Thinking Down the Line

Eric and I found paradise on Earth. It came in the form of a little Tuscan village near Sienna called Buonconvento. Months prior, when planning our trip to Italy, we booked our farmhouse on a wink and a prayer that it would be half as charming as the photos indicated. It ended up being twice as much. We traversed the Italian countryside in our Fiat, the wind in our hair. Surrounded by rolling hills of lavender and sunflowers, we found the entrance to our Cyprus-lined driveway. Our car coughed and hiccuped as it climbed higher and higher. Our home for the next several days sat perched atop what seemed to be all of Italy; the clouds and the vineyards and the olive trees extended as far as the eye could see. 

We picked fresh vegetables and herbs from the garden to add to the  pasta we had purchased in town. Buonconvento:  the cobblestone corridors gave way to the butcher shops that sold mortadella the size of a whiskey barrel. The cheese mongers offered samples of creamy mozzarella as the scent of rosemary and oregano perfumed the fall air. Long banquet tables were joined together and cloaked in white linens where five generations sat and broke bread. Chianti glasses clanked and the laughter was boisterous. And this was no holiday. This was just Sunday. 

In Italy (and every country I have visited outside the United States) I have been moved by the tremendous value placed upon family. I am especially gripped by the reverence and respect that is bestowed upon the elderly. It goes back to the provenance that I wrote about a couple entries ago--knowing your point of origin. Lineage is linear, a line woven through a family from its earliest descendant to the baby being born today. We lose that in the United States. We are caught up in a white-picket-fence notion that family is a nuclear thing that exists within the walls of a house. Lineage is severed and families become islands, independent and isolated. 

I have always been a nostalgic person. My Mother-in-law, Linda, gave me a set of shrimp forks and butter knives that date back to the early 1900s. They came from Eric’s great-grandmother. Linda knows that it's not the silver or the cocktail fork itself that interests me. It's the story. It’s the symbolism of something being passed down from generation to generation. It’s broadening a lens and belonging to a greater purpose, one that involves more than an SUV and a Golden Retriever. It is equally important for me that my child be bounced on the knee of his/her grandparents as it is for him/her to be cradled in my arms. 

***

I stood behind an elderly man in the grocery store earlier this week. He was probably about 85 years old and took great pride in his ability to run his own errands. He wore pressed khaki pants and a button-down shirt and carried a worn, leather wallet that matched his worn, leather belt and shoes. He counted out exact change for his handful of purchases. The cashier and the two customers in line behind him and in front of me treated him with impatience and haste. They clicked fingernails on the counter. They heaved great sighs of annoyance and shifted their weight from foot to foot. It would never dawn on them that, in Italy, this man would be seated at the head of the table for Sunday dinners. He would be looked upon with respect  and his words of wisdom would fall on receiving and teachable ears of the generations laid before him. He would bounce babies on his knee and they would know their role in the story that God set in motion at the dawn of time.