A Sort of Homecoming
After an eventful day in Florence meeting Giotto and paying tribute to Italian Renaissance, we had planned a lower key but really exciting day for Saturday, June 24. But, as has been the overarching story of this vacation, nothing has really gone to plan. The general plan was to meet with my cousin Emanuela Conforti (my great grandfather and her great grandfather were brothers - who shared 11 other siblings!) in the town where my great grandfather and great grandmother had immigrated from to the USA, then head to Pisa to see the Piazza dei Miracoli where the Leaning Tower is located, and then head back to the house to relax and maybe spend the evening walking around Lucca.
After a day of rest and missing Florence, Alyssa wanted to try to go with us to meet Emanuela and her husband Edoardo (different Edoardo) in Ripafratta - home of the Conforti family. From our rental house, Ripafratta was about a 15-minute drive (not counting for the time waiting for trains to cross the tracks - which is absurdly long) so if Alyssa ended up not feeling well, we could get her back to the house with no issues. We met Emanuela at 11am figuring it would be a quick visit in Ripafratta (the town is literally 3 blocks long), possibly go to lunch, and then drive the next 20 minutes to Pisa to blend in with the crowds of people taking staged photos as if they are holding up the tower with a stretched arm (or hailing Hitler... but I'm guessing not).
The weather in Tuscany has been quite warm - reaching daytime temps of 32-35 Celsius (90 to 95 Fahrenheit) and humid. The sunlight is intense when you cannot find shade, and in Italy, like most of Europe, you walk a lot. We were to meet Emanuela in front of the church, but there is space to park 3 cars in front of the church, so I was not sure how this would pan out.
Ripafratta is a tiny village. The streets are quite narrow and just to the left of the church the road really is only wide enough for a single car. So, parking along the street is not possible. The town itself has a tiny bar (with the normal bar faire - panini, pastries, coca cola, water, and yes, drinks you can order from the bar), a small store to get only the basic groceries, a hair salon, a florist, and I think that is about it. The buildings and homes that line the only road through town (the SS12) are old and push right up to the street - no real sidewalks to speak of.
We pulled up to the church and watched with chagrin as a yellow Fiat Panda pulled into the only vacant parking spot in front of San Bartolomeo... and with a Mercedes riding the bumper of our trusty Renault Arkana, I pulled in behind the yellow Panda to figure out my next move. To my surprise, the people in the Panda started to wave at me excitedly. This is Italy, it is a requirement for you to wave at people excitedly at least 13 times in a day. So needless to say, I did not think much of it until they kept waving and waving and then I noticed they were also smiling! Smiling when waving is not required in Italy. In fact, it is frowned upon. (you see what I did there?).
Smiling, waving, now shouting happily - aha! It was Emanuela and Edoardo! I had only seen glimpses of Emanuela on Facebook where we originally connected and had never once seen a picture of Edoardo. In fact, I was not sure he would be joining us since he is in the Navy and is at times unable to travel. Waving excitedly gave way to pointing excitedly which I took to mean that I was supposed to follow them since we were clogging up the SS12 in the heart of Ripafratta. Pointing excitedly is also a required act in Italy on the order of 9 times per day, but there was a pretty obvious meaning behind this particular pointing along with the waving and smiling and still a little bit of excited yelling. Bella Italia!
A quarter of a mile down the road, there is a shoulder wide enough to park 3 cars, and we were in luck as 2 spots were available. We uncorked ourselves from our trusty Renault Arkana and properly greeting Emanuela and Edoardo with the two kisses on the cheek (left then right, always two, never three unless you came from France) and a lot of half hugs and the slight pull back "Let me get a look at you! Ehhhh!!! Paisan!!! and then we were good. Look, dogs and cats sniff butts, bros bro-hug, Uncles fist bump their nephews, and Italians give two smooches, a half hug and the glance over "Ehhhhhh....look at you!!!". This is the universe we live in. You only get the cheek pinch if you are a bambino.
We followed Emanuela down towards the church and paused about halfway at the oldest looking building along the street - no walls colored Tuscan yellow or a peachy pink - just the original rock facade, a heavy wooden door, iron bars over an open window, and a large sign on the door reading "VENDISI" which mean it was for sale. Looking at this old building as if only a mother could, Emanuela stopped, pointed, and said "this is the original Conforti house! This is where your great grandfather was born! 13 children born here. Over 20 people lived in it at one time!"
