Long Time No Blog, or What I've Been up to for the Past Four Months

Oh, my darling bloglings! It's been too long! My guess is that you're either asking:

Where in the world have you been in the last four months?

or

Who are you again?

Of course, there's a third option, that no one is actually reading this since I have all but abandoned my poor, dedicated bloglings.

I will try not to dwell on such unpleasant possibilities, and attempt instead to rectify the situation by catching you up on what's been going on in my life since I last posted four months ago, because, well, it's been one hell of a season. If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you'll know that I rarely talk about my personal life. I'm not a naturally shy person, yet for some reason I have censored myself when it comes to revealing details about my life.

This is all about to change. You may also know that I started a podcast in the past year (one of the soon-to-be-mentioned reasons for my lengthy absence). I don't seem to have the same bashfulness when it comes to podcasting, and I'm pretty open about my life when I'm on air, so I figure, all my personal business is already out there and it's too late to get it back, so I might as well mention it here too from time to time.

So without further ado...

This winter has been one of the busiest, most exhausting, and most exciting in recent memory. It started out with a bang as I threw a bridal shower for a dear friend in early November. She's mad about the Etruscans (and in particular bronze Etruscan hand mirrors) and so it made perfect sense to throw her an Etruscan-themed bridal shower! I may have had more fun planning this shower than the bride-to-be did attending it. To put it briefly, I went a bit overboard, making Etruscan-themed decorations, treats, and even an Etruscan Bridal magazine.

Can I tell you how much I geeked out when I discovered the Etruscan font? For those of you who aren't lucky enough to have a close friend obsessed with the Etruscans, I'm here to tell you their language reads right to left.

Most of the shower games were Etruscan-themed as well, but I think the piece de resistance was the cupcakes decorated with fondant bronze hand mirrors. These beauties, which were as delicious as they were adorable, were made by the uber-talented Alexandra of Cupcakes in Rome. I made the red currant scones you see on the left. Also very yummy, if not quite so pretty. The recipe for those came courtesy of my fellow Rome blogger, the fabulous Trisha Thomas, aka Mozzarella Mamma.

 

 

Later that same day, I had the pleasure of participating in a segment that will be aired on the Travel Channel later this year. The hour-long feature on Rome is part of a several-part series on some of the world's greatest cities. The series is called Metropolis and should air sometime in June.

The segment I was featured in was on the art of aperitivo in a glorious piazza. Here I am with three friends enjoying Aperol Spritz in Piazza di Pietra at one of my favorite spots in the city, Salotto 42. I'll be sure to let you know when it airs so you can hear me trying not to embarrass myself on camera.

Aside from these fun events, what I really dedicated myself to during the month of November 2014 was something called National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, as its participants affectionately call it. If you've ever dreamed of writing a book, but just can't seem to find the discipline to sit down and do it, NaNoWriMo is for you. The idea is, you and literally hundreds of thousands of other writers around the world make a commitment to write a 50,000-word novel in just one month, the month of November. That works out to 1667 words per day if you manage to write every day. I didn't start out too strong, so felt like I was constantly playing catch up. But I eventually got into the groove, and seeing the number of words I needed to write to stay on track shrink every single day was enough impetus to force myself out of bed well before six am most days to get my writing in before heading to work.

I earned this badge with early mornings and lots of Earl Grey.

It was an exhausting month, and I'm not one who functions well on too little sleep, but it was worth it when, by November 30th, I had an (incredibly rough, aka nearly unreadable)  first draft of my second novel. Yes, that's right, my second. My first novel took a great deal longer than 30 days to write. I'm actually not sure if I've mentioned it on the blog before, but I wrote an art mystery for young readers that takes place in Rome (where else?). It's for the Middle Grade age group, which is roughly between 9 and 12, give or take a year on each end. I'll leave the details of the book for a future post, but I will confess that I have been working on this labor of love on and off for the past five years. And while, no, I didn't write the first draft in a month (closer to a year, actually), the revision process was a good four times longer. No one warned me that writing the first draft of a book is the easy part! It's the (seemingly endless) revisions which test a writer's mettle and perseverance.

But persevere I did, and by the summer of 2014, I finally had what I believed to be a draft that was in good enough shape to send out into the world. I started querying literary agents last summer. After several months of this disheartening process (which tests a writer's perseverance even more than revising, I'd wager) without any offers, I took a break from querying to participate in NaNoWriMo. It was just what I needed to get my creative juices flowing again after months of stagnation and rejection letters. I dove back into querying in December, and that brings me to my next big accomplishment of the winter, which happened just after the New Year. Excuse the all-caps but I can't help shouting:

I GOT AN AGENT!!!

