Ready, Set, Wait…Five Years!

Without the benefit of revisiting social media posts or digital memory cards, it’s difficult to remember what specifically made our 2019 trip to the old country extra memorable. We had no idea when we pulled away from Ca D Maestro with a dozen chosen family members screaming ciao, ciao, ciao! that it would be our salute finale for such a long time. As CV19 made its way across the world, Italy was particularly devastated, perhaps because of its massive, aged demographic and most probably because no culture loves to gather more than Italiani. Several of you reading this have sat beneath the giant olive trees in Piero’s naturally manicured one-acre yard. It’s difficult to imagine that long table often hosting a sizable mix of family, neighbors, and grateful visitors with empty chairs.

Nearly every memorable meal, card game, music trivia, and language gaff (by me) has included some or all of that special table. Jill, Daniela and I, have been privileged to be part of this special Tuscany wide spot in the road for 20 years. We had no idea how deep our hearts would fall for Montanare when we considered it as a place to call home for a year back in 2004. A beautifully restructured, five-unit Tuscan Farmhouse from 1652 in a small agriculture zone wasn’t the vision we’d come for, especially Jill. I took one look at the sixty olive trees, giant garden, swimming pool, giant lawn, thoughtfully restored house, and just wanted to know when we could move in! After a few more days of looking at 15th century village apartments that felt more like birdhouses, Jill too started thinking about life in the country. As I memorialized in my 1st book, Miracles in Montanare-Ten Years in Tuscany (Iron Twine Press 2016), nearly every favorite life experience in Montanare included Piero, Luisa, Amedeo, Rosy, and many other remarkable Italians for whom we do not share a common language but still have managed to take all the way into our hearts and vice versa.

This five-year break from the annual Tuscan olive tree gathering has given us ample time to appreciate all we’ve learned in this little village of 300. Our life in America looks nothing like what happens in Montanare. The life of two veteran solopreneurs raising a college bound daughter and managing multiple priorities isn’t what’s waiting for us in Italia. When it became clear that a global pandemic was about to upend our time in Tuscany Fantasy Camp, our souls began to long for hours long conversations, slow hikes into the hills behind Ca D Maestro where inevitably we’d run into someone either restoring a 12th generation family home or a tending a garden that feeds countless family members or a whole community. Nearly everyone is as curious about the Americani, and we are of the Italiani.

But now………we’ve arrived.

Although the 10-hour flight between our native Seattle and Amsterdam should feel familiar after having made the trip more times than I can count, my body, especially my brain, reminded me that five years without a lengthy international flight has its consequences. My biggest worry is the nearly three-hour drive between Rome and Montanare which requires extra vigilance on roads where the actual speed limit is as fast as the fastest car can go. Our little Deisel Kuga (Europe’s Ford Escape), two shots of Espresso and two familiar Italian radio stations safely delivered us to the left turn at the tiny post office in Montanare. I cannot think of a road paved with more emotion and memories than this one lane, gravel incline. We pass the Medici era 15 room estate behind the slightly leaning seven-foot brick wall that has brought me at least 100 dreams of living like royalty. Next is Giovanni, the painter, his three story house that hosts at least four generations now. Straight ahead, the bright yellow Burroni Family house, a clan that has been in Montanare for 15 generations and taught us more about Italian family life than any other. We briefly pause. The eight foot opening on the left is the real entry into Italy for us. I navigate the spot between the wall that surrounds Maurizio’s gorgeous home his father built for him as a wedding present and the Casina, a pseudo-HQ for Ca’ Maestro. Pushing stop, we know Piero and Luisa will be waiting at the gate. I’m a bit overcome with emotion. We’re Home….in Tuscany.