We arrive shortly after the start time of 7pm. It’s lightly raining on this evening, but once you walk in the door you forget about the weather outside. The ambiance indoors is cozy and beautiful. Also, Isabella has arranged for live musicians to entertain us throughout the evening and hired a professional photographer to capture the evening in photos.
There are a few seats left for us at end of the table so I find my spot and get seated. I still have no appetite with a rock in my stomach and the thought of a bite of anything is completely unappealing. The table is is set so beautifully and I think, how ironic that I finally get to the Thanksgiving dinner on a Thanksgiving week in Tuscany and I can’t imaging eating anything or having a drop of wine. Also, what’s that – is my nose now starting to feel just slightly runny? Oh, why yes, it does. Please let it be an allergy to a cat that possibly snuck into this room earlier in the day.
Everyone gets up to go get their first course of appetizers artfully displayed in the other room. I stay seated, hoping if I pass on the appetizer course, I might feel hungry for the rest that is to come. Imagine if I could live my regular life like this? An outrageous meal set before me and I’m not even tempted with a bite. I spend the time just visiting with others trying to draw away attention to the fact that I’m not eating just yet. I was thinking if I could just stay until 9pm or so then I could get back and rest.
All the courses came out and one by one, I passed and said I just wasn’t hungry. It was a new record for me. I came to Italy and finally had become filled to the brim with pasta and wine. I couldn’t imagine another bite of anything on this night or the rest of the trip – in that moment. As long as I didn’t eat, I felt okay to just visit and enjoy the music. Possibly a life lesson for me as well that an even doesn’t have to be about the food (as much as I love it to be) it’s also about the people and enjoying the environment.
Isabella and her youngest son Filippo joined us at the end of the table and it was great to hear some more from Isabella about Italian culture and how it isn’t as easy as it seems to live in this part of the world. It looks so idyllic when you come for a visit, but life has it’s challenges, like anywhere and the culture and values are very different from what we are used to in the USA. Especially when it comes to women and their role in society. She said she learned in her studies of the area, it hasn’t even been very long, maybe a generation, since big families lived together and the brothers would sleep with all the wives and they wouldn’t know which child was whose so that they would treat them all equally and raise large strong families that stood up for one another. She said this type of approach only just stopped in the 1960’s.
And well, that’s what I’ve always loved about a conversation with Isabella. She is a wealth of perspective on this part of the world. She encourages you to come visit and enjoy all the sweetness of life in this part of the world. But also helps you to not be seduced that if you packed up and moved here it would be the same. Italians are not very accepting of outsiders, even other Italians, who are from different parts of the country, let alone different parts of the worlds. Isabella has walked this out not only as someone who came from Milan to the area, but also as a strong business woman in a male dominated culture.
Where had the time gone? I looked at my watch and it was already 10:30p.m. I looked at Heidi and told her ‘I need to gypsy.’ She had taught be that term a few days before. I had never heard it. But she told me it means when you leave a party without making a scene. You just kind of vaporize. So that is what I attempted to to do. I had sat through all the courses, listened and sang along with several rounds of Italian and American folk songs, taken the group photo. I had earned my longed for evening of rest.
I managed to make my exit and, in advance, find a ride for Heidi and Jeff so that they could stay longer. And additionally, I made the call to NOT go on the tour to San Gimignano with Antonella the next day. As much as I had been looking forward to that tour with her, I knew, especially with what felt like a head cold coming on, I needed to buckle down, rest and get packed on Friday. The drive out there was 1.5 hour each way and it would take the whole day. Plus rain and winds were expected for Friday.
With that, I said my goodbyes and exited the first official Thanksgiving where I didn’t eat a bite of food. Even so, I enjoyed myself and the beautiful party, and seeing all the effort and detailed touches to make this the most extravagant Thanksgiving setting I had ever personally walked into. Not feeling 100%, and the fatigue of the week continuing to set it, the evening did feel a bit like a super nice business dinner that I had to push through to get there and stay engaged, but happy in the end that I did so. This reunion was 3 years in the making, and Teresa was right, I simply could not have missed this special evening.