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August 10-11, 2001
This morning we took a drive to the top
of La Cisa to check out damage caused by an unusually
rainy spring. The rain caused landslides -- in
some cases washing dirt and rocks down onto the road,
in other cases washing away big stretches of the road
itself. Workers have been busy laying asphalt,
rebuilding guardrails, and fencing in loose rock that's
liable to slip down onto unsuspecting motorists.
The landslides damaged a few homes, too, but nothing
like what happened to Montelungo in 1606, according
to La Lunigiana: Geologia e Preistorica, (Carlo
Caselli, 1926). That year a landslide buried the
entire village.
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The rebuilt Montelungo is just a few kilometers up the
road from Case Rotelli -- the last village before the
mountain pass. When my son was an infant I used
to put him in a sling and take walks up there just before
dawn. It's also the place where we traditionally
go for the 3-1/2 hour Tonelli family eat-a-thon, at a
little hotel/restaurant in the heart of town. Somehow,
Montelungo seems "swankier" than the other villages; less
rustic. I'm not sure why that is, but Renato says
it's so: Montelungo was always the place to be seen on
a Saturday night. |
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August 10: Feast of San Lorenzo, Cargalla's patron
saint. Last year they cancelled
the procession because it rained, but today it was
clear and sunny and I was all jazzed up and ready with
the camera. Not quite so jazzed up that I attended
mass -- instead I sat outside with the boys. The
church was mobbed anyway, and more and more folks arrived,
asking me if they missed the procession.
I assured them that they had not and that I, too, was
waiting. Enthusiasm is contagious; together we became
more and more jazzed up, expectant that San Lorenzo
would at any moment come bursting through the doors
aloft the shoulders of six or eight men. Instead,
Don Auerlio came out, making excuses. Disappointment
is also contagious.
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Don Aurelio explained that
there were not enough men to carry the statue to the field. |
| I think Don Auerelio
is just slacking off. Or maybe just winding down.
Renato says that last month the priest asked him to take
a photograph for his "death card." Here, when you
die, they put your photo on little prayer cards and also
on your gravestone. Renato has been photographing
people in surrounding villages for over a decade now,
and he says he's noticed that many of his portraits end
up on people's graves. |
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Still stung by the bitter disappointment of the cancelled
procession, I was cheered on Saturday morning when I arrived
at Pian della Fagiola for the Succisa village
picnic and discovered these slow-roasting porchette.
Several men from the village were up there at 4 am, stoking
the fire and rigging their invention: a bicycle chain
and gear powered by a generator which spared them the
trouble of turning the pigs for the eight or nine hours
it takes to cook them. These pigs -- plus whatever
each group contributes -- will feed the sixty some-odd
in attendance. |
| I'm not sure what Pian della Fagiola means or who named
it that or why, but to get there you drive through Succisa
as far as the paved road will take you, and then straight
up a steep, dirt road (you need a Jeep or 4-wheel drive
vehicle -- we borrowed Santina's) to an elevation of about
1100 meters. There's a clearing in the woods there,
next to a wide-open field. Years ago one of the villagers,
a man named Vittorio Micheli, built a stone refuge and
picnic grounds and founded these annual gatherings.
He died last fall and so at today's picnic there was a
commemorative mass, conducted in front of a small stone
altar that was also part of his grand vision for a community
recreational area. |
| The Succisa priest, Don Bruno, suffered a heart attack
the night before and was flown by helicopter to the hospital
in Massa so we had a stand-in, Don Lorenzo. I was
momentarily upset by the fact that I'd escaped mass yesterday
only to have to suffer through one today, but it turned
out to be alright -- even better than alright, because
Don Lorenzo's sermon mirrored my very own thoughts.
He talked about the earth providing everything we need
so long as we tend it carefully. He told us to listen
carefully to the quiet around us (he didn't say anything
about ignoring the noise of the generator that powered
the pig-turning device, though) and we'd hear the truth
being spoken by the trees, by the air, by all of nature.
He talked about our capacity for love and friendship being
God's greatest gift. Maybe I'm getting it wrong
-- he was preaching in Italian, after all -- but I think
I got the gist of it and I thought it was lovely. |
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After mass we got ready to eat. A group of men
started a smaller fire in another pit and grilled a bunch
of trout. Santina brought this local speciality,
pictured at right: ripieni, or stuffed zucchini
flowers. She had extra stuffing (consisting of swiss
chard, ricotta, parmigiano, eggs and breadcrumbs) so she
stuffed some onions and cagnie morelle mushrooms.
Cagnie morelle translates literally as "dark little
bitches." |
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Above: preparing for lunch at Pian della
Fagiola.
Below: Renato gathers wild raspberries, which cover
the top of the mountain.
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We set four or five long, stone tables and distributed
cut-up chunks of bread, sliced tomatoes and onions,
flasks of wine, etc. Then we all sat down and
passed all the food around, leaving room for the porchette.
Everybody ran over to watch the unveiling of the pigs
and to help carry the platters of sliced pork to the
tables. It was delicious: crispy outside, salty
and tender inside -- geez, I love pork and could rhapsodize
for pages, but there's other stuff to write about.
After lunch the group divided up into
four categories: those who wanted to sleep (eldest),
those who wanted to drink (middle-aged), those who
wanted to climb trees (youngest) and those who wanted
to pick raspberries (mixed bag). We fell into
the last category. While we were foraging,
two men from the picnic appeared to collect some wood
they had chopped and haul it back down to the village.
They were clearly from group number two. As
they loaded the wood, they sang an Italian song I
am familiar with, "Azzurro."
It begins: "cerco l'estate tutto l'anno, e all'improvviso
eccola qua" which means "I search for summer all year,
and all of a sudden --here it is."
Eccola qua.
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