When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Limoncello: The last drops of Limoncello

Samantha in the pink boa she smuggled into her carry on.

by Jo Anne

We have one week left in this beautiful town. It's the length of a normal vacation for us and I'm realizing just how short that will always seem after this trip. For these last few weeks we moved into a "villa" on the other side of town, the Fornillo side, a little splurge we had planned from the start. The house has a large terrace with a view of the sea. It gives the girls a welcome flat spot to run around outside and Steve and I a place to sit and practice "Il dolce far niente" (the sweetness of doing nothing). While I haven't been a quick study with the Italian language, I think I could master this Italian art form. From the balcony doors off of our bedroom you see only the blue Mediterranean offset by the white stone of the patio. It still doesn't feel quite real that we are occupying such a space.

The view from our bedroom.

It's been cooler with lots of rainy days mixed in with the sun. We've seen some winter storms roll in. One night it felt as if the house was going to blow off the cliff. They call it the tramontana (the northern wind). There was lightning, rain coming down in buckets, power glitches, the northern wind howling down the mountain and….our laundry hanging out on the line. All night I woke up to the storm and the tramontana envisioning our clothes sailing high up into the sky over Positano like something out of the Wizard of Oz. By some miracle, our only casualty was one sock.

A storm rolling in.

Steve, I think, is growing into those Italian roots of his. He's consistently studied the language a bit every day and it is paying off. He wouldn't admit it, but his Italian is "molto buono" (very good) at this point. Then there is the Italian cooking. A few days ago he very casually created ravioli from scratch. Their perfect half moon shapes were suddenly lined up upon the kitchen counter. My father was not named "Guido Gustavino" so maybe that makes my goals more modest. I have learned to make coffee in the European style carafe. The other night I made a decent Spaghetti Pomodoro. The pasta came from a box, but the simple sauce (olive oil, fresh tomatoes, garlic) was all mine. And although I've often longed for our clothes dryer back home, last week I found myself embracing the Italian method of drying the clothes on a line. I was back in the garden area hanging up the clothes. The sun was beating down, the birds were singing, our neighbor was out picking lemons from her tree. It suddenly felt very nice to be out there hanging those socks and shirts. I heard the solar panels they use to heat the water here clicking away and thought this will be the most environmentally friendly load of laundry I will ever do.

I made him put the kid's chef hat on :)

Steve's ravioli - perfecto!

My spaghetti pomodoro.

Ella Bella helping me with the laundry.

Chirstmas has come to Positano. There is a sprinkling of lights in the town and the grotto, a cave like area at the bend of the road, has been turned into a miniature old time Positano village. There are miniature steps, of course, and tiny bakers, fishermen, cooks, and shop keepers. A few years ago, someone told us, it included a "night sky" using a large fisherman's net with hundreds of tiny lanterns hanging from it as the stars. I love looking at all the little details.

The Christmas grotto.

We've made some trips into the neighboring city of Sorrento to do some shopping for friends and family back home. Last week I made a solo trip there. I was taking the bus back to Positano, loaded down with purchases and I noticed a British couple on the bus with me. They were the only other people on the bus that day (definitely quieter than those standing room only buses in September). We were on the windy section of road that hugs the cliff on one side and drops down to the sea on the other. I could tell it was one of the first times they had seen this beautiful view. They were talking excitedly and taking a video through the bus window. It reminded me of us only a few short months ago, looking out of the window of the shuttle from Naples, luggage stuffed in the back. It made me wish I could go back and tell the anxious one of that bunch (me!) that all would be OK. That no one would fall down a set of Positano stairs or be run over by a scooter on this trip. I really hate how my mind works sometimes! I wished that I could tell that self from three months ago that the trip would be all the good things we imagined and possibly a few drops of limoncello more.