Category Archives: Belonging

Tranquillo

Belonging, Care, Everyday Mysteries, Time and Space

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Whilst here, in Anghiari, I have been reading a lovely book called A Philosophy of Walking (by Frédéric Gros). Here are a couple of passages on the experience of time when walking:

Walking is the best way to go more slowly than any other method that has ever been found. To walk, you need to start with two legs. The rest is optional. If you want to go faster, then don’t walk, do something else: drive, slide or fly. Don’t walk. And when you are walking, there is only one sort of performance that counts: the brilliance of the sky, the splendour of the landscape. Walking is not a sport. (2014: 2)

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Chiesa della Propositura

Belonging, Care, Gift and Grace

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This is a piece I’ve been meaning to write for a while. Each blog that I have done on arriving in Anghiari over the last couple of years has a reference to bells ringing. I find them such a welcoming sound. And they always seem to be ringing just as I arrive! If you happen to be in the main piazza when they are ringing, they seem to come from a particular direction, you feel certain about it, but, in fact, they are coming from the opposite direction, up the hill behind the piazza, from Chiesa della Propositura, an 18th church, with a lovely Della Robbia behind the alter.

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Weather, meetings, walking

Belonging, Ecology, Everyday Mysteries, Gift and Grace

20180318_022512-1It has turned bitterly cold, with light snow yesterday here in Anghiari, and snow on the mountains across the Tiber valley (Anghiari is located in the foothills of the Apennines, on a ridge between the Sovara and Tiber valleys). While I have been here before when it has snowed, there is something distinctive about the light in the landscape this time. It’s the spring light, I realize, that is giving a particular brightness to what would normally be a wintery view. If you look again at this photo which was at the beginning of my last blog and imagine snow on the mountains, you might get some idea of this view.

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Welcome back to Anghiari

Belonging, Everyday Mysteries, Gift and Grace

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Yesterday I arrived in Anghiari, and I found, once again, that there is something about this experience of arrival that makes me want to record it. I’m aware that I will say what I have said on other occasions, but each time is new, each time I reexperience the joys of everyday life in this place. In fact, one of the things that I rediscover is that things don’t change here in the way that they do in Sydney, where I usually live. Here there is a sense of continuity in everyday rituals, over years, generations; the buildings remain over centuries; the same people are in the same shops. But, of course, there is also change, and the most obvious, for me on arrival this time, has been the change in season.

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Thank you

Belonging, Creativity, Everyday Mysteries, Gift and Grace, Teachers and Students, Time and Space, Uncategorized

I didn’t know what I was going to say to you today. Only on the train, on the way in here, did it become clear. I realised that I’d been given the very thing that had to be said.

Absent-mindedly driving to work yesterday, I stopped at traffic lights. Waiting to cross the road were a mother with a toddler in a stroller. The child was turning around to engage the mother and something about the intensity of their moment shook me from my half-life. I saw them: I saw how alive they were. For them, everything in the world was unfolding from this moment together, whereas for me it was only the empty time between leaving home and arriving at work. At the corner of Darley and King Streets, Newtown, at 11.10am on Thursday 2/11/17, two worlds touched, one a half-world of befores and laters and the other a vital moment of here and now.

What came to mind, unsought, was Pieter Bruegels’s painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, and Auden’s poem about it, Musée des Beaux-Arts. These two have been constant reference points in my adult life. When I got my first academic job, at Macquarie University in 1984, the first and almost only decoration in my office was a print of the painting, with Auden’s poem glued to its back. Somewhat pompously, perhaps, it was to remind me of the role of sociologists: to witness the suffering that would otherwise go unnoticed. In 1989, the picture came with me to my office at UNSW, and it stayed for decades, until the foxing became too embarrassing.

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Belonging in Anghiari: Simona Boldrini and Matteo Boncompagni

Belonging, Everyday Mysteries, Uncategorized

While I was staying in Anghiari at Christmas time, 2016-17, I began conducting interviews with people who live in the town. Some were conducted in Italian, some in English. They will all be published in both languages. In this blog I’m posting  interviews with Simona Boldrini and her son, Matteo Boncompagni. 20170109_170644_resized

Il senso di appartenenza ad Anghiari: Simona Boldrini

La famiglia di Simona ha il negozio, “Tutto di Boldrini” situato in un palazzo rinascimentale sulla via principale che dalla collina di Anghiari scende giù, attraversando tutta la valle tiberina, fino a Sansepolcro. “Tutto” è uno di quei negozietti dove, in Italia, si può veramente trovare di tutto ed è anche un vivace punto d‘incontro. Adesso che la mamma è, si fa per dire, “in pensione”, lo gestisce Simona. L’ho intervistata insieme al figlio Matteo nell’appartamento dove sto io, che è vicinissimo al negozio. L’intervista, condotta in italiano, è stata trascritta e tradotta in inglese da Mirella Alessio e questa ne è una versione editata.

