This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor… Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. —Rumi
I recently spent a month in France and Italy. At the beginning of the trip, I was a nervous wreck. There was so much energy in me, I couldn’t stay still, and the more I tried to keep it under control, the more I felt like I was going to explode. It was a terrible feeling.
Eventually, I did calm down. Got steady on my feet and rubbed my eyes until I could see things more clearly. Beautiful, wonderful things. I can smell the cheeses now, I can taste the sangioveses, the syrrahs, I can hear people arguing in the streets and then burst out in laughter ten minutes later.
Italy is a special place. There, you can say the things you need to say. You are treated like an adult who can make their own decisions, however good or bad they may be. You aren’t publicly shamed for stepping over invisible lines. People don’t shake their heads when you pronounce words incorrectly. They smile delightfully and use every muscle in their bodies to communicate a response. And if you walk up to an Italian with tears in your eyes, they won’t harden their face like a concrete wall. In fact, the opposite happened.
A woman stopped to ask me for directions. She was wearing an orange scarf, that’s what I remember. And I remember how the lines of her face melted with compassion when she looked into my eyes. Which made the tears fall down my cheeks. Before I could respond to her question, she was raising her hand to touch my jawbone, as if to remind me that I was whole, that I was alive. She didn’t ask for an explanation, she didn’t offer a solution, or a single word. Just the merciful touch of fellow human being who knows what its like to feel pain.
The truth is, I wasn’t in pain. My tears were joyful ones, but she didn’t know that. And what difference does it make? They’re both part of the human experience. “You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness,” as J.S. Foer put so well.
I stayed with several Italian families who live off their small plots of land, sustained by anything the land can yield - wines, breads, cheeses, raw honey, fruit preserves, roasted chickens, herbal pestos, chestnut pancakes, berry crostatas. They wasted nothing and had no extras. They wore the same outfits every day. They didn’t have cell phones, computers, or gadgets of any sort. Pen and paper were sufficient for tallying our bill. An old boom box could play CDs just fine. They sang in their kitchens and yelled at each other through the windows without caring who heard. It wasn’t disgraceful to laugh, or to be upset. I found myself relaxing, completely, for the first time in I don’t know how long. Like wads of paper, they opened up my shriveled soul. They served gorgeous dishes with such humility. Asked each morning if I’d gotten cold during the night. Moved my wet clothes around the lawn so that they stayed in the sun.
I’m not trying to over-romanticize anything. We were honest travelers. We paid for the heat we used, the towels, every meal, the coffee and even the water. When given the option to purchase a bottle of their homemade wines, sadly, I had to decline. But when it was time to leave and our suitcases were in the car, the farmers told us to please wait. Running up from the cellar, he carried a bottle of wine and thrust it into my arms as if I’d do him a great favor by accepting it. I’d seen the cellar earlier, it wasn’t very big, just enough for their family. But still, they all gave, however they could. Even when there is very little, I learned, there is always something to give.
In Montepulciano, I met a third-generation coppersmith who insisted on making me a gift, as he does for all those who are visiting shop for the first time. A copper medallion, engraved with the date, my initials and the Mazzetti seal. Signore Mazzetti had just shown me a fish platter that could end up in a museum some day. He showed me water pitchers, perfect honeycomb patterns, portraits of his grandfather, from whom his artisanal gift derives. Some of his pieces are not for sale, though they’d make him a fortune. Some are priced higher than market value, others are priced much lower. Why? I asked.
Because our labor cannot be measured by market trends or even price tags, but by the amount of pleasure we derived from doing it, by how much we invested ourselves. Only you can say what its worth, he said. Signore Mazzetti takes pride in his work and shares himself freely, piece by piece, medallion by medallion. Partly because he doesn’t want to be forgotten, but at least he understands his value in this world, and to me, that is a mark of nobility.
There isn’t a stack of copper medallions sitting on his shelf, waiting for new visitors. The gift I took home was made right before my eyes. I watched and waited as Sig. Mazzetti hammered and forged, stopping to tell to a few stories (in Italian. Thank goodness I was with an Italian who could translate). Why would I be in a hurry? Everyone in Italy seemed to ask me this question. What’s the use of rushing your life away? If this is your chance to live, shouldn’t you take it as slow as possible?
It took time for the Mazzetti craft to evolve. Three generations, in fact. It takes time for those Tuscan grapes to age in wood barrels, and for tomatoes to ripen in the sun. It takes time for stories to materialize, and if you’re just rushing through the moments of life, who knows what part of the story you’re missing. It might have taken over 400 years to complete the Duomo in Siena, but there is nothing like it in this world.
And yet, other things occur so quickly that you can’t even grasp them. You just wake up one day and walk out to the stone walls of an Etruscan city. You look out over the valley, silver trees paint the hillsides, little strands of smoke spiral from chimneys, a cathedral stands up straight and tall, and all of a sudden you can’t even say how you got there, or whether this is you or not. It feels like you’re standing on the edge of your own life. You didn’t plan this, couldn’t have planned this - Nobody gets what they want, they get something else. The most important things in life happen by surprise.
You know what I’m talking about. The things that are too big to be coincidences, too deep to see or find words for. Those who get inside of you and stay there, swirling. Maybe for the rest of your life, I can’t say for sure yet. All I know is that life is incredibly generous, it offers us so many chances.
There was a moment when Misty and I were driving through Genoa. On bridges that suspended high into the air, we tunneled through the green Ligurian mountains. It had been raining, but eventually the dark clouds passed and blinding light came spewing from the sky. We were stunned by the beauty around us. “The only thing that could possibly make this any better,” I told Misty, “is if a rainbow suddenly appeared and fell into the valley below.”
Ten minutes later, we both gasped. Right before our eyes, a long rainbow poured out of the sky. Falling and falling, for miles, all the way to the bottom of the valley, and then reaching like an arm back into to the sky.
Looking back, that rainbow was a harbinger: it appeared on day 1 of my journey, when anything was possible. Your dreams are not unreasonable, it reminded me. Do not close yourself up, even if seems like a good idea at times. Like the rainbow, open your arms, stretch them as far as they will reach. Trust what is inside. Trust that your labor is ordained. And out of that trust, keep going, for that is the way.
So much had changed when I returned to Stockholm. A month earlier, the world had been in flames, and we were doing our best to save it. Collecting red berries for marmalade. Bright orange pumpkins for carving and roasting. Gold leaves to decorate our doorframes. Now what was left? Gray sticks set against a gray sky. There were no leaves on the sidewalks either - just their jagged shadows. A different sort of beauty, a time for rest, for renewal, when the past fades away into long dark nights, making empty spaces that will freeze over, waiting to be filled with new things.
I was very quiet that first week, mostly because I had four different languages tumbling in my head. It took some time for Swedish to roll forward into my mouth again. Even last week, when I was checking out at the market, the cashier handed me my receipt. Varsigod, she said. I hesitated. It was awkward. She looked at me as I flipped through several words in my head, trying to find the right one. Grazie, I said.
That word still comes in Italian. It was wrong, and the cashier frowned before glancing away, but it just felt right. Grazie. I’m so thankful to Italy, to those I met, every unexpected visitor, you guides from beyond, I still carry you with me. Every day, I am grateful. You touched my jawbone, you brought me back to life.
