Worn, rough and absolutely wonderful Italian

In two weeks the weather has changed drastically. From 27 degrees to 16. Even though I feel that something is missing (the velvety warmth perhaps), I breathe a sigh of relief. It's nice to put on a warm sweater and go outside. It is lovely to feel the scent of freshly fallen rain between the houses. And it's really, really wonderful to have a handful of buongiorno strewn my way from my door and down the long, shallow staircase to the street. This morning I got a buongiorno even from the old man who peeks at me from behind his mosquito nets. I heard a murmured buongiorno and I looked up, around, around and finally I saw him in his kitchen window behind a wall of mosquito netting. Your window to the world. And he asked how I was and I said loudly and happily beeeeneeee and I asked him and you, bene? Hmmm he nodded and shook his head and showed his hand which had some kind of thick glove. The morning gossip is important. And now he had to complain a little  - just like you do in Italy in the meet-on-the-street talk and I got important information about how he is doing. Maybe I can help carry heavy things home when he opens up to it. So important in a small village, I think. That everyone has an eye on each other. That no one should be alone. I think about it a lot. To not be alone. To never ever be alone or feel alone.

It is early morning. I am sitting in the square at the coffee man's and enjoying the first cappuccino of the day. Gianni comes by. I get a hug and kiss on the cheek and he explains in slow Italian that he wants to invite me to his home for dinner. Are you here on Sunday? He asks and tells about the other guests. Oh no I say. I have to fly home on Saturday night.

We chat for a while in Italian English and he warns me that there is a lot of life and happy eating and lots of people here in Lajatico in the summer for three months. He has rooted out a house for me to look at and he wants me so badly to be satisfied. I proclaimed that I love Lajatico and summer is just as amazing as I hoped it would be. I'm used to people in the summer - Österlen is full of happy people in the summer. It runs in the blood that we should have a lot of people around us during the summer. Aguri he says. Aguri. Good luck, he says, clasping his hands in front of his chest. My God, I've ended up right, I think. What friendly people. Here I will live. Oboy how I should live here. What I already live here.

At 10 o'clock on the dot, I stand outside the small house. Worn, rough and absolutely wonderful Italian in my eyes. What others think looks like an ordinary "apartment", I see as a jewel that under my hands can be transformed into a wonderful little holiday home or why not a small cafe and a shop. In the middle of Lajatico. Above all, it is next door to all my friends, my Italian family. I am full of expectation. My friend Laura will come and be my Italian right hand and translator when the Italian words become too many and too fast. She lingers. I go in by myself for so long. The owner and his wife show me the house, they point out all the advantages (hahaha I may not see them but I keep my good eye). We go around, in and out. Up and down. And when we enter the last room that can be used as a bedroom or living room, I suddenly find myself alone with the man. He grabs my hands, my clothes, comes uncomfortably close to my face and says flamingly that here, here you and I can sleep and winks meanly… I pull my hands back and hope it was a bad joke. But no… he comes closer again, grabs my shirt aggressively under the neck and repeats his behavior, muttering disgusting things with a red face and clawing at me. I tear my hands and quickly leave the room. I call Laura (desperately) and wonder; Laura, where are you? I'll be there in a minute, I'm stuck in a traffic jam! Laura shouts back, having no idea what happened.

I managed to keep the now rather bad mood away from me. The lady of the house knows absolutely nothing. She babbles on, hugs me and stares around. I'm a coal furnace on the outside. After all, I worked in the advertising industry in the 80s. Oboy, this often happened at the parties which were many in those days. Pressmen, agency managers, senior officials at the customers who believed that it would be so, that what happened under that roof stayed there.  It's crazy that I didn't kneel the old man, but my generation doesn't want to let people lose face. Unfortunately, it is in our upbringing. If it had been my children, I would have killed the old man. And haunted him forever.

In any case, when Laura arrives, the old man raises the price by SEK 500,000. He is nobbed, hurt. In my eyes just a disgusting old man almost 80! Continuation may follow, may not. Laura and Jonni know what happened, but I haven't told Gianni, who had scouted the house and is friends with him. He would have had a heart attack if he knew. His mood, when he heard that the owner raised the price, was not healthy. He doesn't know why. So that's it. Sooner or later it will come out. It always does in a small village. But that kind of attention is not what I aspire to as a newcomer to the village.

This story reminds me of a New Year's Eve in Portugal. I had traveled there alone to play golf and lower my handicap. I was heartbroken and needed to heal the wounds. Next to me at the village's big New Year's party sat a battered old man in his 80s and 90s. That's the beginning of that story… the end I'll tell another time. But let me say this, I'm almost puking thinking about the shit. And it's been 20 years!

Abbe often says to me; mother your life is a Meryl Streep movie. He's probably right. I live with everything that happens and write, note, feel, smell, sing, talk to everyone. I choose to live a rich life. And I don't mean rich as in lots of money. But I'm not going to say no when life invites me to dance. My life is like a tombola and my my...I have many winning tickets rolling around in there. And the night lottery, one of the two remaining in my tombola was opened today and thrown on the tip. Life is now and it's good. Really good. In addition, Jonni made truffle pasta for me today with fresh white truffle. Boom.