You will arrive later than you meant to. The last fold of road from Letino or from Capriati always takes the extra twenty minutes your memory deleted. The lake will be darker than the photographs. Someone will have left a light in a kitchen you do not have a key to.
The first night back is not the festa. It is quieter. You walk the alleys because your legs expect cobble. You notice the tower stub at r’ C’m’ntier, the limestone, the way sound travels down to the water. If you grew up on a Bronx street, the silence will feel like a held breath. It is only the mountain.
Do not treat the town as a museum of your childhood. People live here in the mid-four-hundreds year-round, ISTAT’s recent counts, and they are not extras in your return scene. Say good evening. Buy bread. Ask before you photograph a doorway. Tomorrow you can go to Vallelunga and stand at the red rock. Tonight, sit. Eat what is offered. Leave one chair alone.