Imagine the feeling of being completely blindsided by the realization that you are standing at the doorstep where your great grandfather Augusto Conforti was born. Where your great-great grandparents Edigio Conforti and Argentina Pratesi decided to raise their 13 children. Now combine that overwhelming feeling, that sense of a sort of homecoming with the fact that this was one of the most deteriorated buildings in the village of Ripafratta. If these walls could talk: so much family history, and a lot of moaning in pain too. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't as if I was disappointed that the house was in a rough state. Not at all. It was more symbolic. The Conforti family had long since moved on. About half of the children stayed locally (two actually died very young) and about half moved to the United States (Siskiyou County, Klamath Falls, New York, and Worcester, Mass - chowdah).
Emanuela informed us that the current owner was going to meet us later in the day so we could see the inside. For now, we were to walk about 1km to the cemetery so I could meet more family. Emanuela is the current reigning champion family historian. She has done years of research using Ancestry, Facebook, whatever. Because of her, I met my cousin Rena Rapetti a year ago down in Los Angeles. Who knew? A psychology professor at UCLA was my cousin! Rena's grandmother Italia was my great grandfather's sister. Anyhow, once I arrived at the cemetery, I confirmed what I halfway expected. In some form, I was related to probably 25% of the people buried here - or at a minimum, some of the non-relatives were godparents or something. Besides Conforti, family names include Pratesi, Berchielli, Pardi, Tomei and the king of them all... Noferi. As far as Emanuela could tell, Noferi was a very original name from Ripafratta. The rest likely moved from Lucca or Pisa or maybe further afar.
Cultural greeting clarification - when you meet deceased relatives at the cemetery, you don't give two kisses, a half-hug and a glancing "ehhhhh!" look-over. That would be odd. And difficult. Nope, you talk about who they were, get a short family history, learn what they did as their job or how many kids they raised, and then you pause and bless yourself and them. If you have a candle, you light one for their soul. (I would have needed a forest fire for the number of family I was going to meet) After a very brief moment of silent memorial (even if you don't remember them because you never met them) you go back to the normal (loud) banter and move on to the next person - and then repeat the spiritual grief and cleansing. Mix that in with discovering a ton of other people with last names that match your family tree and you pause and wonder and bless and silencio and then move on. Multiple this by 37. That was our time at the cemetery in Ripafratta. A sort of homecoming. Between this and the same experience in Cavaso Del Tomba in 2003 and 2004 with the Rizzardo and Sartor families, I have a much better sense for who I am. And for what my great grandparents or grandparents did to give me the life I have.
Okay, so we met the cousin. We met the house. We met the deceased relatives and blessed them. What next? Did I mention we stopped and got a coffee at the one bar in town? Okay so we stimulated the local economy. At this point we had about a mile and a half walk back to the car. Along the way, we stopped to look at the Fiume Serchio (Serchio River) and the adjoining canal that run next to Ripafratta. Apparently Ripafratta means broken river. It was here that the Medici built in a check dam to divert water into a deeper canal so they could use the canal to transport goods. 90% of you just said "what the heck is a check dam?". Simple - just a small dam across a river channel to divert some of the water into another channel, canal, etc. If you did not know what this looks like, imagine a submerged wall/dam that slows up the water and then there is a small waterfall where the river continues down its natural channel. Most people look at this and go "cool..swimming hole!" but those of us "in the know" realize that along one of the banks, water is being diverted into a canal. And so it was. You're impressed.
At this point, the heat and walking was getting to Alyssa so she asked to return to the house in Lucca (15 minutes away). Jule and Maria were to go with Emanuela and Edo to their house closer to Pisa, send me the address, and after I dropped off Alyssa, I would join them. Alyssa probably should have stayed at the house, but she really wanted to meet her cousin and at least see where some of her family came from. I don't blame her.
I found my way to Emanuela's house - well technically her mother's house. She and Edo live in Napoli or maybe La Spezia - it was hard to say. He is stationed in Napoli from what I understand but it seems he is also up in La Spezia. The two coastal cities are no where near each other. Like the distance between San Francisco and Santa Barbara maybe (or to the geographically challenged - far). The house is within the city limits of Pisa but out in the rural neighborhoods. A visit here was probably the first of many unplanned events that would transpire over the next 7 hours or so. But it meant that Jule, Maria, and I were able to meet Emanuela's mother....Eletta who is the same generation Conforti as my mother. Eletta is now 87 and from the moment I saw her and heard her voice, I was taken back to the extremely few memories I have of older relatives that I was around when I was maybe 3 or 4 - the old Italian woman, slightly hunched, wearing a sweater even on a hot summer day, sitting around the kitchen table, watching a soap opera (she loves The Young and the Restless). From the moment I walked in and was introduced by Emanuela as "the original cousin" (I don't think the grasp on English was good). David, the OG cousin. Anyway, from the moment I walked in and was introduced in regal trumpet blasts, Eletta stood up, got wide eyed, smiled larger than her face would allow and grabbed me - yes we went through the greeting - kiss, half hug, "eeeehhhhh"... but this time the hug came back and stayed. She was beside herself. Here was a cousin from American. Her grandfather's brother's lineage come back to Tuscany to meet her. As I mentioned, I was briefly transported to a time buried in my past when I was too young to really know who I was meeting. I just know it was in Italian, the old woman was wearing a sweater, and I got kissed and squeezed while all sorts of excitement were expressed. Back then I just wanted to get on with it, steal a piece of torrone (nougat... I'm not a novice) and go play with my siblings and cousins. Today, I was enjoying every second of this.
