Julia and the Small, Beautiful Plate
After college, I moved to Boston. Why Boston? Because I thought it might be my kind of town. Ahhh, youth... That's a good reason, right? In my defense, I'm still in Boston all these years later. I guess it's my kind of town. Back then, as some locals may remember, we found roommates and apartments through The Phoenix, the local everything paper, Boston’s “Village Voice”. I quickly found a place that met my meager budget in Allston, the part of Boston pretty much all recent college grads would go to get their life started, and for two reasons. 1. It's cheap. 2. It's in walking distance of lots of bars. I sometimes wish I still had such simple criteria.
I had two roommates, Monica and Julia. We got along well enough - young professionals making a go of things in the city. Julia had studied theater at BU, and she had an exuberant charm about her that was undeniable. Friendly, warm, and open-minded, she was the kind of person I always wanted to be. Her bedroom was an absolute wreck, and she had a rabbit named Pookie who would run around the apartment, sleep on our clothes, and relieve himself as needed. She would meet new people on the T and innocently invite them up to the apartment to hang out. Men loved her, but in the sweetest, most genuine way imaginable. I’m pretty sure they wanted to marry her. Long blonde hair and a permanent smile on her face, she was so lovely and natural, of course they wanted to marry her.
This is the only photo I have of Julia.
Julia was originally from Texas, and had a father who had been in the oil industry. As a result, she had lived in parts of the Middle East and had the opportunity to travel quite a bit as a child. When it was time for her to move out of the apartment -perhaps to go back to Texas, I can't remember for sure - she left a mess. But it was okay, because it was Julia. We cleaned up the mess, and in the mess, I found a small, beautiful plate. She didn't leave any forwarding contact information and and back then, if you didn't have a piece of paper with an address and phone number, people like that would just disappear from your life, especially when you don't even know their last name. She never tried to contact us, and knowing her, she probably never noticed the plate was missing.
This is the plate that Julia left behind. It is about 4 1/2” in diameter.
The little plate has been with me now for over 30 years. I have always found a spot for it on a wall in whatever home I've had. I always thought the plate was Turkish. I'm not sure why I thought that-perhaps she told me it was, or perhaps she had told me about her travels through Turkey and I just assumed it was. I never researched it, and never really looked closely at the back of the plate for insignia. Until today.
Today I discovered the plate is Italian, not Turkish.
With a little help from Google, I discovered quite a bit about this little plate. Nino Cascio started his atelier in 1958 in Sciacca, Sisley, and is still in business today. Click Here for a link to their website, which tells the story better than I ever could. I am completely enamored.
This map shows where the little plate was and was not made.
Julia, if you ever see this post, please let me know. I'd love to hear from you. Every time I look at that plate, I wonder where you are.