Tears of Sadness and Joy... Lovely Perugians...

June 5, 2012

Wow, I can’t believe the generosity of people here in Perugia.  It has been a day filled with tears of love as well as a little sadness. 

We started off this morning dropping the kids off at school.  We then took a walk up to the center of town where the views are incredible…

Later we went  to our little café to have our cornetti.  It was great to be able to order “il solito”  (the usual) after being gone for over two weeks.  The whole family was there, so we took a picture.  We told them that we would be leaving in a week and that we would be sad to say goodbye to them.

While we were eating our cornetti, unbeknownst to us the madre went down the street and bought us a present.  She came back to the café with this all wrapped up for us…  We couldn’t believe it.  She said she didn’t want us to forget Perugia.  I got all teary-eyed.  This is our favorite place to go here in Perugia, and we feel like family here.  They are the only ones we have found that will speak Italian to us.  I will miss them very much.

While the kids were in school, David and I also drove to Deruta because I wanted to take some reading glasses that have lights in them (like headlights) to one of the artists there.  When I was painting at the Ubaldo Grazia Studio back in March, one of the ceramic painters, Katia, was so sweet to me.  I happened to be wearing my glasses with lights, and she was amazed.  So my friend back in Missoula, Michelle Petersen, bought some for me and sent them over here.  So, we took them in to Katia today along with a batch of chocolate chip cookies (thanks to MaryAnn Thomson for the chocolate chips).  Katia was so surprised and happy. (This is a picture of Deruta).

This is Katia the day I first met her and she let me paint her piece...

 Next Katia told us to follow her and we went all through the factory and ended up in the showroom.  She picked up two small bowls and asked us which one we liked.  When we told her which one, we realized that she was giving it to us as a gift.  I was so surprised and could not have been happier because it was one that she had painted.

Katia is one of the best artists at Ubaldo Grazia.   I had wanted to get a piece of ceramics that she had painted, but with us leaving for over two weeks, we didn’t have a chance to get there in time to order one and have it finished before we left.  We couldn’t believe that she actually gave us a piece of her work.  This time, I could not hold back the tears.  It was so nice and at the same time so sad that we are leaving.  What a wonderful thing to always have to remember my time painting with Katia.  Life is sometimes too good to be true.

~Mary