Free Every Day in Tuscany by Frances Mayes Page B

side, rumors constantly sizzle through town. They’ve sold it . We’ve heard that a hundred times. It’s going to become a restaurant. Russian millionaires have bought it . And most recently, It’s going to be a museum! A museum—of what?
    This iconic position goes way beyond me. Are there, as the ancients thought, hot spots where raw energy or spirits reside?
    Tourists who arrive with their cameras want to see the house more than they want to see me. Some stay for an hour, staring up. Friendships begin in the road, and one marriage resulted from two people meeting there. What these visitors don’t know is how sound carries on the side of a hill. Up in my study with the windows open, I often hear blissful comments (“Isn’t it dreamy, just dreamy,” “Oh, my god, how spectacular—look at those roses”), speculation about my private life (“They got a divorce, you know” and, of course, the most frequent refrain—“She doesn’t live here anymore”). Sometimes I hear, “This can’t be Bramasole—that screen is wonky,” “It’s crumbling,” and “My house is much bigger than this.” Tour leaders, I’ve learned, can be quite inventive with facts about the history of the house and its inhabitants. At times, I’ve wanted to lean out the window and call down, “Don’t believe a word he says!”
    What I hope is that his captors may look at sun-saturated Bramasole and feel their own secret desires stirring.

    L IKE A LIVING thing, a house evolves, changes, remains itself at core.
    “In dreams begin responsibilities,” W. B. Yeats wrote. Bramasole is my dream, Ed’s too. After all the years here, systems in the house need responsible revision. The roof we never replaced must be fixed. After more than two hundred years, it deserves a little work. I remember that it was to cost $30,000 in those first rounds of estimates so long ago. I dread learning what that cost will be today. Regularly, an owl lifts tiles and squeezes itself into the attic, where he romps and tumbles. We wake up thinking a grown man is on the roof. Then, when it next rains, the corner of my study develops a plop, plop. Someone must tread across the dangerous roof and straighten the loose tiles until the owl’s next attic visit.
    Irrigating the lawn sucks dry our two water tanks and pulls air out of the house pipes, so that when I turn on the kitchen faucet, the water explodes with enough force to break a glass. The living room has a moisture problem. The house backs up into the hillside and whatever used to drain that area does so no longer. In spring a trickle of water makes its way across the living room floor. We stare at it, mesmerized. The wall develops lacy mildew patterns. Muffa —I’m fond of the fuzzy word and the white fluff is pretty but alarming. By summer, it’s dry and I get out the whitewash so we can forget about it for another year. The terrace door is so weak that a stray dog could push it open. That’s for starters. We’re just used to the loose brick in the hall, the washing machine that can deliver a shock as you unload, the little bathroom window that closes with a wooden peg. Poetic? Yes, but …
    Part of me wants Bramasole to remain quirky, but some of me wants grounded electricity that does not burn out the modem every time it storms, and yes, the tourist was right, screens that disappear when raised, not these wedged into the stone frames. When it’s windy, they sometimes crash to the ground. The list is long and we are wary. A large construction project at Bramasole is daunting. I’m getting too old and impatient for projects that can run on for years. The dollar is weak, the euro mighty. We don’t have normal jobs anymore. The United States slides irrevocably toward recession. Once I cooked pumpkin soup in a pumpkin. Just as I proudly reached the table, the bottom of the pumpkin gave way and the lovely soup flooded the table. Is my portfolio like that? Will I be left holding a hot sheaf of papers