A lot of things were said (loudly) in Italian, and if Jule or I picked up on 20% of it, we were doing well. But if we picked up on 20%, it affirmed to Eletta that we knew Italian, so more words were said. Emanuela and Edo were not doing a good job of translating, but that's okay. Jule and I and Maria understood the essence. We only visited for a few moments (well, for me - Jule and Maria had already been there for a good 20 minutes and in that time apparently got a tour of the garden, picked an apricot and ate it, met the dogs, belly rubbed the dogs, had a drink... standard for Italians in that amount of time). Emanuela had more plans for us that we were not aware of... so it was time to scootch. And the moment it become clear we were leaving, Eletta began to cry. At first, I thought she was super sad we were leaving - and I think that was part of it - but Emanuela told me she was mostly crying because she was so happy to have met us and so happy, we had made time to visit - even if we had no clue this was part of the plan. Eletta is 87. I don't know when I will make it back to Tuscany, to Ripafratta, to her. I'm mad at myself that I didn't take more time to become conversational in Italian. In 2004 we were so lucky to meet my Nonna Maria's brother Angelo (my dad's uncle) - he was around the same age as Eletta is now. It was a sort of homecoming then, it was again today.
We left the Conforti house in Pisa and followed Emanuela and Edo back towards Ripafratta to meet the current homeowner of the Conforti house - but along the way we stopped to have a full Tuscan lunch at Villa Poschi - another unexpected part of our day, but certainly a great addition. Amazing food, many courses, full bellies and a lot of fun visit time with Emanuela and Edo.
From there, I thought for sure we were going to Pisa. Emanuela had said something about arranging a tour of the Piazza dei Mercoli at 4pm, and it was ...345pm. But... nope. We were off to Ripafratta to see the house. I really think Emanuela wants us to purchase it. She kept mentioning that it was for sale. Who knows, maybe the inside is nicer....?
Uhhh... no.
We arrived back in Ripafratta, about 7 minutes from lunch, and were welcomed inside the old house by the current owner. I mostly expected it would be a shell of a building, but given Emanuela had said that there was a newer owner (new as in the past 4 years), I thought maybe they had done some work on the inside... Eh. no. It was a shell of a building. However, it was my family's home. It was where they lived... 20 of them at once. I had that surreal feeling that I was at an old historic site - an old military fort, an old Western Frontier settlement like Sutters Fort in Sacramento - and there should be signed posted where the kitchen was, where the old fireplace oven/stove was, where the bedroom was (one bedroom), etc. Where you'd learn about how life was in the 1860s Tuscany. Except this was not a preserved historic site with signs... it was the ghost of where my family had lived. My guide was Emanuela. She explained how the kitchen was arranged, where the cooking occurred, where the meals would have been served, and after we scaled the very thin and fragile looking staircase, where the family slept or gathered. Living history. My history.
Dining area into kitchen
Front room and stairs
Again it was mentioned that the house was for sale - and here was the owner. I don't think Jule, Maria, or I could even fake an interested smile. It was great to be there. It was great to learn. It would be a nightmare to buy this place and try to fix it up. Edo thought it was offered for 110 Euro. If that is the case, we all figured it would take another 300+ Euro to fix it up. And even then, no place to park, no yard. No thanks. I guess I am more attached to the people that make up my family and their history. Not the home that once was.
A sort of homecoming it was - but not because of the house. Because of the people. Because of Emanuela and her mother Eletta. Because the joy and excitement and tears from us simply being there.
The rest of the day was spent visiting Pisa and seeing the landmarks and being surprised to find ourselves in the middle of a battle between neighborhoods that dates back centuries. But I will cover that in my next update.
It is 10pm. We are in Bologna about to go to sleep for a 5am wake up and trek to the nearby airport to catch our flight home. There is a major thunderstorm expressing its anger outside. We're ready to come home. A real homecoming.
U2 - A Sort Of Homecoming (Wide Awake In America Version) - YouTube
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