Rimani Come Sei

I’m still in Lecce and will be on my way to Rome tomorrow.  Then Seattle for a week.

I have a lot of emotions to process right now.

I like this land.  A lot.  I haven’t felt such a “vibration” (for lack of a better word) since setting foot in Argentina.  The city of Lecce is adorable and very navigable for a girl without a car.  I’ve been giving tango lessons here and am enjoying developing a relationship with the milonguero school here.  My visit here has been full of all kinds of synchronicities that I just cannot ignore. I’ve made a wonderful friend here and it’s made me miss my girlfriends in Perugia.  I wish I could bring them all together.  I don’t know what I’ll do yet but the wheels are turning.

While I’ve been here I’ve received the very sad news that my wonderful grandmother, Teresa Ferrari, passed away.  She was 89 years old.  She was the matriarch of the family and everybody’s grandmother – everybody’s.  All the kids in her neighborhood called her “Grandma”.  I still remember 8 years ago sitting with my cousin in Perugia, talking about our grandfather’s death, which had happened a few years prior, and saying, “What are we going to do when it’s grandma’s turn?”  We couldn’t bear to think of it anymore.  Her presence has been that powerful in our lives.

She lived until the very last minute.  She was an artist.  She lived her last years in a beautiful condo in West Seattle, and you could see Vashon island from her balcony, which almost symbolized her being able to watch over her children who live there.   She walked everywhere.  She took her fitness class at the senior center.  She was hard to get a hold of because she had quite an impressive social calendar!   Wherever I’ve lived in the world, she has always sent me handmade cards for my birthday, Christmas, and just because.  I still have them all.

This video below was put together by my friend Alessandra Bray, and the song is by a group from this area called Bambini Latini.  The song is called “Rimani Come Sei” (stay the way you are, loosely translated), which is what my grandmother might say to me.  Most of the photographs are of the beautiful Salento and were taken by Silvestro Silvestori, who runs a cooking school in Lecce (more on that later).