Integrating the Inner Italian

My husband and I have just come back from a refreshing one day, one night away at our favorite Gateways Inn in Lenox, Mass. I'm not quite sure how such a short stay can manage to rearrange my neurons so that they are far more pleasant than normal, but I'll try.

Imagine a very large room, beautifully decorated, with a gas fireplace in the corner and a deep tub with jets to soothe your aching muscles. Imagine sinking onto said beautiful, immense bed and taking out one's kindle to read truly trashy romances. (I have confessed to this before, I believe; I do not, almost never, read current adult fiction. I find it far too depressing.) Imagine the comfort of having one's husband of 44 years (gasp!) nearby, not far away at work, not on the computer, just there--available for hand holding and other good things, which the trashy, steamy romance could certainly lead to. Imagine this aging broad lowering herself carefully into the tub (well, maybe better not to imagine this part...), pouring in mineral bath liquid, and winding up with so much foam that I could totally have done a nude scene without annoying the Catholic Church or any other censors.

Then imagine going downstairs to sit on high stools at a bar--something we almost never do--and staring at the sparkling bottles containing more single-malt scotch than you could possibly imagine. Seriously. There has to be almost $50,ooo worth of liquor back there, maybe $100,000. (And everything on the shelves is polished with furniture polish every three days, in case you are interested.) Fabrizio, co-owner of the inn, suggests various malts to us, telling us which is more "peaty" than another. All I know is which ones make me cough the most. "Peaty" does not mean anything in my vocabulary. In the list of drinks, Rick notes one 25 year-old scotch which costs $875 per SHOT. Seriously. Fabrizio tells us about the man who came in, perched on a stool, and proceeded to have two shots of this amazingly expensive brew. "So, he had $1700 worth of malt at one time?" Rick gasped. Fabrizio nodded. "And then what do you do after that?" my husband persisted. Fabrizio spread his hands in a familiar Italian gesture, pursed his lips and said, "Enjoy."

What a concept. Enjoy. It seemed like a blessing for the entire time of our stay. Enjoy the bed. Enjoy the meal cooked by his wife Rosemary (who trained with the famous Italian cook, Marcella Hazan), including a beef tenderloin so tender it could be cut with the side of your fork. Enjoy the other guests in the small dining room--a man who works for a record company and at one time helped manage both Alex Rose and Courtney Love (who was not remarkably stable at the time, big surprise...). Laughter, wine, and good stories ensue, and the basic word is, "Enjoy."

It reminds me of another word which is frequently in my mind--"savor." It is a word that Fr. James Martin speaks of in his wonderful book, A Jesuit's Guide to (Almost) Everything. The whole concept of "savoring" is to let life's experiences rest in one--to almost rest on one's tongue, if you will. We will not gulp down experience, or gobble people and events, but just--taste them, savor them, and enjoy. It leads to a different stance in life, I do believe. We're not just consumers, rushers-through of our days, but people who wisely take things as they come, enjoying them when we can, and--if some events turn out to be painful, which they inevitably will--there is always help at hand. But then, I'm deeply religious, so my stance is not for everyone.

Enjoy. Savor. Good words for this season of excess and hurry, but also a season of friends, family, home baked goodies, fine wine, beautiful music (I've developed a taste for 16th-century Spanish Advent music, thanks to my brother's recent concert), and maybe a Midnight Mass or two.

And so I hope for all of you that this will be a time of savoring and enjoying; that you will feel as refreshed and nourished as we did after a day and a night away of supping on wonderful food, bathing in foamy baths, being together, and just celebrating this beautiful time of year.

Aging Broads and Droids

Hello, fellow techno-boobs. This aging broad succumbed to a wild impulse last week--brought on most likely severe light deprivation over this ghastly winter, and possibly a lack of fine red wine--and bought a Droid Veizon phone. What WAS I thinking of? I only do a few measly texts per week to my "kids", and usually send them off half-baked with wandering letters scattered across the pages, so that they have to call me and gently ask, "What DID you mean, Mom?" So to have this vibrating hunk of electronic gadgetry in my hand that speaks to me in a Martian voice--"DROID"--when I turn it on (hell, that's enough to make me have to use the bathroom and go back for a third cup of rich coffee..), and then offers so many possible apps and functions that it makes my mind wobble.

