208. The Gift of Time

I love a routine. When I’m home, you can nearly set your watch by me. I know that many find the daily grind oppressive; I find the yawning expanse of time on the weekend to be a little depressing. I am a TGIM person: Thank God it’s Monday!

But this experience of having a full six weeks here in Italy has had the opposite effect. Having this great expanse of unplanned time has allowed me to go where fancy leads me that day. When one travels overseas for the usual ten days or two weeks, there is pressure to make the most of every minute, to cram in as much as one possibly can. Being here for six weeks allows me, maybe even requires me, to do spur-of-the-moment things, just because I can.

So one day, we headed to Modena, the only place in the world that can, by law, produce a vinegar with the name “balsamic.” If it says balsamic on the label, then you know with 100% certainty that it’s from this one little town. Part of the fun there is to visit the Acetaia La Tradizione, a cooperative of producers, to sample the special high-end balsamic, some costing hundreds of dollars for a small 100 ml bottle that has been aged 25 years or more. And yes, we ended up buying the “bargain” one for a mere $60, that had only been aged for twelve. Who can resist?

Another day, I had a yearning for the sea. So we hopped on a train to Rimini, the birthplace of filmmaker Federico Fellini, and the setting for his masterpiece Amarcord. I’m told the water there is so polluted that they sometimes prohibit swimming, but you could have fooled me. The blue water and the white sand were just what the doctor ordered.

We had a night to fill on our way to our next destination. Looking at the train route, we settled on the Umbrian town of Spoleto, which made sense logistically.

So we spent an evening roaming around a hilltop town so perfect it looked like a movie set, and having a prix fixe dinner of local specialties that we ended up escaping after two hours and course #8 because we were just that full and exhausted. The next morning, we hiked up a hill, over a bridge that claimed construction in 100 CE. I’m a little dubious, but it was exciting nonetheless.

But the best was May 1, a bank holiday in Italy. It’s the Festa del Lavoro, their version of Labor Day, but with more of a leftist spin. After all the meat of Bologna, I had been craving some ribolitta, the famous Tuscan soup of vegetables, white beans and stale bread. And what better place to get some than the ribolitta mothership, Firenze. Because I had the gift of time, I hopped on a train, and spent the afternoon there.

Not only did I have the greatest ribollita ever while sitting in a restaurant with a view of the local goings-on, but I also had another unexpected treat.

It turns out, in the main Piazza Signoria, there was a competition between teams that do traditional Tuscan flag-throwing. What a bonus to be able to watch these squads of sbandieratori, with the flags and uniforms that have represented their individual towns since the Middle Ages, go through their paces. I don’t know (or care) who won, but what a thing to see!

So there’s a lesson here for me in here somewhere. It’s not that I’m so busy doing important things, or that I have pressure to perform at work or at home. It’s more that I’m marching through life thoughtlessly filling my days with the same old same old, not leaving any space for serendipity or wonder. I shouldn’t have to fly 4000 miles for six weeks to free myself from being so yoked to my daily routine, much as I love it, and to give myself the gift of time.

Am I likely to find Tuscan flag-throwers in my little town of Swarthmore, PA? No, but maybe if I force myself out of my comfy chair and open my eyes, I can see some magic there, too.