Navajo recently had a NEW DAY diary asking how old we were and what ago we would be if we could be any age. I answered I am sixty-eight and if I could be any age, in a heartbeat I would choose to be thirty-six. I explained it was because I lived in Florence, Italy, had a gorgous twenty-four year old boyfriend, lived in a house built in 1296 with beautiful architecture and had lots of friends from various countries as friends and inspirations. One person who read my comment wrote back in a comment that she wanted to be twenty-six and me! Two others added in comments that I might like to write a diary expanding on that time in Florence. Please follow below the kos squiggly if you, too, would like to read more.
I moved to Florence in 1975 with my husband and eighth month baby in my stomach. Having a baby and not speaking Italian is not something I recommend. Labor room was a disaster, but the baby was beautiful. Because Italy has socialized medicine, they put a large emphasis on preventive medicine. I had a well baby clinic a few blocks from my house where I took baby Kate once a week for an examination by a doctor and free food and juice. The food was powdered and you added boiling water to it, but Kate loved it. Believe it or not, her favorite was the horse meat. She adored that. I never tried it.
Kate, like all Italian kids, started regular school at three. There were thirteen children in her class. There were two teachers - a regular teacher, called La Maestra - the Master - and a practice teacher. One was there from nine in the morning until one and the other came in until they got out at five. Mussolini passed a law in effect to this day - as a lot of Mussolini's laws are, that schools lock their doors at nine a.m. If you're not there by then, no class for your child for that day. The kids wore smocks over their clothes - another Mussolini law - so that no child looked like he had more expensive clothes than another. I loved the school and so did Kate and her Italian was much better than her English. I loved it that there were two teachers - each with four hour shifts so neither one got tired or frustrated after being with a whole class for eight hours. Her school was also based on Montessori teaching, which I was also very pleased with.
The first week Kate was in school a parent put up a note at school that the compagnia - the company would meet at her house on Sunday. Each child would go to one child's house on Sunday for about four hours in the afternoon. I only therefore had all thirteen children every thirteen weeks. And I was free twelve other Sunday afternoons. The kids played and had snacks together and the friends they made in their new company stay together all their lives. I think that also is a very lovely thing.
Okay, so I've got a child in school all day and I'm free to roam Florence, go to museums, meet people from all over the world and, yes, I did work. I wrote an advice column for an English language newspaper published in Rome, called The Rome Daily American. The owner/publisher titled my advice column, "Rachel Replies." My picture was in the paper and people actually stopped me on the street and asked for my autograph. Here I was, this little nobody from Georgia and my boss put my advice column in his paper over Dear Abby and Dear Ann. That, for quite a while, was my grand claim to fame.
My husband was an artist, hence, Florence. He studied in the studio of a man called Maestro Pietro Annigoni. Annigoni became famous for doing the portrait of Queen Elizabeth they use on a British stamp. He also did a sketch of John F. Kennedy and Pope John the 23rd for the covers of Time magazine. Obviously, my husband was pretty talented to be able to study in Annigoni's studio. Talented yes, ambitious, no. I can't tell you the nights we went to bed with no money and no food in the house and he would have to run on the street in the morning to do a landscape and sell it on the street so we could eat for that days. Newspapers paid bupkus. He also worked one day a week in the country for eggs, olive oil, greens, a chicken and fire wood. Though I was madly in love with him, love was not enough to overcome the hardship and, besides, he fell in love with a woman in Scotland, so we separated, which began the best time of my life.
I still worked for the paper and modeled nude for artists. I had enough to get by on and Joe had taken baby Kate to Scotland so she could learn English, so I was on my own. I had a studio in my apartment I decided to rent out and rented it to the most gorgeous person I have ever seen. I was thirty-six, Zvika was twenty-four, from Israel, studying art in Florence. And believe you me, it didn't take long for landlord and tennant to turn into lovers. It was just what the doctor ordered for a woman who had been led to believe that at my age I was over the hill and men my age were looking for eighteen year olds. I don't really know if that's true, it was just what I heard. Well, the girl my husband left me for was twenty-two, so why not believe it?
Zvika and I were together for three years, even after he moved to Hamburg to study art and then I came back to the states. He never forgot me, though, and found me on linkdin a couple of years ago and we now Skype. He in Tel Aviv and me in Georgia. When I was online on my birthday he Skyped me with "Happy Birthday." He has never forgotten, even after about thirty-three years. He was my greatest love and I learned more about relationships with him than anyone else. Zvika's English was not too good and one night, he, our friend Eldad - also Israeli - and I were lying in bed with me in the middle and Zvika said something ridiculuously silly in English and Eldad and I started laughing at him. He abruptly turned over and faced the other way and said, "Don't bother me, I'm occupieded." At which we laughed even more.
One great thing about Zvika was his being so attuned to my moods and my passionate times. I was always passionate on a full moon and one night he was in Rome with Eldad while they picked up their scholarship money and it was a full moon. I paced the floor for ages, missing Zvika and wishing he were there. I finally fell asleep around one, only to be awakened at about ten after three by Zvika touching my shoulder. "Why are you here?", I asked. "Why aren't you in Rome?" He sweetly looked at me and said in his broken English - Me and Eldad sit in piazza, drink wine. I look up and see full moon and know my Rachel in in crisi, so I come running back to Florence." He had hitchhiked four hours back from Rome, he got in bed, we made love three times, and then he hitched right back to Rome and Eldad. Now who wouldn't fall for someone like that? He was the kindest and gentlest lover I ever had. And often I miss him muchly.
I had an American friend named Kathryn and for ages we were inseparable. We rode our bikes all over Florence, blowing raspberries at Italian Cassanovas. We lay on the banks of the Arno river, we walked to our favorite bakery at three in the morning to get hot pastries before they delivered them to the bars. We even had a restaurant together every Friday night in my house. It was built in 1296 and had been a convent attached to a church. We had a huge living room that was about five or six or so times the average American one and a tiny small kitchen, barely big enough for both of us. Every Friday morning Kathryn would come to my house on her bike with plates and glasses and silverware. We would go to the corner market to see what food was cheap and buy that to fix for our restaurant. We could feed twenty-six people and always were full. We made most of our money selling glasses of wine to people who mingled and talked before we served at nine. Most people stayed until about two or three in the morning and we used to give away free meals to someone to help clean up afterwards and to someone to play an instrument. It was a great success and we even had some famous Florentines come to our restaurant every Friday night.
One was a doctor I became very friendly with, Giorgio Conciani. He was head of the Radical Party and went to prison a few times for doing abortions, all in order to get abortion legalized in Italy. As far as I know, Italy now has the most liberal abortion law in all of Europe. After Kate was born I couldn't even get a hysterectomy with a prolapsed uterus because I was still child-bearing age. So Giorgio did so much for Italian woman. And I loved him muchly.
I can honestly say that being poor never stopped me one minute from having the time of my life for the ten years I lived in Florence. It's a wonderful place because it's small and provincial. I could walk across Florence in thirty minutes. And yet, it has the opera, dance and art that big cities like Paris and London have. The cradle of the Renaissance happened in Florence. Everything that brought us out of the Middle Ages and into present time, happened in Florence. I thought it was magical.
And now I'm sixty-eight and have a little apartment in Cartersville, Ga. I do keep in touch with friends from Florence, London, Geneva, Israel, etc., through Skype. I baby sit for my nine year old grandson. I also have a beautiful sixteen year old granddaughter. I have a lot of friends. My life is good. But, if I could so choose, I would choose to be occupieded in that very same way again. Thanks for reading. rachel
racheltracks@aol.com