Here, in Noepoli, Basilicata, Italy, folks don’t look at their watches or phones for the time. They listen for the bells. Here, they buy peaches and tomatoes, strings of garlic, onion, and fresh mozzarella all from the men who shout from their trucks. The women (mostly) flock to them with Euro and hope for a large mid-day meal and then a light dinner later. Stray dogs and feral cats roam the stone streets and winding paths, around and around into secret-yet-not-so-secret passages leading you past clay houses with terracotta roofs to a Tabacchi or into one of only three bars in the village. Where the men sit in a line, all in red plastic chairs. They greet you: “Buona Sera!” As they all sip an Italian beer or limoncello or cella grappa, or some such. As the jackdaws and swallows flock overhead, their wings flap on the wind like a row of Italian women, raising their sun-dried shirts or sheets above their heads in tandem and snapping them, over and over, and over. As night falls, the stars emerge and the sun, a prick of pink now, far in the distance, sets over a tiny village ruled by Albanians and locals. Your hostess steps onto the terrace with her long lens telescope. Pointing at Venus or Ursula Major or some other constellation that she knows by heart, the stars mapped in her soul, always felt more than seen. She asks about your writing. You say, “It’s fine” because that’s what you always say even when it’s not. And you wonder if it’ll ever be fine because then you’d stop writing all together. There’s no fun in fine. The winds pick up, the red wine, gone now, the telescope, placed inside beside the wing-backed chairs, across from the breakfast table. Where frittatas, house-made apricot jam, and coffee will await you the next morning, when you awaken by the bells.
