When I was a child, I often used to walk down the street to my Great Grandma Marcozzi’s house to chat with her. I don’t remember much of what we ever talked about, but I do remember receiving a crisp one dollar bill every time I visited. I look back at my childhood and realize how lucky I was to not only live on the same street as her, but on the street over from both sets of grandparents, as well as another great grandmother. To top it all off, the family business, where my uncle and cousins worked, was just a quarter mile down the road. While having such a large portion of a family’s life so concentrated in one area is a rarity in California, this family closeness is commonplace in Italy.
After my parents headed home, I made my way down from Venice to Ascoli Piceno, a small city that dates back to before Roman times. More important, though, is the fact that it is the hometown of my Papa’s side of the family. Greeted at the train station by my cousin Marino, I was welcomed immediately by the whole family, as usual in Italy. Croce, my Papa’s cousin, owns a hotel in Ascoli, and they were nice enough to let me stay there for the week. Croce and his wife, Slyvanna, took care of me like only an Italian family can, making sure my belly was always full of food and that I always had everything I needed. Their two sons, Marino and Marco, toured me around the city and taught me all the essential Italian slang I needed to sound somewhat like a local. Ascoli has a great feel to it: fun atmosphere, beautiful scenery, medieval architecture, and elegant churches. There is enough going on to keep you busy, but it’s small enough that the odds are you will run into more than a few friends during an evening passegiata.
The first trip we took outside of the city was to San Gregorio, a small village up in the hills and the place in which my great grandparents grew up. Today, the village has a total of 8 permanent residents. Overlooking the orange and yellow tree covered hills, I could imagine Grandma Marcozzi playing in the town square while her parents walked down to the spring to get the necessary water for the day. Maybe that’s where she met my great grandpa Jimmy, who lived about 20 feet away from her family. Or maybe they met in the church, about 30 feet from her house.
As we enjoyed lunch on the more than 100 year old table in the kitchen, I couldn’t help but think to myself what Grandma must have thought about the small distance between her house in California and all her family there. Troppo lontano io penso.
Too far away indeed…