Pardon the mundane rhetoric, but only such modest queries this side of incredulity may introduce eventual journal entries.
Immensely have I been enjoying a residency, till mid-November, to pursue work on a novel courtesy of The Rockefeller Foundation, at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center by Lago di Como in the Lombardy region of Italy. Lucky feller, you might say. And I’ll have to agree with you.
As my initial gushing communication to friends and relations had it: Ah, che bella, bellissima. Such beauty. The views are spectacular, especially from Villa Serbelloni where the Center is housed, and which overlooks the red-roofed village of Bellagio.
Once lauded by the poet Shelley as "the most beautiful place on earth," the celebrated holiday resort town is nestled on the tip of a promontory at the very crotch between the elongated silvery legs of Lake Como and Lake Lecco. A tourist brochure touts Bellagio as "the summer residence of the Roman patricians and then of Lombardy’s noble families who built magnificent villas there." Artists, poets, writers and musicians reportedly enchanted by the place down the centuries include Pliny the Younger, Franz Liszt, Longfellow, Stendhal, Flaubert, Toscanini and Mark Twain.
Well, we might as well add the following to that esteemed roster: Frankie Sionil Jose and his wife Tessie, N.V.M. and Narita Gonzalez, Leonard and Linda Ty Casper, Ricky de Ungria, Honey Arellano Carandang, Marjorie Evasco and Edna Manlapaz, Marites and Vet Vitug, Butch and Beng Dalisay… These are only some of the Filipino writers and scholars who have been invited for a memorable idyll at the Bellagio Center.
The 16th-century Lombard villa was acquired by Ella Holbrooke Walker in 1930. Before her demise in 1960, she managed to turn over the extensive property to The Rockefeller Foundation, along with a 2-million-dollar endowment and the express wish that Villa Serbelloni be used "for purposes connected with the promotion of international understanding."
Distinguished scholars called in by the Foundation rendered the unanimous view that the Villa "should be a refuge for contemplation, writing, and purposeful discussion — a place where scholars and other thoughtful people could be free from everyday demands" even as they pursued projects and programs, individually for as much as four weeks or as short-term conferees, that "would serve generally the world of scholarship, science, and art."
The residencies are designed to overlap, so that only three or four grantees share the exact same term. There is then a continuous passing of the torch among batches that are welcomed before eventually taking over as the senior fellows, and in turn breaking in fresh arrivals. The camaraderie among the 16 to 20 residents and significant others, who on occasional weekends are joined by the brief-term conferees, can only turn dynamic, while the instant conviviality born of stimulating conversations over meals and social cum scholarly rituals often leads to heart-rending farewells with each departure.
Arriving at Malpensa airport late in the evening in mid-October, I sought a hotel close by, since the recommended public transport system to Bellagio — by bus and/or train then ferry — was inoperable at that hour. But I had failed to make a reservation, and the room rates and availability made an overnight stop questionable. A quick call to Villa Serbelloni led to gracious assurance from the managing director, Signora Gianna Celli, that I could still come in that late. The trade-off was the most expensive 90-minute cab ride ever in my life, at a Euro rate that would have taken me by taxi from Aparri to Jolo had it been conducted back home.
The limo cabbie relied on an electronic navigator, with a computerized lady’s voice issuing directions on which turn to take once we entered some small town with narrow roads. At Como, one of those city streets was apparently undergoing repair, so that it took several circling maneuvers, and eventually a local’s advice, to make the breakthrough back to the proper route.
Arriving at Bellagio close to midnight, we had to ask a couple of guys manning the Imbarco area on the waterfront for directions to the villa. Up we drove through twisting cobblestoned roads that wound narrowly through the upper confines of the village. I failed to warn the driver early enough, and before we knew it we had made a grand entrance at the driveway of The Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni. A great spot on earth, I’m sure, but it wasn’t our destination. Another run-through back to the waterfront, and, ah, yes, THE Villa Serbelloni, said the wharf guys, so up we went again until we found the main gate and finally coursed through the long and winding road toward the main building where most of the grantees are billeted.
I was led through long hallways to my assigned room on the second floor at the southeastern end of the palatial structure. No sooner had my bags been deposited inside the capacious bedroom with twin beds, a settee, and a painted wooden ceiling, and I had checked out the bathroom, wardrobe closet and adjoining study, than I discovered that opening full-length windows led to a quaint little balcony with wrought-iron railings.
Aha, perfect for a smoking zone for this endangered species. It came with a grand view, too, of glittering lights fringing one leg or finger of the lake, and what looked like part of the village sprawled on a series of hillocks directly below the remarkable vantage.
Mountain lakes and I, we have always had a curious affinity. Even at midnight on propitious calendar dates, such as those marking momentous arrivals, I can tell when I’m close enough to a mountain lake to feel like writing poetry. It may have to do with the classic dilemma on where to choose to stay, upon retirement or on vacation, or for an altogether fuller life. "The wise man goes to the mountain, the free man goes to the sea." Looking out daily at a mountain lake, I would think, fulfills both requisites.
The views from the balcony and three double windows, plus one more from the baño, turn even more fabulous as dawn breaks, rather late in autumn, and ever so gently by 0730 hours the next day, my first morning at Villa Serbelloni.
