The following was written by Martha S. Taccarino. It is just one of her many weekly email MSGs (messages) that she sends to friends and family.
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July 10, 2008
We went to a sagra [blogger comment: food festival] tonight near Arezzo. On the way home I started to think that what I like about Italy so much is the way it satisfies all your senses. I should list them and make sure I cover them all. Sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. That is five. Have I missed something?
Sight - OMG Italy is such a visual country if you just open your mind, SLOW DOWN and look. There it is. The sunrise. The strong sun at mid-day. The setting sun. Which if you have read my emails I am totally enchanted by. Tonight at 9:45 as we drove home I didn’t take any pictures. You will have to rely on my words. As we came from the east heading towards the west I could see the strong outline of the hills and the trees lining the tops of the hills against the slowly fading light. I could see each tree outlined. I could see a blue of the sky that all my reading can not describe. It is a blue lit from behind, not light or dark or turquoise but sunset blue. Only the almost half moon shone. No stars yet. A perfect cloudless sky to showcase an ending to a very nice, not too hot day.
Hearing - today I realized I was no longer hearing the cricket choir. Their booking must have ended. Now it is the ciaciada ( I have not spelled that correctly. And I don’t know if they come every year or only occasionally). Besides hearing them there is our ‘entertainer bird’, the owls, the church bells and least we not forget, the bicycle riders chatting and the motorcycles.
Smell - Okay I won’t talk about food first. Just grass cutting. When I cut the grass I am overwhelmed by smells. These are plants I mow down every time I cut the grass. Wild thyme, Fennel, honeysuckle, clover, rosemary, and a couple others that I don’t know the names of but have very distinct smells. When we ride through the country I will often say to Ben, “Do you smell the fresh mown hay?” or “Ohhh very FARM!” (You can imagine what smell that is) Walking through towns it is “Do you smell that? Let’s go there. It smells like truffles…meat cooking on a spit… all kinds of things” He has learned to trust my sense of smell.
Taste - I can’t even begin to write about taste here. We are so bad. I feel like all I write about is whining about missing eating Thai or Asian food of some sort. Like we have been eating one level above dirt. In the 10 months that we have been here we have had such good food. We are so spoiled. And yet I miss trash. SEND ME CHEETOS PLEASE!
Touch - It comes every day. When I walk outside and see this great piece of property that I live on. I walk across terra cotta, marble and stone floors. I touch the earth that my plants are growing in to see if they need water. I touch my plants that I have wanted for years to be flourishing and lush and (until the hail) they are. I touch butterflies, lizards, and bugs that I have never seen before in my life. I touch laundry hanging out in the sun to dry. Every day I touch the earth and at night after the sun has finally set and I walk outside I feel like I can almost touch the sky….the stars are that close and so many.
So please come for a visit. But not to check list off this monument or museum but to check list off each one of your senses as you realize that life is about enjoying the minute, the moment, the now! We are lucky enough to have found that. And we don’t mind sharing.
We are very lucky people. But we will only be here in this great location with a guest house 2 years and 1 month more. Plan your trip now.
Photo #1 - Sunset
Photo #2 - Glass of wine ________________________________________________
That's it for Saturday, 26 July 2008: sabado, 26 luglio 2008
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Ciao, Ben
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Today’s quote is an Italian proverb, author unknown.
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