Mom, look away. If you read this post, and ask me about it later, I’m going to insist it was all narrative hyperbole, so why invite the conversation? Just…look away.

For everyone else—

Let’s begin.

Like many high-schoolers, I delighted in playing hooky. Such an old-timey way to describe the found joy one gains by tossing off an afternoon of drudgery in favor of…possibility. Even if I cut chemistry to hang around my house watching games shows and nibbling leftovers, the afternoon suddenly vibrated with a freeing thrill.

The best though, the absolute best, hooky came from ditching around lunchtime and heading for the beach. Growing up in Silicon Valley, we were lucky enough to be separated from the Pacific by just a pine-scented drive through the Santa Cruz mountains. It became a regular passage, singing with the radio, as my friends and I cruised nonchalantly beneath ancient forests.

Once there, we’d settle into “our cove” and get busy with laying out towels, gossiping, and really only putting our toes in the water because what nobody tells you is that the Pacific ocean is it is cold. Afterwards, we’d stop at Dharma’s for milkshakes and vegetarian burritos, and zip home, the sun warming our shoulders.

In high school, when life feels endlessly constricted with expectations of grades and social status and which shoulder is currently the cool one to hoist your backpack, the freedom that came from these excursions to Santa Cruz became the golden ribbon running through my adolescence. 

Fast forward 30 years and I’m living in a pandemic with what feels like the toxicity of the world pressing against me from all angles. Sometimes it feels hard to take a full breath. Yes, I’m living in Italy, which is better than winning the lottery, but 30 years ago I was in high school with a roof over my head, a stable government, and enough food in the fridge to gorge on while playing hooky, and yet I obsessed over which shoulder should bear the weight of my backpack, so I’ll go out on a limb and say I was living the life of Riley even then. Whatever that means.

The point is, I anticipated the drive to Puglia with the same thrill of getting a note passed to me in Algebra with just two words, “Cut class?” It felt like a release, like we’d been set loose to chase dappled sunlight down the coast of Italy to a land where regular rules didn’t apply.

Gabe picked up this a few days into our flight to Puglia when he laughed that the catchphrase for our vacation should be, “Why not?’

Can we buy these mango and paprika flavored potato chips at the Autogrill?

Why not?

Can we get another lemon granita?

Why not?

 Can I take this leftover hunk of bread to see if I can get fish to swim up to me?

Why not?

Part of this relinquishing the usual conventions I usually use to keep my life fixed and safe comes with the territory of having older children. I’m no longer trying to be a good model for them—that ship has sailed—and I’m no longer interested in constraining their joy in favor of learning the lessons of discipline. I’d so much rather join their merriment and crunch on novel potato chips while singing the wrong lyrics to songs as the wind whips my hair around.

There’s a bubbling delight in the “why not?”, in the release of expectation, in the shirking off the ordinary for a spontaneous change of scene. To fling plans to the wind in favor of figuring things out as we go. To spend almost no time researching the best place for lunch in favor of having more time to idle in a lounge chair, listening to the ocean crash against the rocks right outside the gate.

That self-given freedom followed us all down Italy’s boot. It began right at the beginning, as we piled into our new (used) car for the first time, heady with the scent of liberation that only wheels provide. We drove the 45 minutes to the Le March coast, pointing out crumbling castles and quilt-like vistas. Turning right at the sea, we continued the journey, flanked by steep green hills on one side and the sea on the other, stretching out like translucent blue resin. Three hours into the journey and we felt our tummies rumbling and wondered where we should stop for lunch. I’d looked at a map and found that Termoli, in Molise, lay at about the halfway point to Torre Chianca, our first destination in Puglia, and the only one we had planned. Everything after our five days in Torre Chianca was up in the air.

Old habits dying hard, I’d started looking at restaurants in Termoli, but gave up quickly. Mostly because I just didn’t want the aggravation of finding the right spot with the right hours with the right food, especially since I wasn’t even clear what time we’d arrive. I had decided to wing it. In retrospect, I was glad I’d at least looked at what was out there, as it allowed me to gather a passing understanding of the town’s layout and recognize restaurant names.  

We rolled down our windows as we approached Termoli, the promise of sea breezes too good to pass up now that we weren’t zipping along the coast’s curves. An open parking spot served as an invitation and we eagerly approached what we assumed would be underwhelming, as you can only really do on vacation, when even a rest stop is anticipated with a frisson of excitement.

Why did we assume Termoli would be underwhelming? Well, according to a movie we watched once, “Molise è niente”, Molise is nothing. When you google Molise, you’ll find variants of this, including Molisn’t. Molise is, after all, a tiny region, not known for anything in particular, not even being rough around the edges like Abruzzo or fiery and disorganized like Calabria. I’d never heard of it outside My Country (a fun movie, by the way, free on Amazon Prime… and you can find more Italian-language movies here or English movies set in Italy here…My Country is actually both.) But, as I’m constantly learning in this life, what I don’t know seems constantly growing, and stereotypes don’t do anyone any favors.

 When I posted my breathless photos of Termoli with captions akin to “What is this place??” I discovered many of you have already discovered and fallen in love with Termoli. As ever, just when I think I’m cutting edge, I discover I’m late to the party with the last-year’s appetizers.

This is all to say, I adored Termoli. Even now, typing this, I feel a rush of affection. Like Favignana, it’s a place I had no preconceived notion of and its charms repeatedly swept me off my feet, leaving me with shining eyes and in love with the world. Have you ever felt that way?

I loved the broad pedestrian streets, filled with so many people I assumed they must all be waiting for a bus, until I realized those clutches of people were all up and down the thoroughfare. They cast us curious glances, so either Termoli is not particularly touristed, or our Americanness during a pandemic raised eyebrows in a way that it doesn’t in Spello where we’re considered “Spellamericani”.

