Post from my arrival in Siena, June 29

June 29, 2010

I am feeling quite stuck right now—I am experiencing so much in so little time, all familiar, but so complex and full of details. I won’t want to sound trite, even to myself, and who hasn’t had that fear when writing about Tuscany?

The details over details, over details… the layers of sight, scent, feeling of the air, the sweetness of my skin already, transformed, blessed with the moisture in the air tinged with blossoms and cypress. No really—that is what it is like on my first morning in Italy.

My Siena writing desk

So stuck I won’t be… I will write with detail and abandon, and will mix the sweet sensations with the stark details—perhaps that is what layering is all about.

This morning I received a return email from my dear friend and colleague, Sandra. She said that she is looking “forward to hearing layers and layers of details about it.”

So, layered it will be—if there is any one description of Italy it is that it is layered with so many, many details

The view from my writing desk--did I mention that I love it here?

How did I get here?

First the details. My super efficient flight from Phoenix to Rome to Chicago (leave Phoenix at 11:00 am on Sunday; arrive in Rome at 9:10 on Monday) was shanghaied by American Airlines, weather in Chicago and other unknowable factors. A call from American as I was leaving for the airport changed that compact itinerary to Phoenix to Dallas/Ft. Worth to London to Rome, scheduled to arrive at 5:10 pm on Monday. After late flights but otherwise ok connections I arrived in Rome after 6:00 pm. I took the train to Roma Termini Centrale, then the train to Chiusi (which I made by one minute) which got in late, so I waited an hour for the train to Siena. This was actually a good thing because I hadn’t eaten since breakfast on the plane, so I had time to go to the bar and get a pannino and a beer to go, and got my water bottle filled. Since leaving London I had been running, with no time for refreshment and had run out of water half way to Chiusi on a very hot train.

Dining al fresco

With my food and beer in my purse I used one of the small elevators that were positioned at each stairway to descend to the sottopassigiato to then ascend up to binario 6, as the partenze board listed the train to Siena. So began my time in Italy… it was just lovely to sit, solitary on a bench, looking toward the stazione and the hills behind, orange-tinged clouds, and fresh air… dining al fresco with a pannino made with focaccia dotted with a few tomatoes and olives, filled with 2 or 3 slices of salami and a piece of cheese… washed down with a warm Moretti beer (every beer in the glass-fronted refrigerator was warm). It was the best al fresco picnic that I can remember in a very long time. I felt happy and very, very fortunate to be in that place in that time.

My calm was suddenly broken about two or three minutes before departure time by an announcement said that my train was leaving on binario 2. I reversed my route, down and then up again to the correct binario, and made it on the train with a minute to spare. One of the greatest things about Italian infrastructure is the train system. It’s usually on time, and you can almost always count on the posted departure times and binary, but you must keep your eyes and ears out for changes, delays, and cancellations.

I arrived in Siena on an almost empty electric train from Chiusi, passing by Montepulciano and other towns as the sky darkened. At Montepulciano I stood up and looked out the opposite window at the stazione that I remember so well from my solo day trip there in 2005. I should write about that again, or find my notes from the story I wrote about my lovely, serendipitous trip that day. Last night, the stazione bar was open and in a courtyard beside the bar, bordered by a low iron fence, was lit and lively—with tables of men smiling, talking, drinking, gesturing in what looked like complete contentment and conviviality. Middle aged to old, they represent what is good and complete about this place.

At 23:00 (from here out, I’m on 24-hour time) I lugged my bags down and up the stairs to the stazione (this is how you take trains in Italy—to get to the binary you go down, underneath the tracks, then back up to the correct ones) and grabbed a cab out front, and with “un taxi per Piazza San Francesco, per favore” and 10 Euro, I was back to my first home in Siena.

I began talking about feeling stuck… maybe it’s not so much stuck, but perplexed. Why am I writing? Who is my audience? What do they want to read? What do I want to write, and why, and what will I do with it all? If you are reading this, please tell me what you want to hear. Otherwise I will write what I feel and see and wonder…

Piazza San Francesco

I love this place. The Basilica that anchors the piazza is massive, with adjacent additions of apartments jutting from the west side and a continuous circle of apartments making up the outline of the piazza, interspersed with three ports or small driveways allowing passage through the piazza. When I first came here I had no idea what was what… until I stopped, and sat and looked around. The mixture of church and residences—sacred and everyday—is a hallmark of Italy. Life is lived in a pattern woven within the fine grain of uses.

The Bruco neighborhood just outside the Piazza San Francesco--it has all the basics--small supermarket, bar, enoteca, a few restaurants...