Cinque cartolini da Perugia / Five postcards from Perugia

I.
On one of the many looping routes I take on my daily perambulations of the city, a climbing rose has been trained along the stuccoed side of an apartment building. The long, dark ropes of its body stretch taller than I before the stalks separate and splay their fuchsia blooms. Two stems, four flowering arms. It looks nearly like a painting of itself for its imperfect balance, its perfect contrast to the building’s hue. One of the flowering, leafy tendrils has turned the corner. On the other side, the city’s hillside falls away behind a little stone wall and fence.

II.
I wrote “Drink aranciata on the roof” on my to-do list on Wednesday. I spent the middle of the day locked on grading while the Giro d’Italia ground along in the background; it is shocking how, even here, the hours can slip away in the mundane necessities, the regularities of tasks turning this place into any place. I’m trying to push back against that in whatever ways I can. Teaching a writing-intensive course in five weeks while abroad means there are lots of necessities to which to attend, but there is—must also—be time to drink aranciata on the roof.

Sometimes I have to write the nice things on the list in order to get them done.

III.
Isola Maggiore is an island on the northern edge of Lake Trasimeno, and it houses several churches, a statue of Saint Francis of Assisi, a museum dedicated to the lace school that used to flourish there, a few restaurants and guest-houses, olive trees, two ruined windmills, an old castle now under private ownership and thus inaccessible, a shop full of many lovely handmade objects that pay homage to the legacy of the island, many Italian wall lizards, and what seem to be innumerable pheasants. The male ring-necked (or common) pheasant is a riot of color; I would never call them common. A fellow with a cape so copper-bright and a white collar so neat and a head so striking in deep teal crowned with ruby does not merit the term. At all times—even while my entire class and our kind and patient Umbra Institute coordinator ate lunch—a pheasant was in view. No, I exaggerate. While I was inside the Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo, listening to the docent there describe the frescoes and the restoration process for the ceiling above the altar, I did not see a pheasant.

However, the moment I stepped outside—pheasant. Scratching about in the olive-tree shade just beyond the graveled entrance to the church, a pair of them. The females are a mottled dusty brown, perfect for receding into underbrush shadows (but still quite visible on the stone wall two meters from our heads at lunch). At one point while I was wandering along the island’s spine, there were four males in my sight-line. I can only assume that the pheasants were brought to the island at some point for sporting purposes—they’re a popular game bird but not native to Italy—and now they’re seemingly quite free to roam. Every bird I saw was round and glossy, so though there were many, ecologically it seems there were not too many. (I do not know enough about the place to know if the pheasants have affected the well-being of any other creatures there, but the shorebirds—little egrets and what I think were Eurasian coots—were also there in plenty.)

Though the island quite small—with a perimeter of less than two kilometers—its population at the end of the Middle Ages was around 600 people. At present, there are fewer than ten people who actually live on the island full-time.

I fantasize about living in such a place, I do.

IV.
There is a clothes dryer in my building, but it feels odd—too touristy—to use it, so I haven’t been.

It is 80 degrees inside my flat, so the socks perched on the edges of the wardrobe dry quickly.

V.
I keep my eye out for cats. I have seen many, but none are particularly inclined toward my attention. This, of course, breaks my heart, but, of course, cats will do as they please. In Porta Sole, the highest point in Perugia, there are two long-ish haired cats I’ve seen lounging on the warm stone of empty parking spaces. The fur of one is a buff, dusty color but tipped all over with black, with a stronger concentration of dark hair on all of its points and also along its spine. The moment I crouch to take a photo, the cat ambles off, leaving me with a bit of flank, a swish of tail.

The point is the moment, the cat suggests, not the image.

We’re coming up to the end of the NHL season—one half of the Stanley Cup combatants have been decided—and the men’s IIHF world championship tournament is in full swing. These two series of gams are certain peaks, of course, culminations of the season’s work and, in the case of the world championships, maybe also a chance at revenge or distant second chances after one’s team has been knocked out of the NHL playoffs or following an Olympic almost. The IIHF tournament—the International Ice Hockey Federation world championships—features significantly in Heading North, my gay literary ice hockey novel. If you’re not quite ready to say goodbye to the hockey season, consider picking up a copy for yourself or the hockey fan in your life. (There’s an ebook, too!)

If you have read Heading North, I would so appreciate if you’d leave a review in any of those places books can be reviewed, like StoryGraph, GoodReads, Amazon, LibraryThing, and in your conversations with your friends! Reviews help readers find the book or decide to read it, and reviews help books to be seen when algorithms are involved (sigh).