Sunday May 16 - Arezzo, Monte San Savino, and Pergo with Joyce

So I feel like I have been putting off blogging for days just because the next one I really needed to do was about my time with Joyce. And it's not that I didn't want to write about my time with her, but the amount of information I feel like I took in with her was so overwhelming. I feel like when I got back Sunday, and everyone from my group asked me how my trip was, they got way too much information than they really wanted. It was such a life changing trip to take and the amount of information I learned from Joyce, from her stories and just from what I observed, has made me really rethink so many things in my life.

So for those who just want to know about my adventures traveling and abroad, this may be one you skip, but I really suggest you don't. This woman Joyce is absolutely amazing. And things we did and talked about will probably trickle in and out of my blog for my rest of the time here in Cortona just because there was so much, and I don't even know where to start.

But I guess I have to start with how I "know" Joyce. And the scariest part of my trip on Saturday getting to Arezzo was definitely the part that I was getting on a bus, in a foreign country, to really meet someone that I don't even remember. So the story goes that almost ten years ago, I believe, my parents and their best friends traveled to Italy, and in doing so decided to rent a house in Monte San Savino to stay at for a couple weeks. So they rented this house from Joyce. And being the arms always open person that she is, she welcomed them into her home in Arezzo and really made a bond. And then a year or so later, Joyce and her son Francesco made the journey to Atlanta, and there are some incredibly embarrassing pictures of me when I'm probably in 5th grade, with my braces and a sweet ponytail hanging out in the fountains at Centennial Olympic Park with Garrett and Francesco (her son who is only maybe a few years older than Garrett). I could not have looked any different, minus the fact that when Joyce found me on Saturday I had my hair in almost the exact ponytail that I had once worn that day at Centennial Park. I guess you really do never grow up.

But Joyce has so much history to her. But really she just has four homes, one in Arezzo, one in Monte San Savino, one in Prego in Cortona, and one on the coast somewhere. She allows family and groups to come stay in her homes from maybe around June to October, not including her gorgeous home in Arezzo where she and her "husband" Sandro live. I put some pictures of the houses up on my facebook album of Arezzo. They are absolutely breathtaking. She really has invested so much of herself and her time to taking care and decorating these homes. She actually graduated college majoring in French and maybe Literature. And part of her story of graduating in French and then going on to teach French in a prestigious all girls school in the north is how her story in Italy got started. But interior decorating was always her passion. And it's great to see how much she really loves to take the time to make these houses her projects. They really are so incredibly beautiful. I told her that I would be back shortly and that she better be expecting me to come stay in her houses. I absolutely can not wait.

But after she met me in Arezzo and we walked around for a bit, her trying to convince me I need to buy new shoes because seeing me in my chacos was making her cold, we finally headed back to her home. But we chatted for a bit on the way back, but I had a hard time concentrating on some of the things she was saying because I was engrossed in the land and scenery around me, and still so amazed that I was where I was.

Her house is breathtaking. It has seven bedrooms and maybe eight baths. The house itself is over 500 years old and has so much history to it. It's built like a tower with surrounding levels connected to the tower, with a massive patio deck - so absolutely perfect for a massive party - and a pool, back deck, and "guest house" where Sandro's older son, wife, and 14 year old son live. It has maybe four bedrooms, as the guest house. Ridiculous. She brings me in the house and puts me in the elevator...strange to me. But come to find out, the house is three floors, but she and Sandro only live on the third floor because they decided that they didn't need to space and wanted to be closer. So they only use the third floor, complete with three bedrooms and baths, a full kitchen, and living area.


So Sunday night I finally made it home from my travels in one piece. Not sure how I fully survived and was able to make it back to Cortona in one piece, but I did. And to me, that's so mind blowing. I actually traveled, alone, in Italy, and was okay with it. But I couldn't believe to tell you the warming comfort I had when Joyce pulled up to the grand circle at the bottom of Diavolo (my best friend the massive hill), and I couldn't wait to walk up and see everyone that I had left behind for only 30 hours. I was able to text Caroline and meet up with her and Katie and April, the girls as I refer to them, though Claire and Caroline C were not there, and met them at Cafe Celesoni. My heart and head were full of so much that I had experienced that I felt like I wanted to tell them everything, but was so worried I couldn't shut my mouth. But it also felt better to hear that I hadn't really missed anything while I was gone. I always want to be part of the action, and never not do something, and going to Arezzo was just what I needed. But in our attempt to go get one drink and finish our catching up at Lions Well, two bottles of wine, two bottles of sparkling wine, and a couple of beers and a pina colada later, I somehow had the girls in tears about my story from the weekend.

I can't help but want to be able to tell her story to everyone. I clearly wasn't the only one that thought that there was something much bigger than what was seen on the outside there in that weekend trip....

I'm picking up this blog almost a whole week after I started writing it. I feel awful that I couldn't get it all out in one sitting, but there was so much that I really had to take in. I think honestly what had the girls in tears almost a whole week ago when I had returned from Arezzo, was my story of the love that Joyce has for her husband, and the life that she lives.

