Ghiro Tondo: Magical Moments on the Family Farm in Italy

Northern Italy, near Lake Como.  A scramble up a rocky trail and a path that winds up into the mountains will take you to Ghiro Tondo.

When I found Ghiro Tondo on HelpX and e-mailed Ruby, the farm-mama, she said I was nutty enough to enjoy life on the farm. 

Look at this place.  Green trees as far as the eye can see, and alps in the distance, fog humbling their grand presence.  A duck pond, which the girls enjoyed more than the ducklings.  A simple warm house decorated with mosaics on the outside and murals on the inside.

Scraps of paper litter the floor.  Joy, 5 years old now, asks incessantly for "Disegnas!"  The volunteers who were here the day I arrived (and left the next) told me about a book I could use to copy the designs, and Joy fingers the pages carefully before deciding which disegna she wants me to draw.  "Something easy," I tell her, but it never is.  I begin drawing and her face twists in disapproval.  Sometimes she scratches out my failed design; sometimes I do.

In time, and with lots of practice, I improve.  I outline and she colors.  We make puppets from the popsicle sticks left over from the girls' ghiaccioli.

the disegnas

Joy & Jess

I stay in a yurt, painted the happiest orange you could imagine.  One night, their friend Cristian stays.  I have music playing on the speakers, but I turn it off with the lights.  In Italian, he tells me I can leave it on.  I tell him the animals will be our music.  Crickets and cicadas chirp and the duck family rustles beneath us.  An occasional dog barks.  If you listen close, you can hear the stars breathing.

In the morning Cristian tells Ruby he was waiting for the animal music.  Ruby translates this to me, and I am doubled over in laughter.  "I meant music from the outside world!"  He thought I had a CD, and waited for it to come on, only to look over and find me sound asleep.

"Questa sera," tonight, I tell Cristian, laughing.

We drive to the other side of the mountains and walk to pick wild blueberries.  Amy and I take up the lead.  She kneels to try and catch every grasshopper.  We don't talk much, just hold hands we we walk, and switch when they get too warm.

Near the end of the walk, she sits on every stone large enough to hold her.  Her eyes meet mine and she sighs, tired.

lake como

Eventually we catch up to the group and pick berries in the hot sun.  A few more kilometers and we'd be in Switzerland.  Maurizio, another family friend, tells me Switzerland "Is like one beautiful garden," but I am glad to be in the wild with this family, for now.

I had planned to leave for Switzerland to enroll in a Vipassana course, but I didn't quite make it.  The bus never came, so I ended up back at the farm, and stayed for another two weeks.

Was it fate?  Or just the incorrect bus schedule I got from Ruby?  Maybe both.  ;)  Thank you, Ruby!

Life at the farm was simple and sufficient, which isn't to say it was easy.  Eggs came from their chickens, who wandered free; milk, butter, yogurt and cheese from the cow, Amma, and her baby, Theresa.  Sheep were moved every so often so they had new grass for grazing and enough shade.  Animals were tended to, as was the garden and land.

Food came from the garden, from neighbors and friends, from shops who couldn't sell the products.  Food came from Sam's fiery hands, deft in the kitchen, playful and sober.  Cooking is his art.

homemade pasta and pesto

Reggae blasted through the house as we played with girls, swept up paper scraps, and washed mountains of dishes.  Hot water came from a fire you had to stoke every few minutes, and the soap was no joy or dawn, but a soap the family made.  Washing dishes was often a greasy occasion, but nothing harmful went down the drain.  I learned a lot, too: ash paste (ash + water) and pasta water both help cut the grease.

When we weren't washing dishes or picking berries or splashing in the stream, we tried to watch Zeitgeist from the pink futon, but it never loaded entirely.

Mostly, though, I got to be with the girls.

me and vida

I sang spirituals, folk songs, and mantras as Vida fell asleep in my arms.  When she was really tired, she warbled, a song that vibrated from within.  Then her breath slowed and her body heavied in my arms.

In the beginning, my heartbeat quickened as her naked legs got closer and closer to the steps on the porch.  A true free-range baby, she crawled and tottered around naked and with a smile on her face, putting things (the dirtier the better) in her mouth, exploring her beautiful world.  Eventually my heart beat relaxed as I did, and as my connection with her deepened, so did my trust.

happy as can be, at the top of the steps.  ooh baby baby it's a wild world!

Joy & Amy

I miss these wild girls and this amazing family.  The girls peed wherever they pleased; scooped into the mud from the duck pond and "washed" the rocking horse with it; were free in their bodies and on the land.  And for kids who run around half (or wholly) naked most of the time, they had more wardrobe changes than Cher.

