‘The week I learned to cry’
Our recent graduate Douglas Edgar has just returned from a prestigious writers’ retreat at Villa Pia in Umbria, made possible by one of our travelling scholarships. In reflecting on the lessons learnt, he hopes the next step will be to realise his ambition for a creative arts career.
‘Forza Nonna’ was the cheer as Sondra, from Rochester, New York, poured custard into the famous ‘Torta della Nonna’ base. Translated as ‘grandmother cake’, there are two layers of short-crust pastry filled with vanilla custard, hints of lemon zest, all covered in powdered sugar. I met a Nonna once – Brooklyn-based and South Italian-born. Fierce, vain, and shameless with set blonde hair, long red nails and tattooed eyebrows, well into her 90s. An Italian Mary Berry.
Enrolling in the cookery class at the writers’ retreat, I saw the opportunity to move away from my go-to meal of chicken breast, rice and broccoli. Umbria is a place where vegetables have real flavour. However, I saw three pots on the stove at one time and thought ‘cooking’s not for me’. Alas, five fellow retreaters and Gessy, the in-house chef, combined to make the following from scratch:
- Lasagna with ragu sauce.
- Spinach and ricotta ravioli with sage and butter sauce.
- Semola (not semolina) gnocchi with truffled béchamel.
- Vanilla panna cotta with forest fruits.
- Torta della Nonna.
Being the second group to cook, I felt pressured to beat the previous day’s class, so I spent 30 minutes drawing a pumpkin stencil to level up our Nonna cake. Consulting with my artist-cum-culinary neighbour, Tania, I cut the stencil and rubbed the pencil marks off the steel worktops. The lasagna came out of the oven and victory was in sight. We’d made one more pasta dish than yesterday’s group and had a pumpkin on top of a cake.
I know people will want my top Italian-cooking tip, so here it is: ‘cut out the eyes, nose and mouth for the perfect stencil’. I’m joking, but I have tried to remember when I have learned, and in summary, I prefer eating food a lot more than preparing it.
Beyond cooking
Cooking was an escape from writing. I cried more this week than I had in the past 10 years combined. On a foggy day, I built the fire in the dining room whilst a peer explained how she became her mum’s primary carer in the final stages of cancer treatment. The damage from radiotherapy would cause skin to erode into her mouth, making her choke at night.
Up to five years after her passing, she emptied the washing basket and would see her mother’s nightie on the floor, choosing not to wash it to keep a part of her there. Not for the smell but for presence. I’ve never been so affected by words, and I began to cry uncontrollably – a soul captured in a nightdress.
We discussed the logistics – the inflatable mattress beside the hospital bed – but it would never be written about. Instead, she chose to re-write a dystopian novel. Feeling that thousands would benefit from her experience, sci-fi seemed like a distraction, but hearing her story reminded me to dig-deep and face the subjects I’m avoiding.
Souls collide
Inevitably, some people would work out that my fellow Longford scholar and I were ex-prisoners. It would be exciting for them, like Shawshank Redemption in real life, or Le ali della libertà as the Italians would say. Was he a Hatton Garden robber? Maybe a mass murderer?
I overheard someone worry that they were becoming institutionalised by Villa Pia’s ritual of cake at 4pm, which made me reflect on my somewhat different experience. Conversation helped to diffuse the tension, and some of us would sit for hours into the night, talking through the fluff, and their payment would be gruesome tales of prison.
Friday night’s gala rounded off with karaoke, facilitated by yours truly. More importantly, everyone shared a few minutes of writing to the group. Another peer’s story was based around an AI imposter’s attempt to infiltrate the retreat, analysing human interactions whilst fighting off the occasional system glitch. The story’s finale is quoted below:
“I meet novelty for the first time this week. We embrace each other in a hug and thank you for the trust. On the bed I stare at the ceiling and review every word he’s said to me since we’ve met two days ago. Not artificial. So that’s a soul.”
The character being referenced, Jeremy, was based on me, and for the third time that week I thought ‘bloody hell I’m crying again’.
Reform happens through genuine interactions.
A fond farewell
The Haven is knowing that you’re protected – no matter who you are, no matter what you share, no matter how much you cry. In that respect, Villa Pia was my Nonna.
So, it’s back to Tesco’s veg and imported wine, only now I understand the richness of my own soil. From tutors-to-teammates, thank you for your understanding, trust and camaraderie.
Forza Stories!
Douglas joined the annual ‘Haven for Stories Retreat’, thanks to one of our Longford travelling scholarships. Our gratitude goes to Tobias Jones, Alice Vincent and Elise Valmorbida, the three acclaimed writers who teach each year at the retreat, and to Villa Pia’s owner, Morag Cleland, a former Longford Trust mentor, for making these bursary places available to our scholars.