[source]

For any other writers out there, or for actors, performers, and musicians too, you know what a life-changing accomplishment this is. In a writer's case, signing with a successful agent is probably the most important step in their career, maybe even more significant that that elusive first book deal.
And mine is not just any agent, but one of the best in the business, the legendary John Silbersack of Trident Media Group. I am so incredibly honored and thrilled to have him representing my work that it's honestly hard to put it into words (a worrying sign for a writer!). Suffice it to say, there are a lot of happy dances going on in my apartment these days.

As I expected, my agent (my heart still does a mini-swoon when I write the words "my agent") had a long list of revisions for me, and I have dived head-first into those. I've given myself the Ides of March as a deadline, I spend all weekend, every weekend chained to my desk attempting to wrestle what I thought was a final draft into an even final-er draft. I hope that this explains why, although one of my only New Year's resolutions of 2015 was to WRITE A BLOGPOST AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK, it's already the 20th of February and I'm just finally getting around to my first post of the year. Mea culpa!

The other thing that has been taking up a lot of time, but in a very enjoyable way, is my podcast, The BitterSweet Life. It's hosted by myself and the amazing radio producer extraordinaire, Katy Sewall, who just happens to be one of my closest and oldest friends in the world. When she moved to Rome last year, we decided to do a podcast all about what it's like to be an expat, either for the long-term or the short-term. It's casual, light-hearted, and most of all, non-scripted. We chat about lots of different topics that expats encounter such as homesickness, foreign language, visa problems, integrating, becoming alienated from your native culture, and dating the locals. Oh, and our mutual obsession with Caravaggio, which is slightly off topic, but we don't care.

We finally started a Twitter account, @BitterSweetPod, so be sure to follow us there if you want to be kept up to date with new episodes. Katy, who is currently back in Seattle, recently posted a photo from a recent interview she did that has somehow taken Twitter by storm. Katy interviewed a little girl earlier this week who loves and feeds crows. They bring her shiny gifts in return and this is her collection.

Here's the original tweet:

Interviewed a little girl this morning that feeds crows and they bring her gifts in return. Here's her collection. pic.twitter.com/kqNrlAa4Ie
— The BitterSweet Life (@BitterSweetPod) February 16, 2015

When Katy posted the photo three or four days ago, I thought it was wonderful, but I had no idea it would go viral. And viral it has gone, with over 4600 retweets, 4800 favorites, and hundreds of comments to date. Not bad for an account that had (at the time) just 100 followers. People across the world are so moved by this story, not to mention an entire sub-culture of people out there who are absolutely passionate about crows! Who knew? I'm starting to develop a soft spot for them myself!

My last big project of the winter is my collaboration with an awesome new app called VoiceMap. If you love to dig deep when you travel but don't always have the time or money to hire a private tour guide, this app will make you squeal with glee. The app is the brainchild of some very enterprising and creative people down in South Africa. The idea is that storytellers in cities around the world take listeners on a tour of a neighborhood by way of a smartphone. If you're the listener, all you have to do is walk where the storyteller indicates, and listen to him or her bring the city to life right in front of your eyes.

This video explains the project better than I could:

If you haven't guessed already, I am narrating a walking tour of Rome's Trastevere neighborhood. It is exciting to be a part of a project that I find so meaningful and useful at the same time, although my lack of technical skills has slowed me down more than once, and it's taking me a bit longer than I had expected! I will report back as soon as my walk is ready. I hope you will download it and let me guide you through this neighborhood I adore the next time you're in Rome.

If I have learned anything in these last four months is that synchronicity is real, and that working on projects that push you in the direction of your dreams bring more and more opportunities and amazing people into your path. Leaving The Pines of Rome blog out of this equation just isn't acceptable to me anymore. I'm lucky enough that all my passions intermingle in such a beautiful way, each one inspiring another. So I'm going on the record and making a commitment to post once a week from here on out. The posts will probably be shorter than usual, simply out of necessity, but since I'm not convinced anyone reads through to the end of my novel-length posts anyway, that might be a good thing for all concerned!

All photos by author except where indicated

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La Festa de' Noantri, the festival of the Trasteverini

Festa de' Noantri procession, 1950s [source]

 

I remember that morning like it was yesterday: a bright mid-summer dawn, just weeks after moving into my dream Trastevere apartment. In a haze of grogginess and not enough sleep, I hear a booming, nasal voice. It's Sunday and seems impossibly early for whatever is happening, especially as it's happening right outside my bedroom window. 