Joy corrected my Italian, and helped me with pronunciation.  We communicated beautifully, a blend of my broken Italian (at least 65% hopeful Spanish words) and their broken English.  We learned to count in both languages; we can both go up to at least 11.  But most of the communication came from a different place.  We didn't need words.

And for 2 1/2 days, we didn't use many words.  Ruby offered a small Vipassana for us when I missed my course, and we stayed quiet and smiling for a few days.  I even got to wear tank-tops and make eye contact.  The day I took the kids to the lake wasn't as quiet as the others, and when Cristian arrived we spoke some under the stars.

Have I mentioned the stars here?  The sky is spherical, a dome scattered with bright light.  My neck hurt from craning.  Some nights fireworks from nearby summer fiestas sounded in the distance, a couple of evenings treated us to thunder and lightning.  

Fresh air, crickets singing, and stars.  These might be the only ingredients to a happy life.  

Oh, and this:

Amy, Ruby, and Vida

And this:

Joy, Sam, and Amy making pasta

And this:

I am steeped with gratitude for a wonderful couple of weeks on this farm and with this family, sharing moments of presence and laughter belly-deep; chasing the girls and the chickens; sharing wine over dinner and tea in the afternoon . . . and for the mountains of dishes, because enlightenment (or so they say) comes sometime before, after, or during the dishes.

I love you my soft-world tribe, my dead-fish-flow tribe, my nutso tribe.

I'll be back to finish Zeitgeist.  Let me know when it's loaded.  ;)

Where is the Softer World?

I found the softer world this summer.  Have you read that poem, by Mary Oliver, called Mindful?


Mindful
by Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

. . .

I found it in this book I am reading, a book left in a mailbox for me (along with wasabi nori and a sweet note) from Megan.  Twelve by Twelve is essentially about a guy who does international aide work in developing countries for a decade and then comes back to the States and into "the flat world" as he calls it.  He feels so lost, unsure of how he fits, and if he wants to fit.  He hears of a woman, a doctor, who takes the lowest pay possible, and lives in a 12 x 12 dwelling in the woods.  Her life on this wild land, only 5% of which is developed, is simple.  She invites him to live there while she is away, and he says yes.  His life changes, or he does.

I am in the middle of it, still, but it resonates so much with me.  Because this summer, I found a softer world, the world Mary Oliver speaks of, and the thing is -- it's not just softer.  It's a different world.  Different than this one anyway.  I know many people who are living good lives in the States - rich, deep, fulfilling lives.  I know it's possible to live well in many places, but I don't really want to do it here in the concrete and capitalism.

This country makes me itch.  I don't want to slather calamine lotion on it.  I don't want to scratch.  I want out.

And this softer world?  It really exists.  I found it on the farm in Italy this summer in the wild chestnut forest.  This cheese-making, unschooling, self-sufficient family taught me so much.  When you are sweating, in the sun, eating from the garden, drinking from the stream, chasing little wild mostly-clothes-free kids around green grass, squishing green chicken poop with your feet, your mind just kind of drops and something else takes residence.

I suppose I sound naive now, cliched at the least; all this talk about another world, a softer world, but I had it in my hands, my mouth.

I didn't come back to the States with the intention of staying here permanently, but I don't want to trash my precious moments here writhing in angst and running in place.  It is taking every ounce of my will-power not to waste away my days doing internet searches, back in the squirrely space of searching and seeking.  This is a dangerous space, as I can attest to from experience, because you are likely to say "Yes!" to a plan that isn't in your heart.  The ego, a true Type A, loves plans.  Titles?  Even better.  Anything with a capital letter (Teacher, Writer, Girlfriend, Student) is just fine.   And is there a schedule to go with that?  Now we're talking.  When I start creating spreadsheets, I'm calling my sponsor.  That'll be you, K. 

These days my steps are careful to non-existent; my mind, as Anne Lamott says, is a bad neighborhood I try not go into alone.  Although right now I am on the edge, ready to chop my hair off and hop on a plane, I know enough to wait.  Sometimes you trust and jump (like when I quit my job), sometimes you trust and sit.  It doesn't score you as many cool points, it doesn't ease your itchy skin or jittery limbs (at least not at first), but nothing ever got any worse when we just sat still and breathing.

I came home with a vision for my life and now is the time to trust in that vision, trust that life will move through me, that life is moving through me.  So even though my breathing isn't going as deep as my heart, there is one thing I know for sure.  It's not where I'm going (sorry guys), but it's that my feet?  Yeah, these beat-up things from hoofing around Italy this summer -- they're meant to be on earth.  Soft, cakey earth.  Just gotta find the right chunk.  

. . .

Or, an alternate version of this entry might look like this:

AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!