Sparone – the Love We Come From

An early wake-up call excites me. 

Most days, we travel at a comfortable pace and get to open our eyes to natural circadian rhythms. The sound of an alarm, on the other hand, means an unusual challenge is ahead. Go mode rather than slow mode. Our kids are at the point where hearing the familiar alarm chimes at any time of day creates a Pavlovian anticipation of terminals and too-early bread products.

This morning, we rose before dawn to catch the only bus available from Rivarolo Canavese, a busy suburb of Turin, to Sparone, a tiny village in the foothills of the Italian Alps. I’d hoped that early morning would be without the drone of commuter traffic, but alas, the road was already awake and humming an espresso-driven roar of a tune. 

At the bus stop, the printed schedule was missing, so we asked a friendly woman with an old coat and red headscarf knotted under her chin if this was the right bus stop for Sparone. Her English skills matched our Italian skills. “Si, si, Sparone.” Then a hesitation… “Eh… Pont.” Hm. Then she pointed to the kids and said something that sounded like ‘maschi,’ which I mistakenly took to mean that we should put on our masks for the bus. But as she smiled whimsically at them, I realized, no, it was the universal grandmother language of admiration for three boys. All around the world, we are the same in this way. 

Five buses, none of them with our desired number, whisked all the commuters away in rapid succession, and doubt crept in. Did we miss something? Should we have asked the bus drivers? Then a battered white Fiat choked and sputtered its way to die on the patch of road in front of us. This could be a bad sign, I thought.  

But we had to get to Sparone! The whole reason for detouring to this region was to make a pilgrimage to the village where Chris’ great-grandparents (bisnonni) grew up, fell in love, and made the decision to immigrate to the United States in the early 1900s. (That’s my version of the story, anyway). I’ve seen a photo of them, taken in Riverside, California. He is short and plump, eyes squinting and thin lips turned up in a smile to poke fun at heavy cheeks. She is taller and bent like a weather-worn tree leaning to shade him. Many years have I looked at that photo and wondered how time moved for these people, my children’s ancestors.

Fifteen minutes passed. The boys, sensing our worry, stopped playing and started looking for bus-like shapes in the distance. I wondered if my mother’s mistrust of buses (“There’s nothing stopping them from suddenly turning and taking you somewhere you don’t want to go!”) was not so unfounded after all. Chris pushed the dead car to see if he could help it start, but no luck.

Then, in the distance, there it was!

Number 5137!

In this stretch of earth, just before the rising sun’s rays angle down to the lowlands, there is a magical, breathless time when they reach across the atmosphere to illuminate the old early risers in the distance. Those snow-white Alps blush impossibly, hypnotically pink, as though they’ve been spied removing their morning robes. Oh yes, this was to be a day of romance.

It’s bone cold in the early morning damp of a mountain’s river valley. And quiet. What do you do this early in a tiny village? Well, I suppose you look for warmth and company. This we found behind the wood-clad windows and lacy curtains of Sparone’s only operating cafe. Italians really do love their coffee. Already through their first round were a group of grey-haired friends discussing today’s newspapers and laughing at yesterday’s gossip.

On the menu? Nothing but bread, chocolate, cookies, espresso, and milk, of course! Those little round cookies dipped in foam tasted just like Christmas, prompting Chris to do an impression of his Italian great-aunts: “What? Yous a don’t-a like-a my cookies?!” We soaked up the warm ambiance of this lively community for an hour before deciding we couldn’t possibly eat another sugary bite and had better face the cold.

“We are really excited to be here because my husband’s bisnonni are from Sparone,” I tried to say in Italian to the friendly barista. She stopped her hand from collecting our change and replied with wide eyes, “Di Sparone?” 

What happened from there was incredible to me. From one elderly face to the next passed the news that we were relatives of the village, and the questions flew. From here or across the river? What year were they born? When did they die? Sandretto and Magnino did you say? Then they looked at each other and asked, “Now who would know about people who left for America? Is the professor who speaks English at home?” 

Sparone is a small place, a tiny place, a cluster of houses laid at the confluence of two mountain streams and protected by rooftops of stone. Cabbages and gourds are in most gardens. There is one butcher, one baker, one tobacco/gift shop. A Municipio building houses a tiny library, a government office, a first aid station, and the community meeting hall. The local historian told us that Sparone was too remote and simple for the armies of Rome or even Hitler to care to occupy them. “Life for us has been uninterrupted,” she said.

I interrupted her to ask why the graves of the little cemetery were all decorated with luxurious bouquets. We went to see if we could find the names Magnino and Sandretto, which we did, and were astounded by the ubiquitous chrysanthemums, orchids, and heather. Honestly, I’ve never seen a graveyard dressed up as though a wedding is about to take place. “It’s for the Day of the Dead,” she replied. A Celtic custom that I’d always associated with Mexico, and which has been syncretized with All Saints Day in Italy; this is a time when the portal to the underworld opens and one can be with their lost loved ones, share a meal, and tell their favorite stories.

Romance indeed…

On our walk to the old church on the central knoll, we passed by a board labeled ‘community news.’ Posted at the single-lane bridge so that it could be seen by all who entered Sparone, it did not host information about the upcoming pot-luck, yard sale, or job opportunity. Rather, it displayed layer upon layer of invitations to funeral ceremonies. Each one had the smiling face of someone recently deceased and loving words to say, “you will be missed.” At first, I thought that this town must be slowly dying, that if there is no news about the living, then there must be no life here in Sparone. But no, I came to understand that this is a place where people are cherished, where everyone is known and cared for even after their last breath. 

In the end, we didn’t find the houses that had been our ancestors’ houses, we didn’t locate their exact names on the gravestones, and we didn’t meet anyone who could say, ‘Lena Sandretto was my cousin,’ or ‘my grandfather told me stories about Signore Magnino.’ No matter. I feel now that I know where these dear people, our family, came from. Not only have I seen photographs, but I have walked the streets they walked upon, watched the sunrise and fall on the mountains they knew as their friends, and tasted cookies probably not too dissimilar from the ones they used to look forward to at Christmas Eve. I know them in these ways.

And I know that I am grateful to them; the love in their lives led me to the love of mine.