The study looks out at a back lawn featuring a mossy, quatrefoil-shaped pond with a fountain that gurgles 24/7. At the far end of the sward is the Garden Room, a one-story structure used for presentations and small discussions, whose cream walls are nearly entirely covered by ivy, and beyond which rises a forest of conifers, birch, oak, beech and redwoods.
When I peer out of the study windows, as I soon develop the habit of in parallel with nicotine breaks while working (there over the marble ledge I can keep a small tin ashtray with a folding cover), I appreciate a large balcony nearly adjoining my work area, with long wooden benches and an obvious partiality toward the morning sun; it should then lend itself to longer smoking breaks.
On the ground below is a wide gravel walkway that leads past a couple of large trees — the first a kind of pine, the second what’s called a plane tree I think — between which are picnic settings of wooden tables, benches and chairs. This walkway toward the eastern end of the slope leads to what look like cave mouths, a view that becomes clearer from the double windows of the corner bedroom.
These windows also overlook the upper part of the terraced gardens, of cone-shaped yews and herbal plots at the far end, and where the first lower level curves out of sight, backdropped by lake waters and towering craggy mountains in the distance.
Out in the balcony, a grand panorama unfolds. From that far left end that’s the edge of the fabled promontory where Villa Serbelloni is perched, it sweeps across the eastern finger of the lake (this turns out to be Lake Lecco), into the distant haze of mountains. Closer, on the villa’s sloping grounds, below the herb garden is a pink stucco building called Maranese, where some of the resident scholars are housed, at least the ones seen to be more fit to make it up to the main building each mealtime.
This southern slope goes down to more lakeshore buildings that I will soon have to explore, beyond the winding road and sundry paths across an olive grove highlighted by towering cypresses. A classic Italian setting it is indeed. But it doesn’t stop there.
Swinging across the span of the grove to the west, red-tiled residences, smaller villas and various other buildings including a Romanesque-looking church (from what can be glimpsed of its backside, in the distance) dot the hills on multiple levels, until the land mass that represents the neck of the promontory is fringed on the right by that other finger of the mountain lake that is Lago di Como.
Ah, timeless is this grand view. And that is all I do for the next couple of days, inveterately, gaze out from left to right, right to left, sometimes focusing with two cameras and a videocam on various aspects of the setting, while ever in awe of the superb 180-degree cyclorama, Often a flock of birds swoop down across the olive grove, while church bells peal in the distance.
How am I to write a novel here? The physical loveliness lends itself more to poetry, or to philosophical contemplation (how can FPJ run for the presidency when we’ve already been bequeathed an Assunta and an Alessandra?), or simply to appreciative perusal of some literature that comes with the room: "The Castle’s Keep: The Villa Serbelloni in History by John Marshall (1970)" or "A Ramble Through Flora at Villa Serbelloni" — a compendium of photographs and identificatory remarks by Sally Schroeder, completed and donated in April this year.
While I recognize that arrayed right below my balcony are fruiting persimmons and hedges of laurel and boxwood, or can finger-pinch my way through the herb garden and name the scent as that of sage, rosemary, or fennel, I am grateful for Ms. Schroeder for allowing me to identify camellia and viburnum, wisteria and honeysuckle, saxifrage and peony, plus the various wildflowers from primrose to wood sorrel, buttercup to periwinkle…
For three days I defer the visit to town. It’s only a ten-minute walk down a shortcut of a pedestrian walkway — of exactly 267 stone steps of varied widths, according to a senior lady fellow. But the villa’s 60 acres beckon with all its paths and nooks and corners, stone benches and statuary, sudden maple trees radiantly purple, the ruins of what was once a fortress-lookout at the highest point in the property, with a precipitous drop toward the shimmering lake waters.
Chambermaids service the rooms twice daily. A chef plans the menus and prints them out in cards for lunch and dinner. A sampling: Minestrone di verdure, Trancio di salmone al profumo di stagione, Salsa tartare, Coste all’oglio, Carote Vichy, Insalata, Macedonia di frutta fresca al Maraschino, Vino: Sauvignon, Collio (15 Ottobre 2003); Risotto alla zucca, Insalate di stagione con braesola, Frutta, Vino: Pinot Grigio, Collio (16 Ottobre 2003); Zuppa d’orzo dei Grigioni, Suprema di pollo ai peperoni, Patate Macario, Melanzane alla Ligure, Insalata, Bavarese ai frutti di bosco, Salsa yogurt, Vino: Colli di Luni (17 Ottobre 2003)…
Coffee, tea, cookies and pastries are served at mid-morning and mid-afternoon. At 6:15 in the evening we gather for a presentation by a resident — a 30-minute talk on what each of us is working on, followed by remarks, questions and a brief discussion. Then we cross over from The Music Room to The Columns, a salon where aperitifs are served for brief stand-up socializing before we all troop down the long hallway to the dining room.
When conferees are around, they join us for dinner at a larger room. And us Scholars and Artists in Residence, we marvel over their conference themes such as "Narrative, Pain and Suffering," and wink at one another while heaping lotsa parmesan on the pasta.
I had always thought that I would have to raise a child to become a rock star before he or she could then acquire an Italian villa for my retirement. Thanks to being a Luckyfeller grantee, I realize now that I can have a month of that vision of a narrative without having to endure such decibels. For here I am where La Dolce Vita meets Cinema Paradiso, with Stealing Beauty thrown in.
Ah, and Life Is Beautiful.