Back again

I’m in Tel Aviv, walking the same streets I did five years ago. The northern part of the city, near the marina. I recognize the park, the steps down to the beach. It’s late, but then again that’s the only way I know this city. Some thirty six hours ago I left Atlanta. There was a stop back home in Virginia to switch luggage on my way from DCA to Dulles. A few hours in Istanbul’s airport (before the terror attack). Now I’m here, and it’s well after midnight. But with cousins and a Goldstar beer to welcome me, all the travel recedes into a painless blur. Another round, a few more stories to tell before bed.

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Water and memory at 80th Street

What was once seemed completely permanent has long since been swept away. Pushed out to white-capped depths by summers that felt so busy but whose importance I can’t quite recall. Through all of that life it took too long, but now we are back.

Not all of us, though. Parents left first and then grandparents; not the way things were supposed to go. Through all the fun runs a somber thread. Our time together will can’t help but be a sort of memorial service, informally at least. This one, though, is more formal. There are ashes to scatter and hugs to give and things we don’t quite know how to say. I think we do admirably and anyway there is no one here to notice but the waves and sun who must remember us when this was only a joyous place.

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White roads and red wine

Take a side road out of Montalcino and immediately the pavement ends. We are on the strade bianche, the white dirt roads of Tuscany. The slopes are steep, steeper than any grade in the States. Vineyard walls threaten to make use of the comprehensive policy I added to our car’s rental contract.

The freshly-tilled farm fields of Tuscany are an umber-hued wide-wale corduroy, velvety and rich. Vineyard leaves are just starting to turn. Asphalt roads, dusty tracks, back and forth and back again. Thirty centuries of agriculture and architecture drifts along in the dusty haze our station wagon tosses up.

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Pilgrimage

So we have arrived in the courtyard of Basilica di San Clemente in Rome. We have traveled so far, and our trip is drawing to a close. It is appropriate, though, that the trip ends here. We are in a pilgrimage city and this is a pilgrimage church, similar in design, scale, and feel to the old Saint Peter’s (long since lost to the Counter-Reformation). This space is one for calm reflection after an arduous but fulfilling journey.

“Nobis post hoc exsilium,” says the medieval Salve Regina, “All will be resolved after this exile.” It was sung in the monasteries at the end of compline, the last hymn of the day. It is sung by the architecture of this place, by the doves that tumble through shadow and sun, by the aqueduct-fed fountain.

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Myth and legend on the slopes of Etna

 

Despite my assurances, everyone thinks we will be late. We are in Sicily, so we cannot be late. In Italy late is a relative term; in Sicily it does not exist in any meaningful sense. But it does give me an excuse to coax whatever power I can from the balky drivetrain of our Fiat 500L and ply the Etnean roads between lunch and our next vineyard visit with more alacrity than my traveling companions would generally tolerate.

So only five minutes after our appointed arrival time we are at Ciro Biondi’s winery. To me, this place is the stuff of legend. Flip to the New Year/New Wine chapter of Robert Camuto’s Palmento and read about Ciro and his tweedy jacket and fantastic wine. Or go there, if you are as lucky as I was.

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The shadow of the evening

With our eyes pointed west over vines of sangiovese and colorino, we have seen the sun trace lower and lower in the sky. This we notice but have not troubled ourselves too much to process. Too good is the wine and food and company. But some sense of obligation or exploration prevails, and onward we shall go. It is late afternoon by the time we head to Volterra. Our estate wagon dutifully climbs 1,700 feet of switchbacks, my traveling companions rest in various states of conscious around me.  We reach the city. Here the air is cool and the wind is cold, but the sun still lends warmth.

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Making it home

Let me know when you’ve made it home. That constant request – before driving to Charlottesville from college, on the many trips between Charlottesville and my own place in the DC suburbs, boarding a return flight in some far-flung land. Let me know when you’ve made it home.

Now here I am, eleven years in Arlington and Alexandria and nearly four in the row house. I’ve made it back from the far-flung lands, back to my own place in the DC suburbs, with a nascent business in Charlottesville. And in all those journeys, I’ve made it home. Two hundred twenty six years of brick and cypress and tin. Home for me and then for a wife and then for puppy.

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