Casa di Gio was a welcome change from my room at Residenza Il Doumo or my one room flat in Veste Sul Mare. The trade off for incredible ocean views from the cliffs with shop lined streets, an abundance of restaurants and afternoons at the beach was a very different setting. Rolling hills with scattered homesteads and farms on one side and the town of Laurenzana on the other with its tightly knit neighborhoods lining the hill and the ancient castle perched on the upper edge, unaware that an advancing army is no longer an impending threat. I awake to the sounds of neighboring lambs being endlessly herded in their pen and the casa’s truffle hunting dogs releasing energy while they run about the yard chase butter flys and the shadows of birds from above. Erminia and I banter back and forth through our translator apps while her husband has no patience with an American who’s brain has not quite transitioned from Espanole/ English to Italian but I do my best to convey my point. Having cautiously Facebook messaged my new found Scavullo contact with no reply and finding that any records from around 1885 which I pegged as my grandfathers birth period had not yet been electronically recorded I decided to venture to the local cemetery. I was aware that many older graves had been reunified so to speak to make room for newer graves and above ground tombs. Searching the main local cemetery paying close attention to the back wall where I was told the older graves would be I found a lot of Pavese, names from my grandmothers line and only one Scavullo who was right in line with my fathers age. Maybe a long last cousin of daddy’s who remained in Laurenzana. I heard from the locals that most of our line were now located thirty minutes away in Corleto. As it came to be I planned to come to Laurenzana to find my roots from
my past and instead I found a new friendship in the the owners of Casa De Gio. I picked cherries and apricots which I turned into what might have been Laurenzana’s first ever made Cherry pie. I learned about braiding grape vines, discovered plants I had cooked with but never seen in the soil, visited ancient churches that stood when my great grandfather resided in Laurenzana and discovered roads, neighborhoods and alleys that have stood the test of time. The town of Laurenzana will remain fresh in my mind and my new friends will be more of an anchor than the ghosts of the past could ever tie me to the land. I followed the footprints of the past and discovered that some steps lead to people, not documents; to landscapes, not archives and to friendships, not family trees.
fscavullo 