Hungry now, we stumbled on a restaurant that no doubt would have been amazing, crowded as it was. But we would have had to dine in a quasi-basement and I couldn’t bear the thought of not enjoying the way the sea plays tricks in the light. Also, it must be said, we’ve only dined outside since COVID and I’m not particularly eager to go maskless in a place with unknown ventilation.

So we found a restaurant with outdoor seating, off the main road, and settled ourselves in. First order of business, following the rules of Italian dining out, we requested the house antipasti platter. This is always a surprising carnival of flavor, especially when traveling outside our home zone. This time we delighted in octopus on riced potatoes, marinated anchovies, a little tuna burger dressed with grilled eggplant, sautéed mussels, a meatball of fish, and more things I can’t remember and I couldn’t photograph to aid my memory because the photos are a blur of hands as my family dives in and I start to worry that I’ll not get my fair share, so I have to put down my camera. Like the sudden joy that comes from casting off expectations, this will become a theme of our trip to Puglia. Less philosophical, but a theme nonetheless.

Our lunch amazed and delighted all four of us. I had fried seafood, including paranza (which I was glad I had looked up in advance… I adore the little fish you get in Italian fried seafood baskets, and wouldn’t have recognized the name if I hadn’t), Keith had a succulent ray, Gabe had an assortment of seafood that he easily polished off, and Siena had an unusual pesto with gnocchi and clams. Unusual for just those components, but also because the pesto had a flavor none of us could identify. Maybe there was another herb in there? Or some roasted onion? Or perhaps their pecorino cheese is different? If you know, please tell me, because I’m dying to replicate it.

After lunch, we wandered to the old town. I’ve decided that Italians know how to paint houses in just the right assortment of sunset colors to trigger delirious happiness. That whole passeggiata was a blur of gesturing. Can you believe this place? The colors, the tight alleys, the church with arresting copper doors, the views over to the beach with the well ordered umbrellas, the dilapidated bridge leading to an equally dilapidated fishing shack with a guy, just waiting, sitting beside a huge sheet that hung down over the side of the shack that read, “Andrà tutto bene”. Which, if you haven’t been following Italy’s response to the pandemic, has become a refrain of sorts. All will be well.

Sighing, we took our leave of Termoli and Molise. With Gabe intoning, “Molise non è niente. Molise è tutto.”

Amore.

That swell of joy and contentment lasted a few hours, as we drove past an increasing number of paddle cactus, their purple fruits begging to be (carefully) picked. Past flatter and more bedraggled landscapes that hinted at a change coming, something…different.

Within a few hours of departing Molise, it looked like we stumbled upon a scene from the apocalypse. My eyes widened as I tried to comprehend the hellscape stretched out in all directions. Olive trees…could those be olive trees? Spindly, dun colored, stripped of their silver and green canopy. They each seemed to tremble in their nudity, and wait with their eyes closed for an inevitable cracking and splintering. And their combined trembling created a visual wail of anguish.

After a beat, I understood.

Gabe’s homeschool topic right now is “Why do olive trees live so long?” and as part of that study, he’d discovered that there is a disease that hit the olive trees in Puglia, primarily around Lecce, that has killed an untold number of trees. Ancient, venerable trees just…died. It’s shocking to hear about, but even more shocking to see. 

Remember that scene in Narnia, where all the animals and spirits had been turned to stone by the White Witch, and they suddenly seemed so fragile and empty? It’s like that. I kept waiting for Aslan’s breath to warm them up, to bring them to life, to animate them once again.

But they just stood there, only appearing more stark as the sun began to set and the light slid away from their barren silhouettes.

Gabe assures me (but he’s 13, so tell me if you know different) that the secret to olive trees longevity lies in their root systems. A tree can “die” from a lightning strike or drought or even disease, and new shoots will prod from the rootstock, ready to take up life’s baton. And it’s true, after awhile I could see it–around each seeming coffin of a tree, a low blur of green. Maybe they will come back. It will take time. But maybe.

Andrà tutto bene.

Dark sifted over the Puglia landscape, and we finally pulled off the highway into Torre Chianca. A place I chose in a totally different manner than I’ve ever chosen a rental before. I went onto Airbnb, put in our specifications (not dates, since those were flexible, but bedrooms, WIFI since Keith and I would be working, etc). Then I turned the setting on mapview and ran my cursor down the coast of Puglia, looking at every house on the water, skipping Pogliano a Mare, since there is a COVID outbreak there at the moment. We liked that this house was away from institutions that could turn our Italian beach vacation into an “anywhere” beach vacation—nightclubs and shops selling flip-flop shaped keychains, etc, etc.  

This did seem out of the way of all that. Waaaaay out of the way. Too out of the way? I grew quiet as we passed bleak neighborhoods that I hoped would be less dismal in the morning. High walls telegraphed “keep out” and I was pretty sure I saw skinny dogs slinking around piles of trash in the road.

Where were we?

I focused on my old mantra, “there are no must sees, the only must is seeing what you see.” No place is nirvana; everyplace has both a dark and a light, and rather than over-research to find illusive perfection, we are better off looking for the beauty in where we land.

This was rather harder with the memory of Termoli snagged in my memory, a colorful, perfect shell among the dun-colored thoughts spinning through my mind.

Before I could start goose-stepping toward second guessing, we arrived. With a stiff upper lip I rang the bell, and listened as it echoed. I realized I needed to use the bathroom. I shifted my weight, pulling Gabe against my side.

Finally, the door was thrown open.

I instantly forgot I needed to use the bathroom.

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