We are enjoying the apex of the summer festival season in Italy. Sunday was spent driving idyllic lanes from an ancient archery festival to a canceled Gregorian Chant to a Communist festival. But we had to end up in our own village for a religious festival. You see, after taking pictures at a procession last month and showing them around, we had suddenly become the town’s photographers. “Don’t forget, tomorrow at 8:30, a procession!” the old women would say to us every time we passed, sometimes cutely pantomiming a person clicking the shutter of a camera. Like everything, the festival would begin and end at the little parish church on the main road.
Our village suffers during these festivals by not having a bar across the piazza from the church. During mass, men have no recourse to hanging around just outside the door, puffing away and speaking to each other in hushed tones. Under normal circumstances they would be at the bar, out of the way during the mass so nobody has to shush them, but close enough to the door to dovetail handsomely with the line of women filing out of the church—as if they had been there all the time, in spirit at least.
Although men through the years have been smart enough to recognize the incredible power given those who take the spiritual helm of the religious ship without letting women anywhere near the rudder, religion suits women far better than it does men.
Honestly, it’s easy for women to become one with the Lord. They practice on men all the time.
After all, if a couple weren’t one in spirit and body, we men wouldn’t get asked the unanswerable question every women asks at some point during a relationship, “Honey, am I going to be warm enough in this sweater? (…which is so small you can’t possibly wear it and despite the fact you usually sleep naked on top of the covers and sweat away like an over matched sumo wrestler while I shiver under 13 blankets and the weight of a large Labrador Retriever.)”
Or, to simplify things, there’s the French fry ploy, proving you always share a stomach with one you love.
“Honey, I’m not so hungry, so I’ll just eat some of your fries.”
“But I want to eat them myself. I’m immensely hungry. Order your own and I’ll eat what you can’t”
“No. I want yours.”
Thus, from the sad Gospel of James (26):
Take, eat, this is my French Fry.
There wasn’t a procession at 8:30. At 8:30 there was a mass. It was standing room only. The new priest was rather long winded. Mass wasn’t over until after 9:40.
It was dark by then, of course. Very dark. A few Christmas lights were strung across the route the procession was destined to follow. There was no moon.
I admit, just this once, that I am way too attached to reality when shooting night pictures; I hate using the flash. I depend on the spectacular image stabilization on my Canon IS lens to shoot in the dark. Naturally.
I knew I was in trouble the minute the wooden Mary with baby Jesus got hoisted upon numerous shoulders and floated into the dark street—looking like a piece of coal on velvet in the viewfinder. Villagers followed with candles, chanting. Despite the spiritual glow and well-being which flooded my soul, no light to speak of was cast on the proceedings by the following spirits or their candles.
Ok, so I got a couple of shots. They’re not good enough to make big prints out of, I’m sure. The women will be disappointed. I will have to put them off for a great long while before admitting defeat. Or maybe I’ll just leave the country for a time.
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After the procession there was the promise of “dolce,” little sweets. Of course, this is Italy, so there was more. There was the salata, meaning the savory foods.
Tables were set up outside the little church, at first with mostly dolce and soft drinks. Then, as if out of nowhere, women carrying baskets and trays of salata descended upon the masses from out of the darkness. A few renegade men showed up with wine.
This is where the fun started. Suddenly we’re at war. It’s the dolce vs. the salate, like Malspinas and Medicis duking it out over Fivizzano.
“Eat the salata first!” scream the women with baskets of panini stuffed with coppa and salami. They are the Malspinas, the bad spines trying to assert themselves with meat. The herb torts, of which there are many, are wonderful as well. Each woman wants you to try hers. “Mangia la salata prima!” they scream into the night.
The Medici dolce, hereafter refered to as the sweet Medicis, hold their tongues admirably while gliding effortlessly through the clot of people, tempting them with all manner of little tidbits oozing with sugary gooiness.
And then there’s the wine to wash it all down. It is “white” and home brewed. It has also been sitting for a while in the evening heat. It has become the color of Lipton’s finest, if not a tad darker. Our cups are filled by the organist.
“Yuck,” says Martha upon tasting it, “Here, you drink it.”
Aha! They taketh away thine freedom fries—but they givith, too.
Problem is, the givith part comes from the land of Yuck.