kind of meat and cheese novara's fiera had to offer (tartufa = truffle) and spoiled ourselves with fresh licorice root, nutmeg, gorgonzola and beer.
i took a walk and counted tree rings and sang at the top of my lungs in a forest where no one could hear or see or touch me and where i got scared of those wet hanging grey darkening woods and i forgot all the songs i had learned and let the trees and my body and my heart tell me the notes till they echoed and mixed with distant church bells ringing. i found feathers fluttered in a quick violent shuffle, a defeat, blue and brown and irridescence. i wandered away and wanted never to return but i was afraid. i found the forest of my dreams with grey blanket encircling rows of white birch trees cocking their heads to the sides to listen to the wind on the dripping air.
we were guests of honor at my first italian matrimonio and i spent a day mostly in silence again, watching the tree shapes drip in distant foggy fields who stayed the same luminescent shade of gray all the day through.
i meditated for the first time since chesney's and discovered that it is really interesting and i must do it more often.
right now i am at the base of monta rossa, between france and switzerland, with a liter of milk fresh from the local cow sitting in the snow behind renata while elia paints a collaborational gift for ettore who took grand italian care of us in biella. my stomach is growling as we've both kept to our fast today of only 3/4 of an apple each - a must after yesterdays' wedding gorge-session. we are making friends everywhere we go, learning about life and love and we have a camper full of food. i think we're good to go so momma don't you worry.