La Dolce Far Niente
I have a new internet friend! I discovered her blog today… and fell in love with her and Italy in one reading! You can find her and travel with her through the magical land of “La Dolce Far Niente” at http://afriendoftheking.blogspot.com Her name is Leslie Suzanne. Her subtitle is Unlocking barriers and opening doors… She and her daughter are living for a few months on a horse farm in Italy – immersed in the language and the culture. As bloggers you will appreciate the way she began her entry last Sunday:
“Language is a key that unlocks barriers…
such simple, yet powerful things…
words…”
As a second generation American whose paternal grandparents immigrated from Italy, and as a retired educator who spent many years jumping up at the crack of dawn and running from one deadline to the next, I appreciate her love of the Italian culture. She wrote, “The Italians have a saying: La dolce far niente… The sweetness of doing nothing.” Then she challenged us to try it. She postured, ” It is almost impossible. At least at first. For an American.”
My guess is that it’s not IMPOSSIBLE – not even at first – to “do nothing” – but the hard part is to “enJOY the sweetness” of it. We learn that BUSY is BETTER. Productivity is what life is all about. “What did you DO today?” my husband asks when he comes back from a day of fishing (that’s where he is with three of his buddies today). Even if it is recreational, it is DOING. And, by the looks of it, and the words that come out of his mouth when he is trying to tie flies or clean and prepare his fishing lines, it certainly is not relaxing! It’s all “catch and release” around here, so he never brings fish home. But, he certainly finds sweetness in the catching, the fight, the beauty, the release so he can come back and hook that same fish tomorrow – or leave him for the next fisherman to marvel!
Leslie, my new Friend of the King wrote, “Living here in Italy, I have been practicing. I mean really Practicing. It’s an art… To stop being preoccupied. To not be driven by the tyranny of the next thing. To actually be in the moment…..”
My fisherman husband knows about the moment. You only have a moment to enjoy that beautiful fish – and then you better get him back in the water! Be in the moment! Snap a picture, kiss the fish good-bye, and slip him back into the water. The moment is gone. Now, live in the next one! Yes, be present.
Moments in time. Precious presents! Don’t crowd them. La Dolce Far Niente!!
