I did something yesterday that will ensure many tomorrows.
It wasn’t really yesterday but it could have been. What’s two weeks to an eternity?
Umbria, the Green Heart of Italy, because it is so lush and verdant , as am I after a couple of glasses of Neri Rosso, is where my heart is. And my heart is where my home is… Orvieto.
This hilltop town, an hour north of Roma, is like Disneyland. Except the magic is real. My apartment, Casa Carlo, on Via del Caccia, is my spirit’s return to my Nono, my grandfather. He left his village, Capriata D’Orba, when he was thirteen and sailed the seas and oceans to far reaching lands. Onboard he learned baking and later had a bakery in Capriata and California, where I began.
About one hundred feet from Casa Carlo is a money pit I refer to as, Nuovo Inizio di Casa Therese (Fresh Start at the home of Therese… named after my wife because I was born at night but it wasn’t last night). It is a three bedroom, two bath house with a garage and a walled garden in the Medieval Quarter. I got it for a song, which is unbelievable if any of you have heard me sing.
Casa Therese is where I will conduct digital photography workshops for Italian and American Wounded Warriors. Not so much as a vocational rehabilitation, though that can’t be ignored. These workshops are my intention to build a community of concerned photographers. Concerned Photographers. People who will make visual statements when all words fail. Photographers who might earn some cash in advertising and corporate work. All good reasons for doing these workshops.
Both Casa Carlo and Casa Therese will live long after my rising. Both are in my Trust and will remain there in perpetuity. Or, at least for a long time. Neither will be given to my sons, both photographers, who will have full use of the homes and share the rent they will bring in. When they have departed, my Nono’s bloodline of miscreants will have access to both, or neither, upon personal choice.
That’s what yesterday has given me. It has given me hope that those who desire to commit art will make art and love as they come to realize who they are and how they got here (there).
Though you can take the Trentitalia train there, all roads do not lead to Roma. They lead to where your heart wants to Wander and Wonder.
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I leave you with an image I made near Casa Therese.
