Italy's Reality

As I anticipated Moms arrival last week, I was consumed with reading Italy Sorrow, a five hundred page novel on World War II from Italy’s front. I never thought I would read anything outside my history textbook on World War II, let alone a multi-part narrative. But as I am plunging through this I am proud to say I can tell you some details about the war in Italy. I know some names of commanders and their individual stories. I am even discovering some places in Italy, such as Monte Cassino, that I would like to visit but would have never even known about before. I also find myself questioning warfare. From the United States, it always seems so distant, so far back in history or in geography. But because everything in Europe is so ancient, it is possible to comprehend a different setting for the place where you may be standing. For example, in the center of the piazza in Sansepolcro there is a yellow square. This square is the remains of a tower that was bombed in WWII. This is a monument to the past, conveyance to a different time. Even so, I have come to the conclusion that I do not understand war in the past or present. I do not understand how humans could murder each other for a collective concept. Is claiming land really worth killing? Is it necessary to kill for unification? At Monte Cassino, there are 20,000 graves of men from over 34 nations. This is the reality of war.
But the reality of Italy has changed since the War. If you are a tourist it is simply “La Bella Italia”. I want to discover a day or week in Italy that is not a world wind experience. Every moment has been full of emotion. More truthfully, it is just like the cliché Italy created in books such as Frances Mayes, “Under the Tuscan Sun”. Sometimes it is almost too perfect, as if an artist were painting the moment. Last weekend, we went to Anghiari, a town about 10 minutes from Sansepolcro. I took a picture of a cat sitting on a stoop surrounded by flowers. The cat sat in perfect poise and I could have sworn that he even flashed me a pirate smile. I would like to call this “typical”, but yet nothing about the perfection seems typical. It is solely different and thus magical.