 

Sono nata nel 1976 qui ad Anghiari e sono stata una tra le ultime nate che poi dopo hanno chiuso l’ospedale qui ad Anghiari. E la mia mamma ha sempre abitato ad Anghiari, il mio babbo uguale. Poi sono cresciuta a Carmine, al santuario del Carmine, dove sei venuta alla messa di Natale… la famiglia vive proprio lì, dietro al santuario.

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Belonging in Anghiari: Andrea Merendelli

Belonging, Creativity, Everyday Mysteries, Uncategorized

While I was staying in Anghiari at Christmas time, 2016-17, I began conducting interviews with people who live in the town. Some were conducted in Italian, some in English. They will all be published in both languages.

Il senso di appartenenza ad Anghiari: Andrea Merendelliandrea_1

 Andrea è il direttore del teatro di Anghiari che ha sede in un magnifico palazzo settecentesco. Sono arrivata nel suo ufficio mentre stava per concludere un incontro sui futuri eventi con un gruppo di giovani, inclusa Armida Kim, e durante tutta la nostra conversazione c’è stato un continuo viavai di persone. L’intervista, condotta in italiano, è stata trascritta e tradotta in inglese da Mirella Alessio e questa ne è una versione editata.

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Belonging in Anghiari: Giuseppe Dini

Belonging, Everyday Mysteries, Gift and Grace, Uncategorized

While I was staying in Anghiari at Christmas time, 2016-17, I began conducting interviews with people who live in the town. Some were conducted in Italian, some in English. They will all be published in both languages.

Belonging in Anghiari: Giuseppe Dini

 For many years now Giuseppe has been hosting visitors to Anghiari. I have known him since my first stay in the town, in 2003. On a spring morning, after a long trip from Australia, I was met by him at the train station in Arezzo. From that first visit, whenever I’ve needed help with one thing or another, Giuseppe has been there! So, when I set out on this project of interviewing people who live in Anghiari, he gave me assistance and encouragement. I interviewed Giuseppe in the apartment in which I stay, owned by a Canadian, and managed by him. The interview was conducted in English, and Mirella Alessio transcribed it and translated this edited version into Italian.

I was born about 4 km from Anghiari, in a country house named ‘la Rocchetta’, very close to villa Barbolana. Until I was 9, I had never been to the village of Anghiari, because, naturally, there wasn’t a car, nothing … and so for me the world was only my country house and the houses around it. I couldn’t imagine how big the world was. When I was 9, my family had to move from that country house to another one, close to Anghiari. With a car then, and some furniture, we moved, and that was the first time that I saw Anghiari. And then I said ‘Wow how big is the world’!Giuseppe Continue reading Belonging in Anghiari: Giuseppe Dini →

Belonging in Anghiari: Armida Kim

Belonging, Everyday Mysteries, Gift and Grace, Uncategorized

While I was staying in Anghiari at Christmas time, 2016-17, I began conducting interviews with people who live in the town. Some were conducted in Italian, some in English. They will all be posted in both languages.

Belonging in Anghiari: Armida Kim

 Cinzia and her daughters, Armida and Margherita, run the restaurant ‘Talozzi’ located in the heart of Anghiari. When I was invited to lunch there, Armida carefully explained dishes to me, how they had been prepared and the provenance of various ingredients. After the meal, I interviewed her and her mother. The interview with Armida was conducted in English, and was transcribed by Mirella Alessio who translated this edited version into Italian.

 I was born in Sansepolcro in 1993, and for the first few months of my life, my mum and I stayed here, in Anghiari, with my grandparents. Then we moved to Milan where my dad was working. After 3 years we came back. Until I was 16-17, we lived in the centre, in the most ancient part of Anghiari, where my grandparents lived, and then we moved to the countryside.armida 4

 I went to elementary and middle schools in Anghiari, but, then, for high school, I went to a school of art in Sansepolcro that specialised in textiles. And now I am now doing a 3 year European Bachelor of Science in Design in Sansepolcro. Actually … there is a funny thing here, because when I finished high school I won a prize to a University in Torino to study fashion design. I don’t quite know why I didn’t go…. I am very different from my family because they moved a lot, and… actually, I wanted to stay here. Also, the topic that I am studying is very important in this area. Continue reading Belonging in Anghiari: Armida Kim →