A non-linear narrative

My first grape harvest

My life has moved pretty fast in the last three and a half years since meeting Paolo, almost too fast for me to keep up with. I should have been recording my experiences in a journal or blog or in the book I keep saying I'm going to write; instead I was too busy experiencing them, and I was admittedly a bit overwhelmed as to how to record them in a way that would do them justice, and not come across as just another quaint recollection of those eccentric, charming Italian countryfolk.

In incomplete summary, in the time since I met Paolo and started visiting and then living in Allerona, I've attended five funerals, including those of close family members, two weddings, including my own spectacular event, and assorted baptisms, communions, festivals and masses. I've picked grapes, olives, blackberries and mushrooms. I've herded chickens and waited in country traffic jams caused by herds of sheep. I've become a halfway decent cook and baker. I helped my husband put a new roof on our house in a howling winter wind. And, I became a first time mother.

But rather than try to begin at the beginning and write a linear narrative that leads readers right up to the present, I prefer a more organic approach that jumps back and forth from past to present, that takes detours from the narrative and recounts a humorous story, a sweet or bittersweet moment, or an interesting fact about Italy, our region or our town. So my posts may be about kissing (someone other than Paolo!) on a park bench at Lago di Bolsena, the best pizza in Orvieto, Italian rules of etiquette, my pregnancy and the birth of our daughter, or watching the last brick be placed to seal the tomb of my father-in-law. I hope these small vignettes will convey the joy, beauty, sadness and quirkiness of life in our small town and our peculiar country, and bring some smiles and entertainment along the way.