I am in Rome for the month of October and have made the assumption of it being My Town for the purposes of the FSO. This past twelve days I have walked miles and miles, through open ancient cities and through museum after museum, always keeping in mind our topics for this month. I found one small, very small, sample of handwriting in this city of carved marble, etched travertine and bronze plaques. On this ancient piece of stone from the 1st century ad, 
miniscule handwritten note left for future visitors. But really this didn’t meet the intent for this topic…. sadly, this is more graffiti than an interesting handwritten document.
So back to my archives. In 2003, when Camillo and I first moved to Brasil my mother, then 79 or so carried on a 3 year correspondence with me, ending in 2006 when she wrote, “I can’t hold the thoughts to write". She handwrote her letter, and I “word’ typed mine back. She sent hers on a 10 day journey through the mail…. snail mail … and I sent mine on a 10 minute trip through cyber space. One day I found a packet of her letters, scanned them into my computer and matched the dates with my letters before and after; thinking one day I could write a story of her words to me, my questions and her answers. Yes, there are bits and pieces of wisdom, but mainly the letters are just full of news from home, much needed in those first years in Brasil. After spending a few days reading and re-reading this file of letters, I found one that you could read…. not full of family gossip but a recipe she found in one of her files…. I love the way she pieced it together as she wrote, maybe this recipe was given to her in the same order, maybe from her mother in her early married life, maybe I am just romancing the idea …. I hope you enjoy as I have reading her letter. Handwriting the forgotten art.
arrivederci!
