Normalacy
In the new normality that is Italy, there is — for nearly everyone — absolutely no question of not wearing a mask.
Yesterday, in Tuscany, my mask, which slips slightly down the bridge of my nose, was criticized politely but firmly four times: twice in the Museo Nazionale in Chiusi, once on the train and once on the bus coming up the hill to that Tuscan city.
On one occasion I was shown how to wear it to make it tighter : the custodian gave me a safety pin so I could gently shorten the elastic strap. (At the entrance, she also, per museum protocol, spent a few seconds measuring my temperature via instant contactless thermometer.) On another occasion, in the afternoon, my hawk-eyed bus driver stopped his vehicle in the middle of a quiet avenue while he turned around and closely supervised me as I hoisted my mask up fully.
“Grazie, cosi’ va molto meglio“, he said, manoeuvring his bus back onto the road. “Thank you, that is much better.”
And coming up from Rome, the train conductor sat two meters from me (our carriage was only half full, and he was in between stops) and we talked about the COVID policy of Italy. He told me that there had not been a day anytime during the last months when he had not worked, and how satisfied he was with Italy’s approach to virus containment. He supported fully the ongoing national health policy and was quite sure that it would keep things at bay in his region until a vaccine was available. We agreed that Prime Minister Conte was heroic. And when he left me, he made a little Japanese bow and sped up the corridor because another stop was coming up.
I chose yesterday’s destination not only because it is a town that so many of you love, visiting on the day trips I plan for you from a southern Tuscan villa or hotel base, but because it has one of Europe’s great Etruscan collections.
Mid-August is a particularly good time to look at Etruscan art. The hot days and still air are an ideal foil to the vibrantly animated, entirely original, timeless artisanship that the Etruscans have left us.
Chiusi’s Museo Nazionale is a cornucopia of information on the life of the Etruscans, documented broadly in their funerary ornamentation and objects — household items, vases, grave markers, statues, urns, weapons, reliefs made of sulphurous stone, sarcophaguses.
Etruscans dance, and talk and embrace; play their musical instruments and mourn their dead, feast and fight, smile and are still.
To step from the museum into a special lunch trattoria, Il Grillo E’ Buoncantore, run with passion and impeccable care by Tiziana Tacchi, was an enormous treat, as is her locally sourced, seasonal menu that made me emozionata.
Tiziana refuses credit for her wonderful food, deflecting credit back to nature herself that brings forth such wondrous ingredients, the farmers she sources ingredients from, the food artisans who transform nature’s bounty into table-ready wonder, her staff, and, most movingly, her parents.
The balance of this blog is, by popular request from clients : please Italian images of normality. Of Italians in Chiusi living their lives, and in so doing, reminding us, in this hellish pell-mell, of what is important.
Here’s to having you here soon too.
