Memories of Seven Years in the Midst of Life’s Music

This morning, as I scrolled through Facebook, I came across a post in a GenX group that was about Naples (Italy, not Florida), and it made me reflect on my time there:

I lived in the Naples area for seven years.  I absolutely loved living there!  Many Americans hated it, but they never left the base, unless they went to the Americanized restaurants or the Rec Center at Carney Park.  If they did a trip anywhere, it was always through the American IT&T (Information Tours & Travel) or MWR (Morale, Welfare, & Recreation) offices, to places like Garmisch in Germany or Corfu in Greece.  Don’t get me wrong.  I did a few of these trips too and they were well worth it, but I also traveled on my own quite a bit.  So many people classified the Neapolitans as loud, rude, and thieves.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  They are animated when they talk, and it may be off-putting for Americans to travel to a place where the primary language is not English, but it doesn’t make them rude.  They just don’t speak our language!  And, in most cases, they were not thieves at all.  Most people I met over the course of my time there would give the shirt off their back to someone in need.  Of course, there were thieves, just as there are in any city in the US, but at least in Naples, they weren’t going to shoot you for the €50 in your purse! 

I was fortunate to live off-base on the economy.  I had a nice-sized traditional apartment in a country house, just minutes from the sea, and convenient to anything I needed.  My landlord’s family lived upstairs, and they were amazing from the very beginning!  During my move-in, they were present to make sure that all went smoothly, and to help translate if needed.  The first Sunday in my apartment, they invited me upstairs for lunch!  I spent the afternoon enjoying a delicious Neapolitan lunch and getting to know the people who would become much more than landlords over the next five years – they would become family.  As I said, my house was a traditional home, one that lacked all of the modern conveniences like shiny new marble, built-in air conditioning, and a dishwasher, but I loved it!  It was warm and homey.  There were multiple balconies on which to relax.  There was a clothesline set up off of one of the balconies, and I would give anything for one here in the US!  There was always something comforting about line-dried sheets!  The yard was walled, and the family had a garden from which I could take whatever I wanted.  There was a lemon tree right off of my main balcony, and I could literally lean over and pick lemons whenever I wanted.  I was safe and secure in this home, despite its proximity to a major roadway and to a high-theft area.  When my parents came to visit, my Italian “family” was at my door to greet them as soon as we got home from the airport!  They were invited to lunch upstairs, and my Italian “family” always asked about them.  Antimo, the father, could not speak English, except to say, “My brother”, when talking to or about my dad.  Amalia and their daughters, Antonella and Laura, were the translators when I wasn’t around!  As I was leaving from my last visit almost 14 years ago, Amalia held my hands with tears in her eyes and told me that I was the best friend she had ever had.  I will always remember my years living in the Carannante house as some of the best years of my life. 

I once went to Capri for a weekend, and sadly, I was on crutches due to an accident the weekend before.  But I still went: alone on the train and the aliscafo (hydrofoil).  It was a magical weekend, and I went for dinner once night at a small trattoria off the beaten path.  Since I was dining alone, the owner invited me to sit with his family and I had a lovely dinner that stretched late into the night with my newfound friends.  When it came time to leave, he would not accept any money from me, and one of the daughters drove me back to my hotel on her scooter, crutches and all!

That is how the Neapolitans are.  They are just down to earth people who take great joy in life around them.  They put family and friends above everything else – even work!  They are proud of their city first and Italy second. 

The food was spectacular!  I used to shop in the local groceries, where I would buy fresh meats, insalata, tomatoes, olives, fruit, and mozzarella di bufala!  I miss the freshness and simplicity of the food.  As an American, we are told that if we eat pasta every day, we are eating too many carbs and will become overweight, and yet, that is the main course in Italy every day!  Trust me when I tell you that most Neapolitans remain thin into middle age!  And I don’t get why, somewhere in the US, there isn’t a region that has figured out how to make mozzarella, the true mozzarella, not the hard blocks of yellowish cheese that we get in the store.  True mozzarella is made with milk of the water buffalo, not milk of the cow.  It is white, soft, and wet, kept in its own juice until it is time to serve it!  It is only good for about 2-3 days when it is made, and it should never be eaten cold!!!  Tomatoes should be red, not the orange we have become so accustomed to here, and they should never, ever be mealy!!! 

Naples’s traffic is fun to watch.  Driving in all the craziness is an art form, and I always recommended to new transfers in to wait about a month before they attempted it!  Oh, to be in the middle of it all!  It is difficult to capture the essence of it on film, but I have certainly tried.  I try to describe what it is like to people and the only thing I can say is this…  Imagine the worst traffic you have ever seen.  Now, multiply it by 10, and cut the size of the streets in half.  Add in a large helping of pedestrian traffic, both on the sidewalk and in the street, sometimes moving, sometimes stopped to look at something or talk.  Wait!  We are not done there…  There are a couple of large buses, and they are attempting to pass each other.  Meanwhile, there are cars lining the roadway, parked, and some of them even in parking spaces!!!  Are you picturing it yet?  Good, now, for adventure add in about 25,000 scooters weaving in and out like hammerhead sharks on crack!!!  You might have some idea of what it is like to drive in Naples!  However, if you would prefer, you can check out YouTube videos to get a visual of what it’s like. 

There is the ever-present heartbeat that Naples gives off…  A mixture of one of the most lyrical languages you will ever hear, spoken in the musical dialect of Naples, car horns blaring, the whine of scooters, an ambulance in the distance, the rumble of traffic on the streets which are built upon other, ancient streets…  Naples throbs, constantly.  She is alive, she is proud, and she is real.  She is raw, unpretentious, and unapologetic.  You either love her or you hate her, but you cannot be surrounded by her without feeling her.  She is not picturesque – at least not everywhere, and she is not always clean.  She reminds me of the scugnizzi that live within her…  Sometimes poor, sometimes unkempt, sometimes brash, always animated, and always proud…  No matter…  For me, she is always real, she is life!