ONE LAST GIANNI ADVENTURE - 30 August 2011
30th August, 2011
We arrived at Pineta Residence yesterday, this sweet little compound of apartments in a pine grove by the sea. Gianni joined us for lunch before driving the hour and twenty minutes back to Buonconvento. His parting words to us : Remember, it is only today.
In the hours since then he has flitted in and out of our consciousness and there is a gentle missing of him buffered by the immense reservoir of shared experience with him, experiences that are photocopied onto our cells.
Sunday, our last day at Giunchta, we ate our last, soft-boiled eggs from Libera's hens and then, having returned Gianni's stuff, packed and cleaned the house, we went to visit Lisena. Lisena was our cook for the workshop and also made our wedding feast. Over our stove in the Cape house we have a photograph of her cooking and we call this icon "Santa Lisena Della Cucina". St. Lisena of the the Kitchen. We found her, her husband Mario, one of their sons, Alfredo along with his 3 year old son, Steffano in the garden where they were harvesting a huge crop of unripened tomatoes scorched from the heat wave. In their place neat rows of autumn and winter vegetables were being dug in.
What joy it is to see Lisena and to be able to converse with her now. Those early years, when she and an assistant cooked lunches and dinners for all our students, assistants and us, we would go into the kitchen and totally tongue-tied would try to communicate our appreciation. Lisena gives me 2 pots of her fig jam and a peach rose and we promise to return soon.
Maggie's photo
What we assume will be our last adventure this time around is a drive down to a celadon pond that Joel has had his eye on ever since we arrived. It's only a couple or 3 hundred yards up the road but we take the car because it's uphill at first and we're knackered.
Halfway there Gianni appears in the opposite direction, in his pick-up truck. When we tell him what we're up to he tells us to pile in with him. And so we go, off road, jolting over the rutted fields and hills, down to the edge of the pond where Joel disappears amongst the brush, re-appearing once in a while like a giant praying mantis whose proboscis just happens to be a Leica
Maggie's photo
Then the 3 of us stand in the field together, the air and the land bristling with centuries of wild energy and before I know it, Gianni has hoisted me onto his shoulders and I am once again a young girl.
Then, just as we are about to get back in the truck and head home, Gianni stops, his satyr's ears pinned back flat against his head. At first we don't hear it, then gradually, the faint tinkling of sheep bells reaches our New York ears. The flock is returning for the evening.
And now the most supreme adventure begins. Gianni guides his pick-up like a camel over the dun-like hills until we finally see the shepherd, his flock, and the 4 white sheep dogs. Gianni whistles. The dogs freeze. The shepherd turns and waves and slowly, slowly we creep toward them as if on safari. When we reach them we get out of the truck and let the dogs sniff us. Once accepted we walk over to the shepherd and guess what? His eyes are as blue as I had imagined.
Maggie's photo
And there we stand: the flock, curious now, turns and comes toward us. It's biblical, no it's further back than that. It feels Persian. And I feel a connection with it that certainly has nothing to do with being English. Ever since we first came to Tuscany, the first year we were together, 21 years ago, I had wanted this: to stand on this ancient hillside with the shepherd and his flock. I am both overwhelmed and yet at the same time it feels so natural as to be un-phenomenal.
Maggie's photo
We say goodbye, until the next time, and the 3 of us bump our way back to the road in silence.
In the evening, joined once again by Luana, we four will dine at a friend of Gianni's, in his 500 year old crumbly house on the outskirts of Montalcino. We will dine on pasta with tomatoes and basil, chunks of bread dipped in oil and smeared with anchovies, cheese and a peperoncino spread, figs and grapes. We will laugh until the tears roll.
We will look at the bird nesting peacefully at the top of a column on the staircase and I will disappear into an adjoining room to sit at the old piano, its poignant, spacious tune guiding my fingers over the keys.