The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

When life careens from interesting to infuriating to inspiring

View from the Hotel Giotto terrace in Assisi. All photos mine.

Cari amici,

Sometimes life goes about its business in a freewheeling sort of way. On the good days, we can catch a ride; on the bad, we’re left flattened in the dust. The through line either way, as always in Italy (and maybe everywhere), is waiting—in this case, for progress of various kinds to be made and, literally, for paint to dry.

Let’s start with interesting, since that’s what came first

One day not long ago, I was gardening in the church courtyard when N. and R.,  a couple of friends who’d been doing borgo green-space cleanup, came by. N. is very well connected, so I asked him if he knew anyone at the Questura who might help a friend of mine and me with our permesso di soggiorno problems (meaning we don’t have one—mine is overdue by 15 months; she hasn’t had one for two years). Lo and behold, he does know someone with clout in that area, and thus began a process (still in progress) to “unblock” our permessi.

While we were chatting, L., who owns half of the first floor of the ex-convent (where I live), came by with drinks for his workers, who are doing major cleanup work to prepare the long-empty apartment for sale. Next thing we knew, N., R., and I were drinking beer with them, which led to a discussion of the work being done, which led, naturally, to a giretto to see the place and its potential.

I’d been in there with L. once before, but it was late on a winter day, and since the place has no electricity I couldn’t see much. This time, on a spring day in late morning, I could. The space is enormous, about 400 square meters (4300 square feet), with a generous sprinkling of windows. It’s divided in half by a very long, very wide, high-ceilinged corridor that I immediately envisioned as a library outfitted with walls of bookcases, comfy couches and armchairs, and scattered side tables offering reading lamps and/or vases of fresh flowers. What the heck, let’s throw in some bowls of chocolates to nibble on.

A huge window at one end of the corridor (formerly the access point for dozens of pigeons who had their own ideas about decorating) opens to an eastern exposure, letting in morning sun but not summer’s afternoon heat. From there, one room after another branches off, some leading to yet other rooms (think: the typical monastery/convent warren of sleeping and gathering spaces). One room has an enormous fireplace and a groin-vaulted ceiling with vestiges of fresco peeking through peeling white paint. I was dying to get up on a ladder with a bucket and sponge to see if the frescoes are anything like the glorious ones in the fully restored apartment below. I’ll bet they are.

The apartment is as empty as it gets, except for doors and windows—no heating system, no electricity, no sinks or other fixtures. It’s an amazing space, and there’s a decent-size garden to boot, but it’ll be challenging to sell given its size and the amount of renovation needed. N. thinks it’ll take €4-5 million, which means the most likely purchaser would be a high-end hotel. This does not please me. Anyone with very deep pockets want to come and be my neighbor?

On to the infuriating

Complicating the whole permesso situation is that since my citizenship recognition is on seemingly eternal hold (and perhaps actual eternal hold, due to a new-ish misogynistic interpretation of the law that affects those of us claiming lineage through a female ancestor in the courts of Rome, but more on that as things unfold toward the end of the year), I want to get a long-stay permesso, which I’m eligible for now after five years as a taxpayer.

To get a long-stay permesso I need to show (among many other things like tax returns and a police report and proof of residence and decent housing and on and on) proof of language proficiency, and I’ve never bothered to take a test. (Language proficiency isn’t a requirement for citizenship by blood, which I fully expected to get, and my Italian learning process never included testing.) Taking the test and getting a certificate will take months, and the 60-day window after my permesso expires, in which I could apply for the long-stay permit, ends on July 3. I can’t apply until I receive the permesso I’ve been waiting for, which will at this point arrive already expired. With luck, I can get the long-stay permit when I renew next year—if I get a permesso in time. And since I usually apply in November for a May expiration date, and it’s now almost July and I’ve been without a valid permit since May 2023, that seems unlikely.

By now your head is probably spinning and you have no idea what I’m talking about, but don’t worry, it’s not you. You’re perfectly normal; it’s an insane system. I’ve been very cranky about this permesso/citizenship debacle lately, though what’s made me the crankiest isn’t the system, it’s me. (Okay, it’s both.) I used to be a super-organized person, the kind who could put her hands on any document at a moment’s notice, and for several years now my “filing system” has been, essentially, a rat’s nest. I blame this on Covid—during those long lockdowns and periods of limited mobility, I became a disorganized mess.