Joyce talked my ear off on the way back from being downtown. I wanted to take it all in. But when we got to her house, and she shoved me in her tiny little elevator up to the third floor, the first thing she did was yell for her Sandro. She piped up like when you see a husband come home from work, and yells, "honey I'm home." Granted hers was in Italian, but it didn't matter. I knew exactly what she was yelling, saying something around "Sandro my love, I'm home. Where are you my love?". She could not have been any more exciting to see him. I personally couldn't wait to meet his strapping man that she called her love, that she's lived with for almost 21 years now, and still gets overly excited when she gets home to see him.

I'm not going to lie, when I met Sandro, it didn't all quite make sense. Joyce was this overly excited about life person, with so much energy and life and youth to her, that when I met Sandro, he didn't give off the same era. I didn't take me long to pick up on something, something that didn't quite seem right. And when I finally did figure it out, Joyce had told me that Sandro had Parkinson's.

But the way she talks about him, and the way she loves him, hasn't changed from the day they met. She still calls him her strapping handsome lover that she met on a blind date through a mutual friend that set them up together. Now he's older and the Parkinson's has taken a lot out of him, she still loves him the same way she did when he was younger. He shuffled over from his chair and gave her a kiss and welcomed me to his house. Sandro doesn't speak a lot of English, but he's learned some over the years. He actually reads National Geographic, and that is where he's learned a lot of what he knows. Because Joyce speaks every language under the sun, their communication efforts are a piece of cake. But they almost don't even have to be speaking to each other to really feel like there is something there.

We were already late coming home, and from what I heard Sandro liked his eating time schedule, and we were definitely late on his time, so I figured he had already eaten. But also come to find out, when he heard that Joyce was bringing a guest to dinner, he had told her that she absolutely had wanted to wait to eat with us. When we sat down at dinner, Joyce had started talking to me about things here and there, and Sandro would try to follow and somewhat try to input. But when Joyce turned to him to talk for a bit, they went on in Italian for what seemed like forever. I loved sitting there listening to them speak to each other. And a one point Joyce turned to me to apologize that she just hadn't seen Sandro in a few days and just really needed some time to catch up and ask him how his doctor appointments and things were going. I absolutely understood. I even felt bad that I had taken away so much of her time that she had always devoted to him. But they way they conversed, and the way she looks at him with deep love, and even wants to hold his hand at the dinner table, and joke to him in English, and she pushes him to speak to me in English, and translates for the both of us - it's just nothing I've ever seen before.

And I sit here Sunday morning, almost a week later, and now I start to cry because now I really understand where the girls were last Sunday when they heard my story. You can't help but sit there and witness these two people, one who's so full of life who would give anything to make her lover happy and healthy. I want that. I think everyone does. It's just sometimes a hard and scary thing. I have to think about Joyce who was left by her husband when their son was only four years old. How do you go on with your life after that? How did she manage to get where she is today? She loves everything about Sandro. She loves his house, and his sons who live less than a hundred yards from their house, and she loves his sons' wives and fiances. She loves to just be around Sandro. She wanted him around when she would talk to me in English, just so she could have him around. And they both live on only one floor of their gorgeous three floor house - their reasoning, they don't need it, they just want to be close, even though because of his Parkinson's, Sandro has his own room. The rest of the house is amazing, but because Sandro is so immobile, they keep it simple, make him safer and more comfortable.

Our plans for Sunday were to go shopping and then to go get lunch somewhere. But Joyce informed me Sunday morning that things had slightly changed. She told me that Sandro had asked that if he cooked lunch, if we would come back and eat with him. And of course, I wasn't going to object. And by the time we got back from our quick shopping trip, the table was completely set, two plates, two forks, knife, spoon, drinking glass, wine glass and napkin per person, plus extra plates, more food, olive oil, more wine, the works. It was pretty amazing to see that. And to know that he just wanted us there. Even though he really did hate being left alone with me because he has such a hard time talking in English, and an even harder time understand the things that I asked, he just wanted Joyce around. And she wanted to be around him.

There is obviously something unexplainable in a relationship like that. I feel like Joyce has a lot to do to take care of Sandro, but he clearly gives so much happiness back to her. And I'm not sure how the first 21 years of their relationship was. From the looks of the pictures, it was an absolute dream. There are gorgeous pictures of the two of them hiking, and hunting, and pictures of each other that one of them would take when they went on trips together.

I stumbled across this bible verse yesterday, and it reminded me I needed to finish writing about Joyce. It's Genesis 29:20 -
So Jacob worked seven years to pay for Rachel. But his love for her was so strong that it seemed to him but a few days.
I love this. And sometimes in the world today, you don't see this. But there are those few moments, where Sandro spent his entire morning getting lunch ready for us, or when Joyce would call for her love as soon as she walks through the door, that makes me think.

So for those who made it through this post, sorry it was another long one. Trust me, it's about forty times shorter than it should be for everything I experienced, but I wanted to keep it doable. But I hope it gives you a glance into something really amazing, this Italian love that you see now and then, is something that I hope for everyone.



1 John 4:18 -
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear...