This morning I woke up with my one swollen upper eyelid. The left side, like it matters. Per usual, when sleeping somewhere beautiful, I peered out the window to a pre-sunrise pink glow and wrestled the duvet to drag myself out of bed and enjoy my favorite time of day. At first, I thought the feeling of swollen eyes was simply fatigue, while I stared across the rows of olive trees to the east, listening to the gang of birds in the tangled bushes and trees to the south.
Yet, after 30 minutes of required pre-sunrise photos and gawking, I returned to my haven of the bed in a large brick-floored room and realized my left eye was still halfway shut. Tip-toeing into the bathroom, I clicked on the light and saw a reflection of a pink and swollen lid. My first thought – I’m glad I brought mascara.
See, tonight is the big night. Once I decided to travel solo in Italy for a few days – after my friend would depart back home – I contemplated what I, me, Natasha Buffo (aka funny), wanted to do in Italy. Not what others do. Not what people expect me to do. What do I want to do? Answer – cook! And based on a recommendation from a local running guide – shoutout to Lapo from Go! Running Tours – I discovered Opera in the Kitchen.
Not just cooking, but cooking in the Chianti region of the Tuscan countryside, with a professional chef, who also happens to be a stunningly gorgeous female business owner, and is incredibly sweet and grateful! Oh, and she has an apartment on the property she rents on AirBnB (where I enjoyed the sunset and where I am currently tapping away at the keyboard…from the bed).
On the subject of where I write – When I was looking at accommodation in Italy I was sure I wanted and needed a desk facing the window. Yes, a little too “Sex and the City” Carrie Bradshaw, “In a world where…” blah blah. (Sidenote – I Googled trying to confirm how Carrie actually starts all her columns, and discovered there are a heck of a lot of questions and discussions about her and her writing career online! Who would have guessed? I digress…)
Turns out, writing from the bed is still one of my favorite places to write, when not at home. Few people know that the majority of the shitty first draft of my book was written on a travel bluetooth keyboard with an iPad I bought in Brisbane, Australia, on the taco-folding double bed in the room Dan and I shared in a house with seven others at the base of the ski field Broken River in New Zealand. Phew! That was a long run-on sentence. That’s the beauty of writing on my blog – I don’t care. Read that run-on sentence and I hope you feel the overwhelm and amazement that was that five months of my life.
Where was I…
Swollen eye-lid? Writing? Oh, Opera in the Kitchen!
Tonight I will live out a dream – well sort of. The true plan years ago, after I’d resigned from Google and before my mom told me they found cancer, was to live in Italy for at least three months, participating in a work exchange on a farm, where I’d learn how to cook daily from an Italian Nana who doesn’t speak a lick of English. That didn’t quite pan out, because instead, I was cooking my own recipes for my mom trying to battle the rusty nail taste that chemotherapy caused and try to increase her calorie intake. What came from this are the most cherished memories I have from those four months of chaos and love. The meals I cooked and we shared are so high up on the reel that plays on repeat in my head, that the original chapter in my memoir related to food probably could cover half of an entire book. Maybe a whole book if I really let myself go there!
And tonight, I will think of Mom. I will think of her because she loved cooking, eating, laughing, dancing, making new friends, being loud, and music. We’ll sing Frank Sinatra songs (at least that’s what the videos on Instagram make me believe) while rolling fresh-made pasta, and then we’ll enjoy the fruits (and ragu and pizza) of our labor, while the art of sound vibrates in our ears. I’ll be shocked if I don’t cry once. No, I’ll be shocked if I don’t feel teary eyed most of the night. I’m tearing up right now just thinking about it. Not good for the swollen eyelid. That’s usually why I wake up with swollen eyelids – from crying. Have you ever cried yourself to sleep? I sure have. But I didn’t last night. Yes, a few puddles in my eyes during the dinner I had – a nice solo date night where I thought about Mom a lot.
I have exactly 24 hours until I begin traveling back to the airport for an early Friday AM flight. My friend Kris asked me how it felt to be almost at the end of my trip. Even without today’s events, it feels good and right. I’ll be back next summer and many times after. I want to profoundly improve my Italian speaking and comprehension skills before next time. And I want to bring the man I love here. And on that trip, I want to hike and bike, go to the coast, and go to Sicilia. I also want to look into my family tree and learn where my dad’s family used to live here. Plus, I have to come back to go on a run with Lapo, because we have a date set on the calendar for, “One of these days.” To me, this appointment is carved in stone into one of the stunning ancient cities of this region.
So tonight, imagine me at my happiest, traveling solo but surrounded by new friends, speaking 5-10 different languages, cooking, eating, and listening to the greatest art I’ve never been able to achieve properly – song. And if you want, imagine Mom by my side, because that’s what I will be imagining too.