I’m rectifying the problem with a big wall unit and lots of organizers, and it’s great—I can (almost) breathe again! Or so I thought until I started to pull together my tax documents for the above-mentioned permesso and discovered that some are missing. No worries, I thought; they’re still in some stack of unsorted papers. Except now I’ve gone through everything and the needed documents are STILL MISSING. Wtf? There’s no way I threw them out, but there’s nowhere else to look.

I hate this. I hate me. There is a workaround for what I need, using corresponding bank documents, but this is Really Not Good. Where in hell’s half acre would I have put these important papers? From this day forward I am embracing anew my former obsessive filing methods.

Last (and best), the inspiring

I’ve wanted to try painting for years, so when I saw that a watercolor workshop was going to be held in Assisi, I decided to go. Assisi is only half an hour from Perugia, and the weather was supposed to be beautiful for the promised lunch and aperitivo on the terrace. It was, and the lunch was delicious. I can safely say I’ve never raved about zucchine the way I did after the lunch catered by Hotel Giotto.

The workshop was a co-event for Janet Pulcho, a Ukrainian watercolor artist based in Florence, and an Italian paint company, A. Gallo. Along with our painting lesson, we got to mix colors using the A. Gallo method, which was super fun.

We made all these colors!

At lunch I sat with Alina Gallo and her husband/business partner, Giuliano, and got the full story of the company’s birth and development. Alina, a manuscript miniatures painter, began making her own paints 10 years ago, and the practice led her to start commercial production. “Commercial” isn’t the best word, though, because these paints are made with an eye to earth and climate conservation, using locally sourced honey and rosemary oil in a gum arabic base. If you’re curious, you can read about the company here. The website is a treasure trove of information on pigment history and the Gallo process, and I can vouch for the luscious colors.

Janet leading the way in our workshop.

Janet says her most frequently requested commission is paintings of lemons, and that’s what we painted in the workshop. Janet is a sweetheart and very patient, even with complete newbies like me. She took us through her process from sketching to mixing, layering, and other painting techniques, all very interesting, though my biggest takeaway is that watercolor is difficult! I almost didn’t stay for the post-workshop aperitivo; I was that worn out. Janet is obviously a good teacher because everyone produced work that bore a recognizable resemblance to her sample painting.

The paintings and their incognito artists.

This workshop was a good gateway experience for me. I’d like to learn more about watercolor, but I’m still very curious about oil painting and suspect that will be my next artistic venture. I’m sure my oil-painting nonno would be pleased at that.

I’m going to go have a glass of wine now. I just found out that the air conditioning installation I mentioned in this post, for which I needed (and received) special dispensation from the Soprintendenza Archeologie, Belle Arti, e Paesaggio dell’Umbria, also needs a permit from the comune. After that, the Soprintendenza needs 15 days’ notice of the scheduled work date. In the meantime, the heat has arrived. Patience, I tell myself. It goes slowly, but it goes. Pian piano.

With all this in mind, at the appropriate hour in your part of the world, I suggest you pour yourself a glass of whatever soothes you and sit, for even a few minutes, with something beautiful. It doesn’t matter what you drink (wine or water, tea or tisane) or where you find beauty (on a page or a screen, in nature or your house), only that you shave off the rough edges of your day.

Tante belle cose. Alla prossima—

Cheryl

Book of the week:

• Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death by Laura Cumming

  I mentioned this book in my last letter, but now I’ve read it and I can say if you like art/history/memoir mashups, this one’s for you. Now I know waaaay more than I did about Dutch art, and I wish I’d read this book before I saw Carel Fabritius’ Goldfinch when it was on loan somewhere (where? memory fails me), though this book is more about another Fabritius painting called A View of Delft.

Poem of the week:

• “Why I Am Not a Painter” by Frank O’Hara

  ---

P.S. My book! Which you can buy here or on the usual sites, or, better yet, order it from your local bookstore. Another fab option is to ask your library to stock it. If you read it and like it, please tell your friends and/or leave a few lines of praise on any bookish site. You’d be surprised how much a rating or review helps authors. Baci!