I bury my head in my pillow as I hear a monotone voice bleating out of a loudspeaker. Yes, a loudspeaker. A half-blind glance at my phone shows it’s not even 7am. "...Madre di Dio, prega per noi peccatori..."

Madre di Dio, what the...?

This I had to see. I flop out of bed and stumble over to the window. "Ave Maria, piena di grazia..." the voice drones on. Opening the shutters, I peer below.

Festa de' Noantri, Via Garibaldi, 2010, Crazy o'clock AM

Festa de' Noantri, Via Garibaldi, 2010

Festa de' Noantri, Via Garibaldi, 2010

A procession, a full-on religious procession, was trundling past my window. There were priests, altar boys, a smattering of older ladies in somber dress. They were all doing a call-and-repeat version of the Ave Maria that I have since become much more familiar with. Oh, and they were carrying a gigantic statue of the Virgin Mary on their shoulders. One thing I have learned living in Italy is that Italians love the Virgin Mary. I mean, they love her more than Jesus. Or so it seemed to my then-non-Catholic self. I had almost literally stumbled upon the Festa de’ Noantri.

The pictures I've included here were not, of course, taken that morning, but four years later, when I was sadly packing up to leave that very same apartment and knew I was going to miss everything about it (besides the landlord).  Little did I know then that my new apartment would be on the self-same procession route. It’s actually not so improbable; the Festa de’ Noantri procession goes down practically every street in Trastevere.

For a little bit of historical background (and a break from my nonsensical reminiscing), the festival dates back to 1535 when, after a storm, a cedar statue of the Madonna was fished out of the Tiber (on the Trastevere side, let it be noted!). Exactly where the statue came from is still a mystery, but where it ended up is not. It was donated to the order of the Carmelites, and hence it became known as the Madonna del Carmine (although many still refer to it as the Madonna della Fiumarola, since it was found in the river). The statue was kept in San Crisogono, an ancient church in Piazza Sonnino, and was immediately considered the protectress of the trasteverini. The statue was eventually transferred to the unassuming church of Sant’Agata, right across the square.

Every July, the first Saturday after the 16^th to be precise, a major 8-day festival takes place in my beloved neighborhood to celebrate this “miraculous” statue (if you can consider a statue be fished out of a river a miracle). The original statue stays put in Sant’Agata (these days she’s too precious to move about), but a 19^th-century polychrome wooden copy is carried about to much fanfare and jubilation (and yes, they change her outfit every year). 

Festa de' Noantri, Pza San Francesco d'Assisi, 2012

Festa de' Noantri, Pza San Francesco d'Assisi, 2012

Festa de' Noantri, Via San Francesco a Ripa, 2012

After a goodly number of masses and benediction ceremonies, she is carried in solemn procession from Sant’Agata to the original statue’s first home, San Crisogono. But don’t think they just walk her across the square. That would be too easy. No, she is carried down Via della Lungaretta, Via della Luce and into Piazza San Francesco d’Assisi (where another celebration takes place), down Via San Francesco a Ripa, Via Natale del Grande, Via Roma Libera, and many more streets in Trastevere, until she is finally deposited at San Crisogono, where she stays for the duration of the festival.

Festa de' Noantri, Via San Francesco a Ripa, 2013

Festa de' Noantri, Via San Francesco a Ripa, 2013

Festa de' Noantri, Via San Francesco a Ripa, 2013

My friend Jill watching the procession from across the street

Then the partying begins: street concerts of traditional music (cue: Roma,nun fa’ la stupida sta sera), old folks literally dancing in the streets, stall selling porchetta in Piazza Sonnino, bersaglieri playing their trumpets while they run (seriously impressive), and endless shouts of “Evviva Maria!” to be heard at any time of day or night. At the end of the festival, the pièce de resistance is when hundreds of people line the river or stand on the bridges to watch the Madonna float down the Tiber on a boat at sunset, from Ponte Sant’Angelo to Ponte Garibaldi.

Madonna della Fiumarola, Ponte Garibaldi, 2012

Madonna della Fiumarola, Isola Tiberina, 2012

So why is it called the Festa “de’ Noantri”? The word Noantri is a dialectical version of “noi altri” (us others). This was a way the residents of Trastevere voiced their indignation at the phrase, “voi altri che abitate in altri quartieri” (you others who live in other neighborhoods), with which they were referenced by the Roman populace. They were considered 2^nd-class citizens because they lived on the wrong side of the tracks Tiber. 

