Florence is a Seductress
Recently, a person said to me: “Florence is a seductress. You will see.”
As we drove back into Florence after a weekend away my experience of Florence was less of a seductress and more of a hysterical woman. I sat in the car petrified with my eyes closed and periodically peeped and yelped at Peter, “Watch out there. That car is coming across. There’s a motorbike. Peter stop driving so fast. The pedestrian is stepping out!!” to which Peter replied.
“Close your eyes again please.”
Driving in Florence left me clinging onto the passenger door and speechless as Peter became very Germanic and methodically plowed through the traffic.
Later that day as we completed chores in town, I again reflected on the idea of Florence as a seductress. Peter and I patiently stood in the mobile phone shop whilst the sales assistant programmed my Italian burner phone. Florence was quiet and peaceful as we were alone in the shop and the sales assistant was able to stay focused on the task. Until a woman walked in. Please, please don’t talk I quietly muttered to myself. That was wishful thinking in Italy. The woman started talking first and in true Italian form the man working on my phone placed the phone down and started talking with her. As usual, they waved their hands, spoke loud, and emotionally rocked their heads from side to side. I stared, I stood, and I accepted. I’m getting better at living in Italy. I’m getting better at accepting the rhythm of the seductress. Twenty minutes later the sales assistant returned to working on my phone.
In addition to talking non-stop, the seductress is very rigid about when lunch and dinner are served. We glanced at our watches once my phone was ready and raced up the street to a trattoria I wanted to try. The time was 2:35 pm.
“I’m sorry the kitchen is closed. Lunch is served from 12:00 pm until 2:30 pm.” We walked away shaking our heads and searching for a shop. We bought yet another bag of nuts and raisins and set on the steps of a church nearby to eat. We chewed our nuts and accepted that we would try again after 7:30 pm when they served dinner.
Before dinner, we had planned to attend a lecture at the British Institute. The British Institute has become our twice-weekly evening out. At 6 pm twice a week the doors open for a lecture or concert. The audience is usually a small gathering, perhaps 30 people attend. Everyone greets each other as if they are long-lost friends. I’ve only been attending for two weeks but every greeting and encounter I received is packed with conversation that is personal and shared the intimacy that I experienced with friends I had known for years.
The lecture we went to hear was called: ‘Madness In Romantic Opera’ – focusing on female lead characters only.
The lecturer showed video scenes of hysteria displayed by women driven mad by grief or unrequited love. I’m not much of an opera person and my favorite opera is the least complex opera Madame Butterfly. Whilst one female lead was descending into despair on the screen, I googled the meaning of female hysteria and discovered that in ancient Greece it was believed that symptoms caused by hysteria were due to a misbehaving reproductive system. Next time I become hysterical in a dispute with Peter I’m defiantly going to see how he reacts to the sentence:
“I said that and screamed because my reproductive system, which has aged out, is misbehaving.”
After the lecture, we all gathered for wine in the lobby. The Brits love their social drinking time. Peter was in his element with the gathering. He is more British than I am as he had attended a posh boarding school in England as a child. When I was a child my father moved our family from England to Canada to the US, I don’t know what I am. Peter is the token Brit in our relationship. He had no plans for the evening to end and suggested that a group of us went for dinner at a local restaurant.
The first question presented to me at dinner was:
“Are you American or English?”
“50 percent British, 50 percent American, minus 15 years that I spent in Germany married to German husbands.”
“Husbands, how many?” asked the South African woman.
“Two. My daughters still want me to undergo therapy to understand why I marry Germans. I think it’s because I grew up in chaos and the Germans are very orderly.” As I said that I flashed onto the kitchen cabinet my father had hung on the wall using clothes hangers, instead of nails. It was never straight, and I always thought the dishes were going to fall out. And then there was the time when my father decided he wanted to live in the US instead of Canada and he tied our beds to the roof of the car and drove to the Canadian, US border. My German husbands did not behave like that.
“How did you end up in Florence?” I asked the South African woman. Hoping to hear more about the seductress.
“I divorced my husband at 60 and came to Italy on vacation. I got off the train in Florence and spent the day walking around. I decided to stay. I have been here four years.”
“Why?”
“It is easy living. There is culture in abundance. I love the food. The Italians accept the foreigner.”
I asked the British woman Helen the same question.
“I have been married for 30 years and I wanted a – ‘Room of One’s Own’ like Virginia Woolf. I bought myself a studio in Florence when I retired and now commute between my room and my husband in London.
“The US is falling apart; I can’t go back.” commented the American woman at the table. She had come to visit Florence at the age of 72 she was now 75. The women were fiercely independent. Would the Greeks have labeled this group of women The Misbehaving Reproductive System Group – for women over 60? One of the blokes at the table jumped into the conversation:
“It’s very stressful to make up your mind about where to live when you retire. So, we just stay. Jackie and I have been here for ten years. We have learned Italian and bought a house. I think we will just keep staying until we don’t want to stay.
As I walked back to our apartment with Peter after dinner that evening I commented:
“It’s completely okay that we have no idea what we want to do after your job in Berlin is finished. Everyone I talked to tonight had and has no idea, they just move through time and space and appear to stay present in the moment. And it appears to work.”
