For most of my childhood, I spent every Friday evening in a tiny mom and pop pizzeria sandwiched between my siblings in a wooden booth. Every week ended at Joseph’s Pizza with a plain cheese or pepperoni pie, giving my mom a break from cooking and my dad a break from church-life before the start of another work week.
For years, I slid into the same booth and waited for the waitress to flick a paper-thin placemat in front of me with a map of Italy stretching from top to bottom. She then set a cup of flat soda down in the top right corner, and as sweat rings formed, I faithfully traced the map with my index finger.
I began in Venice with its illustration of a miniature gondolier in his gondola, and I slowly traced south, making the peaks of mountains with my finger before arriving in Florence with its Duomo, on to Pisa with its leaning tower, to Siena with its nondescript building I could never remember.
I made my way southward still, where my finger always stopped in Rome. I stayed there a while circling the colosseum. Someday, I told myself. Someday, I want to see it and feel the rough stone beneath my fingertips, rather than experiencing it through a printed illustration. Eventually, my finger made it as far as Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii, and I’d skip my way north to trace the map over and over again.
Italy was a dream I fingered and traced repeatedly for years on end. I never fully believed it would happen, but every Friday, I drew my invisible dream into being on a placemat in a pizzeria.
I’ve since traveled to Italy many times as an adult, and with each visit I ticked another circled city off my list. Throughout my travels, I’ve gotten lost and found myself many times over. I lost my way driving in Italian wine country while my husband slept beside me. I walked among the ruins of Pompeii, argued loudly while while eating al fresco at a Roman cafe, drank wine and made pizzas in an olive grove at sunset. I walked through catacombs and cursed the wicked Roman heat and ate enormous platters of homemade fettucini. I cried in the Sistine Chapel. Lit candles in hushed worship spaces. And in the labyrinth of look-alike alleys in Venice, much to my delight, I lost my way all over again.
All of this getting lost, was really a discovery of self, a way of finding. I’ve brought my full, flawed self to every moment I’ve spent in Italy. It’s always a bit raw. Always new. Always an adventure. Always a path to trace myself into being. When I had the opportunity to return to Tuscany this summer with a group of fellow writers, I knew this trip would be different. I would not simply finger-trace myself into photos and memories, I would write and pray my way into existence there. I’ve only just begun to process the great and terrible beauty of what I discovered, but I met people along the way who served as a mirror, a portal, a pathway to understanding.
A few nights after our arrival in Tuscany, we spent an evening in the carefully preserved renaissance town of Pienza. My childhood map missed this gem filled with cheese shops and climbing vines and numerous gelateria. After hours of wandering crooked cobbled alleys, we found ourselves at Buon Gusto Gelateria. The owner, Nicola, had left his newborn son in the arms of his postpartum wife in order to keep the shop open late for us. He chose flavors specifically for our group, and handed out tiny tasting spoons of inventive gelato flavors.
Pesto. Risotto. Peach and Lavender. Apricot and Basil. Every flavor I believed did not belong folded into cool cream, he managed to transform into a work of art. As he reached across the counter with brimming cups of gelato, he joked and exchanged stories with the folks waiting their turn.
He possessed an infectious laugh that bounced off the glass counters and spilled end over end into the piazza a few feet away. When he said something amusing, he waited a few heartbeats until he knew the recipient of his humor had gotten the joke. When he saw a look of recognition, three beats later he burst like a top with a great boom of laughter. It was as charming as you might imagine.
In Nicola, I recognized the work of an artist as he gathered the ingredients of the earth, creating a symphony of flavors with his two hands and impeccable taste. I wondered where he may have wandered and gotten lost on his way to Pienza. What dreams had he traced into being over the years that led him to this village, this cobbled piazza, these flavors, this family, this tiny box of a gelateria? Behind the glass counter, surrounded by the work of his hands, he was so fully alive, so fully himself.
Before we filed out of the gelateria, satisfied and happy, a friend asked Nicola if he ever made mistakes when creating new flavors. “There are no mistakes,” he said. “Only an imbalance of flavors. You must find the right balance.”
He smiled and paused.
Three heartbeats.
A waterfall of laughter.
…….
Would you like a book recommendation to accompany my Armchair Traveler posts? Today, I suggest reading Emily Freeman’s A Million Little Ways, a book about ordinary people who live their lives as a work of art, creating beauty in innumerable unique ways. Just like me and you. Just like Nicola.
Next week in this series: Writer Iris Origo and the legacy of La Foce.
For the introduction to this series, click here–>Making Meaning: Stories for the Armchair Traveler
[…] few years ago, I traveled to Tuscany for a spiritual retreat with a group of fellow writers. As a late addition to the group, I was […]