I feel very differently about the Festa de' Noantri these days, and that has less to do with the fact that I'm a Catholic convert (that's a story for another post), and more to do with the fact that the procession no longer wakes me up on Sunday mornings. It still passes under my bedroom window (although I now live in a different apartment on a different street), but it does so around 7 o’clock on Saturday night instead of 7 o’clock on Sunday morning, and that makes all the difference. In fact, I’ve come to love this festival. I’m now in my 8^th year of witnessing it on my very street and it literally never gets old.

Festa de' Noantri, Piazza San Francesco d'Assini, 2012

If you happen to be in Trastevere tonight (Wed, 24 July 2013), get over to Piazza San Francesco d'Assini, stat! A brass band is playing as I write this, and who knows? Maybe the bersaglieri will show up with their fantastic feathered hats? I know I’ll be watching from my window.



Visit the festival's official site for a program of processions and events. 

All photos (except first) by author.

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My favorite thing about April in Rome

What is it about April in Rome? What makes it the most perfect month to enjoy this incomparable city?

I can sum it up in one word, one smell, one color, one single flower dripping languidly from the vine.

Wisteria (or, in Italian, glicine).

By author

© Claudio Ianniello

 

© Claudio Ianniello

By author

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This is the singular reason why April is my favorite month in Rome. (The fact that the weather is warm but not yet scorching is another reason, I must admit.) What is your favorite month here? And why? Do you, like me, have a weakness for this voluptuous and transient blossom?

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Photo day: Mailing a letter to Caravaggio

I gasped and stopped in my tracks when I saw this during my Sunday walk. It's not the first time I've seen Caravaggio-inspired street art in Trastevere. The Medusa electrical box was one thing, but this made my easily excitable heart pound with unexpected delight.

It's not just because it's inspired by my favorite painter Caravaggio, or because it comes from one of my favorite of his paintings (see below), but because it features the face of a very young Mario Minniti, one of Caravaggio’s favorite models. And as much as he hates it when I say it, that handsome face, with its half-moon eyebrows, heavily lidded eyes, prominent nose and rosebud mouth, is strikingly similar to my own Maritino’s face (minus Mario's baby fat, naturally). The similarity is much more noticeable in more mature portraits of Minniti, such as the Bacchus. I would do a side-by-side comparison, but that would put me in some seriously hot water, so you’ll have to take my word for it. Keep your eye out for a post featuring the many portraits of Mario Minniti, coming soon…

The Calling of St. Matthew, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, 1599-1600

Did anyone else notice the keyhole right over little Mario's heart?

Photo sources: 1 by author; 2

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Trastevere's Living Nativity Scene

This past Tuesday night, 20 December, our little parish in Trastevere, Santa Dorotea, staged a pretty impressive living Nativity Scene. I was expecting a couple of kids dressed as shepherds or angels draped with sheets à la The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I was completely unprepared for a massive production that included over 50 children and dozens of adults, a children's choir, and adult choir, a violinist, a spotlight and numerous live animals. Trastevere's first Living Nativity Scene, staged in our very own Piazza Trilussa, was a resounding success, and I would be lying if I said I didn't tear up a few times during the 90 minute production. Here are a few of my own photos from the event that do not do it justice.

Seeing Mary and Joseph preparing to cross the Ponte Sisto was a magical sight. This was when I started to get as giddy as a child on, well, Christmas. I have nothing against Santa Claus, the reindeer, the tree and all the presents, but as corny as it sounds, this is what Christmas is all about for me, and seeing it reenacted, especially in my stomping ground, the neighborhood I have called home for more than seven years, was intensely moving.

One of my favorite parts of the nativity scene was the shepherds corner. They went into such detail to recreate the atmosphere and it was truly magical.

Mary and Joseph arrived to Debussy's Clair de Lune, its gentle notes overpowering the hushed square. You can see my priest in this photo, to the right of Joseph's head, the inspiring Padre Umberto Fanfarillo who organized the entire production.

See the angel playing violin?

The three wise men also arrived to gut-wrenchingly beautiful music.

A few photos of the stars.

The baby actually seemed divine: he didn't cry once, not even a peep.

This was without a doubt one of the greatest things I have ever experienced in Trastevere, including the Chocolate Festival! I hope to participate next year!

All photos by author

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