Pause in the Apennines

This is what I’ve been waiting for. This: We’re tucked away in the Umbrian hills, somewhere near the village of San Venanzo. Two hours behind us is the pulsing buzz of Rome with its mopeds and taxis competing with pedestrians for command of the uneven roads and crosswalks. Yesterday afternoon, we melted in the city’s July heat as we trekked from our apartment on Via in Arcione to Trevi fountain to the Spanish Steps and back. This morning, we fared better by ushering the boys out by 7:30 for a 10,000 step wander through history from the Colosseum to the Forum to the Pantheon. And then we left Rome behind us, ready to exchange the metropolitan pace for something slower.

The drive north took us beyond the city sprawl, over the Tiber, and up into the green heart of Italy. We turned off the asphalt of the main mountain road to a smaller one lined with olive trees, silver-green leaves dancing in the slight breeze. Further down the road, the olive grove on our right gave way to a field of sheep, lazily grazing in the dry grass. A left turn took us onto a rocky lane, oak trees to our right, yellow broom scattered throughout grasses and other wildflowers to our left. The road came to a T-junction, continuing on to the right, but ending to the left in the driveway of a biscuit brick house built on the hillside. The glimpse of what lies beyond is astounding: undulating hills of green, occasionally crowned with bald spots of maintained land that belong to the distant neighbours. Two hundred and forty thousand years ago, a volcano contoured the Apennine landscape. This is home for five days. 

We’ve quickly left our mark on the pristine house, draping wet pool towels over the railings. Earlier, we sat by the pool to a soundtrack of bees humming in the lavender border behind us and the boys’ enthusiasm, arguments, and splashes in front. Now cicadas chant in the trees and an occasional dog bark echoes from somewhere beyond the property. Now the boys are sitting side by side at the dining room table, glued to their individual screens, backs to the drawn curtains that obscure this amazing view. Dan and I sit side by side on the terrace’s wicker chairs, facing out and sipping Prosecco. The view is one of olive trees overlooking the dense green of the hills beyond, like a coniferous shag carpet. We sit under a marbled sky that pulls toward the orange glow left behind by the setting sun. 

When I awake the next morning, the day already sounds hot. A constant cicadic rhythm pervades the air, overlaid with the scratchy triple beat of katydids. The cheerful chirp of birdsong comes from the trees and there’s an occasional greeting from a cockerel on a nearby farm. Less familiar is a deeper warble coming from further down the hillside. It sounds like nature is chastising humanity, and with good reason. Temperatures are soaring everywhere. Keats greets me in the kitchen with the news that Italy has issued a heat warning. Fifteen cities throughout the country are under red alerts.

Dan and I sit on the terrace in the morning sun, this time sipping coffee and noticing. Fortunately, the lawnmower buzz of the hornet-like insects we’ve heard are absent from the soundscape. Dan comments on how still the leaves are. In the dry grass below, small yellow Umbrian dandelions have appeared, opening in the safety of the morning shade cast by the terrace’s shadow. It’s the only respite. 

Dan goes into the house to change for his unfortunately necessary drive to a town 45-minutes away. His phone was in the pocket of his swimming trunks when he jumped into the pool yesterday afternoon. A night in a bowl of rice hasn’t managed to resurrect the device, and so he’s off to purchase an unintended souvenir of this holiday.

I keep noticing. 

Beyond the rows of olive trees, a taller tree stands with darker leaves drooping. A single empty branch extends from the top. At the very end of this branch, yellow again catches my eye. I watch it unfurl into a small bird that launches into the sky, the only movement in the stillness. 

A lizard appears to my left, his back the green and black mottled pattern and colours that I associate with the boys’ Minecraft games. His belly is wide. This is a friend from yesterday, still full of the caterpillar meal we watched him gulp down. He scurries across the concrete floor away from me and disappears out of sight.

I go into the house to get my sandals so that I can walk around to the washing line and bring in our sun-dried clothes. Our shoes are all lined up just inside the living room wall next to the wooden door that we keep open to the veranda beyond. I start to pull one of my Birkenstocks away with my toe when a black scorpion scuttles out of hiding. I jump back, shocked.

“What is it?” Dan asks. I point to the armoured creature sheltering again in the safety of shoes. “Huh. In your shoe. Just like the website said.” Reading Under the Tuscan Sun a few days ago had first alerted me to the possibility of scorpions in Italy. I was hopeful that perhaps they wouldn’t exist in Tuscany’s southern neighbour, but Internet research had already suggested otherwise. Now the evidence is in front of us.

“What is it, Mama?” Keats calls from the dining table. Fortunately, he’s too engrossed in his gaming to venture over.

“Just a big insect by my shoe. It surprised me.” There are some occasions on which lying to one’s child is acceptable, especially to one with arachnophobia.

Dan has scooped the scorpion into a coffee cup and we stare down at it in fascination, at its pincers extending in front and its curved tail extending up to the stinger. As disconcerting as this creature’s presence is, it feels like we’re witnessing a connection to history, like a relic of past Roman centurions in present day. The scorpion looks ready for battle with its raised weapon and segmented body armour, an arachnid in lorica segmentata. I wonder how extensive his army is.

They were here first. The scorpion’s evolutionary history dates back 435 million years. They were here with the lizards, the cicadas, the katydids, and the many species of bird that call Umbria home long before we crunched up the driveway in our monstrous vehicle, spewing greenhouse gas into the Apennine air. It’s a privilege to share this setting with them. Shaking out our shoes each time we put them on seems a fair price for the honour of being in this place at this time.