Driving with babo

The little blue Fiat sped forward with a determined whir like a bumblebee carrying a load of bread twice its body mass.

“Italians,” he mumbles, but I detect a hint of a smile in his observation.

Perhaps it was an expression of smug complacency when expectations, good or bad, are met; perhaps it was the feeling of nostalgia sweeping over him as the compact, diesel-fueled cars raced across the countryside hills.

Yet clearly, this was not New York, Oregon, or Georgia. It wasn’t quite Spain, England, or France, or any of the places we had once lived in so long ago.
Tufts of lively green leaves supported by old man crutches reached upwards towards the skies to join the clouds in their gentle swaying. In the fields, yellow rustic houses with emerald shutters stood as if they had sprouted along with the overheated sunflowers and vines through countless summers.

I rolled down the window to breathe in the new air. The opening invited a pitter pattering sound inside the rental car which pressed down on our ears, but the discomfort went by without a command of disaproval from my father.
I let the wind cool my face and assign a new scent to our airplane-strained clothes. Was this the smell of arancias dampened by the morning droppings of the sheep?

I counted.
In six more days, we would be arriving in the city of Rome, where the white tips of our fingernails would be darkened by the city’s activities and we would be awakened by the clanging of plates from the bustling restaurant next door. And in just seven days, my babo (Italian for “papa” as a hotel maid later taught me) would be returning to the routine of work in his long-sleeved shirt and a matching tie in a room excessively cooled by air-conditioning.

But for now, we were headed towards Tuscany with thoughts more preoccupied with the past, surrounded by a land where stories are engrained like the crescent wrinkles gently forming on the corner of my father’s eyes.

We were humbled by the sight before us. We dripped with appreciation and sweat as the Europe we had left so long ago unrolled its beautiful fields and hills beneath our wheels.

The first castles and Roman ruins that came to view drew exaggerated gasps from the both of us.