future plans

Reviving the Collective Unconscious

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

As we contemplate taking an extended trip back to the United States, I think about the things we’ve learned and changed in Italy. We hopped on our bikes yesterday afternoon (it was another of those afternoons where Axa was not quite tired enough to nap, but not quite rested enough to be nice. It’s a tough transition from nap to no nap.) and rode out another country road. We stopped in a little town called Margherita, which boasts a 13th century tower.

The tower is impressive. It’s not particularly large, nor does it stand out much on first glance. But if you really look at it, the tower does project an aura of age, of permanence, of having overseen many, many events.… Read more

San Diego

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We’ve ditched the Italian schedule. No more dinners at 7:00. We need to get this family to bed at a reasonable time. Tony was thinking yesterday that most of our productive, happy family time is in the morning. Afternoon is for naps. So we’ve decided to lengthen the morning at the expense of the afternoon. Instead of having a three-hour morning and a seven-hour afternoon, we’ll have a five-hour morning and a five-hour afternoon, and spend some time in the afternoon doing things like tidying the house, setting out everyone’s clothes, and fixing a picnic lunch for the next day.

For the past year or so (since our second child was born, coincidentally enough), we’ve had something of a schedule fetish.… Read more

Il Ministro

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

On Monday we showed up at the Comune with homemade cheesecake brownies for Gianfranco. He showed us a responses from the Los Angeles and Chicago consulates to the effect that Tony and his ancestors have not renounced Italian citizenship. That was the good news. Then he said that as soon as all had responded, he would forward everything to the “Ministro,” and “we will see.” Now I’m left to wonder why he feels he needs to send the documents to the “Ministro.”

He failed to specify to which Ministry he needs to send them. As far as I know (i.e. according to detailed reports of others involved in their own jure sanguinis adventures), the Comune is supposed to make the final decision and declare the applicant officially Italian.… Read more

On Wheels

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We had another marathon market day in Cuneo yesterday. It was made longer by the fact that the 1:30 bus inexplicably never came, which left us stranded till the 2:45 bus. The bus schedule is exceedingly complex. Some busses come only on weekdays, others only on weekends, others only on school days during the school year. There are a few other nuances we have yet to understand completely.

However, in the intervening time we found a local beekeeper selling honey and pollen. The pollen comes in a jar, and it looks just like those little yellow balls of pollen one sometimes sees on the back legs of bees.… Read more

Chocolates, Take Two

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Tony got all dressed up yesterday and went down to the Comune to ask Gianfranco how things are going for his citizenship. He took Axa with him, but Raj and I stayed home, since Raji has finally come down with the chicken pox too. When Tony arrived, the Mayor happened to be there, so Tony greeted him on the way in. Then he delivered some nice chocolates to Gianfranco.

The chocolates were genuine Chiusa Pesio artisanal chocolates, made by a charming lady and her daughter in the only chocolate shop in town. She gave us all samples, and then put an assortment of chocolates (artistically arranged, of course) on one of those attractive little gilt-paper trays they use for sweets here.… Read more

The City Mouse and the Country Mouse Make Peace

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We love to have a project waiting in the wings. Now that things have settled down (at least a little), we can think about the next thing we want to do. We plan to spend this next year in Chiusa di Pesio. We’ll be waiting for Tony’s citizenship to go through, learning from Beatrice across the street how to milk cows and make cheese, and enjoying life in small-town Italy.

We’d also like to spend the next several months exploring Italy a little bit. We were totally unfazed by our eight hour train ride from Trieste. There are many amazing Italian cities within that distance of us.… Read more

What color is your house?

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Sometimes my dreams run away with me. A month or so ago (just as things were getting very stressful here in Italy with the whole citizenship crisis) I decided that rather than living in Italy, I wanted to move to France, buy a castle, and make it into a bed and breakfast.

It arose from a little discussion Tony and I have frequently. It starts with him looking out the window of the bus (we take a lot of busses, since we don’t have a car in Italy) and saying, “I really like that yellow house.” Most of the houses here are yellow, and he likes them all.… Read more

Casteluzzo

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I’ve changed the name of my blog to be the same as the URL. Casteluzzo (“little castle” in Italian). It’s the name of the house in the country we’re going to have someday. And I’ve subtitled it “In Search of a Dream to call Home.” We’re not sure exactly what our dream is, but we’re pursuing it nonetheless. As Bilbo says, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

I also decided to merge my old, very infrequent blog with Casteluzzo.… Read more

Waldensian Valleys

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Today we went to the Waldensian Valleys. Last week, we went through San Germano Chisone just as it was getting dark. We happened to stop just in front of the Chiesa Valdese (Waldensian Church), where someone was filling water bottles at the town fountain. So we filled ours too. But today we went back to see the valleys a little better. We drove up and up and up, higher than Melle, into Angrogna. There, we parked the car and walked down a path to a place where the mountain’s bones are exposed and broken in pieces. This was the Cave Church.… Read more

Der Himmel über Berlin

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We were at BYU’s International Cinema yesterday, watching “Wings of Desire,” or translated literally from the German title, “The Heavens Over Berlin.” “City of Angels” was based upon it, although characteristically, the depth was minimized and the sex maximized in the Hollywood film.

The original German film is a beautiful, thoughtful meditation on mortality and the Fall. Damiel the angel has watched humanity unfold for thousands of years, and finally wants to personally step into the world he knows so intimately from above. After his fall and the revelation it brings, his final words in the film are: “I know now what no angel knows.”… Read more