on august
We long for summer. I’ve always longed for summer.
This summer people tell me that, actually, they don’t long for summer - the dog days of summer - and experience a seasonal affective disorder. “I haven’t enjoyed summer since childhood,” a friend tells me as our glasses sweat outside at happy hour surrounded by the humidity of summer in DC.
“Sitting in a park in Paris, France,
Reading the news and it sure looks bad.”
Wildfires in Canada. The last time I was in DC, we had days in early summer inside hiding from the air quality. Fire destruction on the Island of Maui. From Europe, I pour over the images of destruction in Lahaina. There is nothing left of the town. As we fight, or some of us fight, for action against climate change, summer in the northern hemisphere reveals the inaction against climate change. The earth screams at the inaction not taken.
In Emilia Romagna.
In Italy, August arrives as a myth; it’s magical. The national festival of Ferragosto sits in the middle of a month of vacation on August 15th. Traditionally and historically, a day of rest after weeks of agricultural work in the heat of the Italian summer. The English translation: Assumption. Another translation: mid-August. The simple translation notes the shift from a religious to a secular holiday for many in Italy. Across the city of Bologna signs in the windows of restaurants, stores, and bars: Chiuso per ferie al 28 agosto 2023.
Like the friends in DC who shared their SAD under the humidty of July, here in Bologna in August, I also feel SAD. Outside of the historic center and beyond Piazza Maggiore, where you hear Dutch, German, and French almost more than Italian in August, the streets and portici are quiet. The 100,000 students who swell the city’s population during the academic year are also in vacanza. Noticeably, those who stay behind (those who are left behind?) in the city and not at the coast or in the mountains - montagana o mare? - are those who must find the energy to push through the August heat to serve tourists from across Europe; earning during the peak summer travel season. Those who sleep beneath the portici as you walk from the train station to the Centro Storico are most often Italians of color, immigrant communities to Italy from West and North Africa, and beyond. The lack of integration or exclusion from Italian society is visible; we’re here in Giorgia Meloni’s Italy with her visions of Italian nationalism. She pushes the populist ideals of Fratelli d'Italia. I didn’t notice these problems to the same extent during my previous extended stays in Italy in 2017 and 2018. In between then, there has been a pandemic, new economic instability, a war that continues in Europe, and further increases in populist narratives. In Jesi, Le Marche, which is not a city, I was sheltered from the problems of Italian racism, nationalism, and, here too, the opioid endemics which exist. The energy crisis in Europe hadn’t begun. In the piazza, I am pulled from the present, an aura, to the region of Le Marche. Reflecting on Italy then and returning to Italy now. M. begins Italian classes, and the instructor tells the class “I am from a region no one will know.” The region: Le Marche, where I last spent extended stays in Italy. In Bologna, there are hammers and sickels graffitied on the walls of the portici. La Citta Rossa. A city rooted in communist idealogy, but not, as a tour guide tells me in late August, “the communism of the USSR”. Bologna’s red identity and rebellious nature conflict with the nationalist, right-wing elements of the current government.
In August, I am pulled between the United States where friends, co-workers, podcasts, and articles remind me summer is dwindling. Many have returned to routines and welcomed new students to their classrooms. Here in Bologna, only the American university has welcomed their new class. In Bologna, il Teatro Communale remains paused until city returns in the fall.
With August, matched with a summer where my health has been tested, there is a lack of energy, and I have to conserve - or have had to converse - energy to return to Europe. In the first days in Bologna, the heat was welcome after a stay in the cooler climate of Northern Europe. The air was without the humidity of DC. As we languish in August, a month that draws on, the heat climes into the high 90s, and then days over 100 degrees. The heat takes energy. People ask how I am. How is Italy? What is going on in Bologna? I struggle to find the energy to respond as I am surrounded by August. In the kitchen, the peaches have rotten on the counter, and the refrigerator sweats.
In the palazzo, where we find an apartment above Bologna’s cobblestone streets and portici, you have a choice between running the air or the washing machine. Like my energy levels, doing both at once is not an option. The power stops and the lights go out until you flick the switch. We don’t need air in the mornings which are cooler, so we can do laundry when it’s early in the day. Opening windows brings no breeze. We keep the shutters closed to stop the sun pouring into the apartment heating the space we want to keep cool.
Mare o Montagna?
“And we’ll talk in present tenses”. - Joni Mitchell.
Instead of languishing in the city, we seek August, whatever August is. The train to Rimini, on the Adriatic Sea, passes through the fields of Emilia Romagna, with the Republic of San Marino rising above the fields of dead sunflowers. In June, there would be a sea of yellow flowers. Now, towards the end of summer, they are dead. From the train, we emerge into Rimini walking from the station until we reach the miles of warm white sands, thousands of sun loungers, and the blue of the Adriatic for a day in vacanza. The beach where we rent sunloungers for the day is called Augusto. Behind the beach, Il Grand Hotel di Rimini, where Fellini would stay, is surrounded by palm trees. In the sea, beachgoers stand in the shallow waters to cool. I swim beyond them and dive under the water. When I emerge again, the sun is bright and the saltwater is lightly in my eyes, I take a moment of readjustment, and tie up my hair which is in my face after swimming underwater.
Sea - Il Mare - Masculine in Italian.
Sun - Il Sole - Masculine in Italian.
As I dry from the water, the breeze from il Adriatico is salty. Across the sea, somewhere, is Croatia. This was always a thought I had when I drove along the coast in Le Marche, also on the Adriactic sea. In August, when (place or space where) many Italians pause and businesses close, there are still reminders here in Rimini of what continues in August; and what doesn’t pause. The guide we flick through before we travel to the Adriatic coast tells us visitors will hear Italian, of course, but likely more Russian than English. The tourist information office welcomes visitors in Italian, English, and Russian. Street art says “I love Krimini.” The Russian visitors are noticeably absent this August.
In the city, the August heat drags on. There is enough energy each day to complete one morning errand before the heat becomes too intense. In the afternoons I sleep. Dinner is after sunset, and perhaps, after dinner we take una passagiata to the piazza. In August, I miss the air of early summer in May or June and long for the cooler, sunny days of fall. Still, I find a moment of what August should be, neatly packaged into one day in Rimini.
