It was all so sudden
LA PIETRAIA
It was all so sudden.
I had no idea that I was about to embark in a lifelong love affair.
"What an extraordinary landscape," my sister Giulia whispered as she took in the fields dotting the Todi hills. They seemed to have been drawn by the hand of a masterful artist in every conceivable shape: triangles and squares, parallelepiped and trapezoids intersected each other, framed by tall cypresses and oak trees.
Sprinkled on the flanks of the hills that ran throughout the Tiber valley, each shone with a different color, like a Harlequin vest: vermilion because of the trillions of poppies whose fleeting lives were exploding at that precise moment, bright yellow because of the disciplined armies of sunflowers, and at times just green but in its various shades of young corn, clover or wheat.
We drove past the beautiful Bramante church, our Fiat huffing and puffing downhill to then finally climb up the white road that lead to the small village of Asproli.
The June sun was setting and, as I watched, a miraculous pink light blanketed the countryside. It slowly took hold of the hills and meadows, seizing the land and its solitary medieval towers and casali as if a bright fire had suddenly swathed the Umbrian countryside.
Within minutes it was all over. The warm darkness of the descending evening had erased the sharpness of the daylight.
Something was happening inside me, a something so special that was almost tangible. A great peace invaded my heart and a balmy tide of calm and serenity started to steadily rise inside me.
We continued to drive, but I knew that I had found home. My home.
And so the morning after I was more than ready to attack the local real estate market.
A friend took me to see a house, just around the corner from her place.
We drove past beautiful olive trees and undulating vineyards. The strong summer sun was already pushing the baby grapes into an early appearance and the so-called lace, the olives' white inflorescence, heralded the promise of a plentiful November harvest.
Up we went, driving through the woods on a road that had seen better days, until we reached a clearing. An old farmhouse stood on top of the hill, isolated, in the middle of a great expanse of green. It looked exactly like a painting by Giorgio Morandi, the famous Italian artist of the 20th century. At the top of a winding white road, the striking stone house waited to embrace its visitors.
My heart stopped. Just like that.
Rusted iron poles encircled the house's southwest walls, heavy under age-darkened branches. Clusters of acerbic grapes peeked out through the thick foliage, its gnarled trunks resting against the medieval ramparts.
Under the harbor sat old Lorenzo, motionless, a half-full glass in his hands and a flask of red wine on the rickety table in front of him.
I can still hear that morning's silence, broken only by the bees that buzzed in and out of the purple hollyhocks. Lorenzo lifted his eyes and stared at us.
"Peccato, signora! Too bad!" He nodded, raised his glass and emptied it in just one sip. My house had just been sold to some city people, some doctors from Rome.
I asked to visit it, at least once. Just to see what I was missing.
I went through the stables and the old big kitchen with its huge open fire. I visited the 18th century dining room, with its vaulted ceiling. I climbed to the third floor where they stored grains and wheat and noticed a big hole on the floor of what is now the pink guest room. It was used by Agnese, Lorenzo's wife, who fed her cows by emptying food into the tube that connected straight to the mangers.
I had lost my house at the same time that I had fallen in love with it.
That Umbrian weekend became the first of many. I spent days and days visiting beautiful convents and castles and was offered the best properties around Todi. I visited the most enchanting old houses and villas. But my heart had stayed behind, on that hill, under the grape harbor. It had nested with the sunflowers and the lilies. It had been conquered by the hollyhocks and the pink, huge opium poppies.
Christmas came and I dragged my husband to Todi, in search for the perfect house that would make me forget my dream one.
One evening, at the end of a particularly frustrating day, that same friend who had shown me around looked at me and gently said: "Remember, when a house is meant to be yours it will come to you.”
There and then I decided: I would put a full stop to my search.
The day after we flew back to New York.
It was the beginning of January 1989 and within days that same friend called from Todi. La Pietraia was again for sale.
My house had waited to see if I could wait. It was January 18th, my birthday.
I jumped on an airplane and went straight from Rome's airport to the Notaio, that omnipresent law representative, interpreter, deus ex machina and factotum of all kinds of Italian legal transactions.
La Pietraia was finally mine.
The rest is the usual story of the usual restoration of a very old house, with all the vicissitudes and anecdotes that many have already written about.
For me the new chapter of my life had started. I now belonged to Todi and felt as if I had connected with a somehow long-lost part of myself.
The weeks, months and years that ensued were -- and still are -- spent studying, visiting, researching all I could about my new town, and about Umbria, my new region.
I came to meet and know the many players of this proud and somehow isolated part of Italy, not just during the brilliant summer months, but especially in the fall and winter, or during the cold and brisk days of an always late spring.
Todi -- and its countryside -- is magnificent in all seasons. In the full of spring when all the flowers and plants come back to life, and in summer when the days are hot, the evenings cool and when the trees and vegetable garden offer their bounty. Fall is redolent with the scent of young wine and the olive harvest, and the weather continues to be kind until December, when we can still enjoy a few roses and many flowering shrubs. Winter is very cold, but a great open fire in the living and dining room and the kitchen wood-burning stove take good care of that.
