Amore

I did think about calling this "That's Amore", but it was just too cheesy.

When we were on our first layover at San Francisco, I was heading to our gate, and I heard a flight announced for Paris, and I inhaled sharply and thought, "Paris!"

I do want to see Paris someday and I expect to love it, but I will probably never love it the way I love Italy.

It was a long and stressful trip to get there, and then not finding Mom's bag did not help. Still, there we were heading towards Vicenza, and the rain started to pour on the already flooded vineyards, but there were still those beautiful rolling hills, and I was heading towards people who love me. I was home, and I did that sharp inhalation for Italy too.

It's not that I don't love Oregon, and I am probably more strongly attached to Oregon, but I still spend most of my time here. Italy is the home that I can only visit sometimes.

It is beautiful. It may not hurt that in some ways it is very similar to Oregon. A lot of the plants are the same. (I sort of knew it anyway, but realized it even more once my allergies kicked in.) This is the second time I have been there in May, and both times there have just been poppies everywhere. One vineyard had a rosebush or a cluster of flowers at the end of every row. There were a lot of roses.

There were also a lot of flowerpots on the balconies of brightly painted stucco buildings that are over a hundred years old, and porticoes and old architectural styles going back hundreds of years. That part is not so much like Oregon.

Also, there is my beautiful, warm, funny Italian family. That is the most different part of all.

With my father's family, it's not like they wish me any harm, but my mother's family loved me so much and so immediately. Embracing someone is pretty literal when you do the kiss-kiss thing anyway, but it's sincere too. I have some great friends here, but there has never been anything like that.

I was thinking about it with my aunt. Sometimes there are really endearing things about a person, and you will think "This is the reason I love them." I love my aunt because she loves me, and she is generous, and because she's family and on that side of the family you just love each other. She also worries about everything and frets and she can at times get very peppery. That is not a reason that I love her, and I am not even sure that I love it about her, but then somehow when it is happening, and she is being completely unreasonable, I feel love for her, and I smile, because it nonetheless is something about her, and she is someone I love. And honestly, I love it when she yells at the television.

I was worried about the day we would have with my brother and sister in law, because sometimes they can be kind of difficult, and there were so many things up in the air, and I just wanted everyone to enjoy each other. Should I have warned them about the kiss-kiss?

It really ended up being fine. First of all, they had been in Italy for two weeks; they knew about the kiss-kiss. I mean, shopkeepers don't do it to you, but somehow they seemed conversant with it. Maybe the tour guide showed them the ropes.

It started out awkwardly. The plan was that they were going to take the train from Venice, then a cab to Zia Eldas's and should be there around 12:30. Carlo went to the station around noon to see if he could intercept them so they would not have to take the cab. He could not find them. Actually, they had gotten there earlier and hooked up with a local tour guide, but then they got to see the sights of Vicenza, which was good because cars were going to be an issue.

Their cars are small in general. My brother and his wife are both tall, and he is broad also. He could only go in a front seat, but Mom's legs don't bend and she needs to be in front too, and with a driver, well, we were never going to get five people in a single car, and it was a Tuesday, so the only driver who was not working that day was Carlo. So initially it was just us upstairs at Elda's looking at old photos, with her trying to get them to eat and drink, a lot. Also, their return train tickets were for 7:30, but people don't start getting home before 7. I just needed to have more faith, because Carlo was on it.

He asked if they would be okay with changing their train tickets, and found the available times. Then he shuttled Lance and I over to Giorgio and Isolina, returned for Mom and Lynn, and then went to the train station to change the tickets.

This started a different round of visiting, and it kept expanding. First there were the six of us, and then Carlo back with the tickets, and then eventually Piero and Betti joined us, with more and more phone calls going around, but also, this meant we had more cars.

We headed into Il Centro for everyone to gather. Piero, Lynn, and I walked around taking pictures, while the rest had drinks. By the time we got back, we had also gotten Valeria and Marielena. It wasn't everyone, but we had a good mix. We walked to a pizza restaurant, and had dinner, and then we walked them to the train station. They were flying out from Venice at 6 AM, and we were flying out from Verona at 10 AM, so this was goodbye.

The thing with "amore" is that we don't really use it. Tomorrow will be about language, but this is where it falls short for me. Technically, "Ti amo" is "I love you", but you don't say that to your cousin. I tried anyway, and Betti replied "Ti sentiamo"  which I think meant more that she understood what I was trying to say. Mom said you can say "Ti voglio bene", but that doesn't sound right either.

Actually, I can't see that they say it. They feel it and mean it and show it. When we hug goodbye, and there is the kiss-kiss, but then the hug doesn't end and we get choked up, because who knows how long it will be this time, we know what we mean. When I told Carlo that he's done too much for us, and he denies it, I think we know what we mean. I'm a word person. I want the right words for it. But it's still pretty good that we know.