Good reasons for keeping traditions alive

January 17th is pet's feast day. St. Antonio Abate is pets' saint protector

Today is St. Antonio Abate feast day in Italy, the saint protector of animals. I will always remember this day because I take my dog Paquita to the animals' reunion in Deruta for the animals' blessing. 

We do a parade with our priest on a truck holding the saint's plaster statue and leading cars from downtown Deruta to the lower part of town, known as borough. There's a large parking lot there, on main street's north side turning useful for community events. 

Paquita looks so beautiful on this day! She is one of the many pets in town and she makes her way pretty well among other animals. She is twelve years old but still young in her spirit. She likes greeting other animals, playing with them and sharing her energy with everybody. The only thing I could teach her - and I do not know how I made it - is that she doesn't answer back to other dogs barking at her. This happens when these dogs are doing their job of watching their territory or when we cross into other dogs along the river Tiber's walking trails.  We go there for our daily walk and we meet other people with dogs. Paquita is a lady!

A classical image of St. Antonio Abate,
St. protector of animals.

I wish to add that January 17th was originally a pagan feast day preparing for springtime. This is the reason why in many places in Italy people burn bonfires that in Italian are called: 'falò'. There is another piece of information I wish to add to the pagan side of this feast day. It is related to single women and to my personal experience as an Italian young lady. 

I have to make an introduction to what I am about to narrate: you may be aware of how Italians can be straight forward. Much different from Americans who have a reputation for being polite. Indeed right after the Second World War two Italians arguing would use the expression: "What do you think that I'm American?". This was a warning about the fact that the person in front of you would not be using all his/her bonton good manners. Thank goodness instances are not usually aggressive in Italy. Just take it easy and not take words too seriously. 

This said, when I was younger and not meeting my soul mate, for the people in my town I was an old made. They did not hesitate to remark my single status. A few decades later the term in Italy turned to the English word: 'single'. However not much had changed in my fellows' attitude. Why am I writing this introduction? Because in Italy in times past if you were an old maid you would have your saint protector: Sant'Antonio abate! 

Saturn is the furthest planet away that is still visible to
the naked eye. Galileo first saw the distinctive rings through
his telescope in the early 1600s.

So if you were single in Italy in the old days your feast day would be on January 17th. I am wondering why. As a matter of fact all this stress could have been avoided if someone told my soul mate about a Deruta tradition. This would have made us enjoy at least twenty-five years of beautiful life together at least. Life is not the same without your soulmate. All this time I have been feeling like half of a planet. I could not rotate at best. That was the feeling. 

Tradition narrates that Deruta was the perfect place to find your spouse. Probably because of the joke that comes from ceramic making. You can order custom made pieces in Deruta just the way you want it. So people would address you to Deruta when in trouble finding your perfect better half. It was kind of a joke. If you can't find you perfect better half, just have it custom made in Deruta. If my soul mate had been aware of this tradion he would have come towards the river Tiber instead of taking the opposite direction. 

That's exactly why we didn't meet any earlier. Why in the world aren't we keeping our traditions alive? 

Roberta & Daniele  have reunited against all expectations.

What happened is that a few years ago destiny brought me over to where he lived and I could meet him at last! While waiting I had told my nieces that he had to be somewhere out there and that there must have been some technical issue that prevented him to come to me. In that case I said to them he had to go all the way around the world again and repeat his journey looking for each other. My nieces loved this story so much that when I introduced my fiancé to them they were thrilled and made thumbs up to uncle Daniele. They knew exactly what we were talking about. 

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posted by Roberta Niccacci

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