For example: trying to text my son who is in L.I. visiting his girlfriend, I sent a text saying I'd meet him at the bus station tomorrow after three. Somehow my pronged finger touched the wrong button, or pressed too hard on the right button, and my poor offspring continued to receive the same text ad nauseum. Over and over and over. Did I know how to stop it? No, indeedy do, I did not. I had to turn off the Droid and go fan my face, trying to assemble some semblance of sanity. Perhaps some progesterone would help.

Then I turned it on again and checked into the News and Weather section. An old "Berenstein Bears" book came to mind, when Mama bear (in her oh-so-cute androgynous flowered blue hat) decided the family was watching too much T.V., so they would turn it off for a week. Of course, the predictable ensued: Papa bear was found sneaking down at night for a T.V. hit, or lurking in the electronics section of the Mall, getting his TV fix. When asked how he would know about the weather, Mama pointedly opened the casement window and said, "Stick your hand out, baby," or something to that effect. Did I need to check the weather on my Droid when a quick glance out the window would have shown that it was snowing on the first day of Spring? No, I did not. But I did.

Then I went to the News Stories, containing enough bad news to send me straight for the Single Malt Scotch bottle: Libya in flames (I actually felt we should have gone in about two weeks earlier, but it was good to have the Arab League invite the U.N. in); Japan looking devastated; and more. I have to spread my shaking fingers about ten times on the teensy screen to get the print large enough for this aging broad's eyes, but finally I did it, enjoying reading about death and disaster as I sipped coffee and put off work, yet again.

Will this make me a better person? Probably not. Will my offspring call with barely concealed anger to tell me to stop sending them endless loops of texts from last year? Yes, they will. Will my darling husband patiently try to walk me through the various functions? Yes, he will. Then I will put down the tiny device which rattles me with its alien voice, open a book with pages that spread out, and probably light a candle somewhere. I secretly belong to the world of "Little House on the Prairie" (with, of course, indoor plumbing, advanced dentistry, antibiotics, and perhaps some percocet for joint replacements), and like the idea of reading aloud by candlelight. Only, those cold beds in the attic with the roofing nails tipped white with frost are not something I want to become acquainted with. With regret, I bid Laura goodbye, turn on my Droid again, and think about texting somebody far away who can't be angry with me when the same text appears over...and over....and over again.

Tell Me To Do What???

Ok, I have had it with gurus. Up to here. Both the spiritual kind and the health and physical fitness kind. Watching GMA this morning, the ever-present Dr. Oz was on (and he's a good guy, you can tell--anyone who does a whole show on what you can tell from human feces has got to be good, right?) telling us about our circadian rhythm and the optimum times for eating meals, snacking, and going to bed. Huh? Did I miss something? Isn't this what PARENTS used to do for us, and now that we are grown, do we really, really need this intense and scratchy oversight of our personal lives?

So, here's what we're meant to do: Get up at 6:30 a.m. each day (Oh, please, I stopped doing that when my kids graduated from High School; I am not a pretty sight at that hour of the day, and have been known to heave things off of the deck in disgust...); before you go out to exercise, he tells us (because this exercise burns fat and not the calories from just-eaten breakfast), do #1 and # 2. Really? Do I need to have you in my bathroom? I thought that ended when I was four years old. Then we eat breakfast at 7:30, after heaving our bodies around in some form of pre-dawn torture; make it 'til 11:45, have a high fiber snack (I assume he does not mean twinkies which have sat on my shelf for twenty years and look just as fresh as the day they were baked...), then lunch. Thankfully, he did not tell me what to eat. I probably would have thrown a stoneware plate through the plate glass window (something I have been known to do in the past...). Manage to contain yourself without adult oversight until supper at 6:30 p.m. Really? What about the folks who don't get home until 7:00? Leaving that question dangling, he then advises us to go to bed promptly at 10:00 p.m. Ok, I can see how in an alternate universe this would be a good idea, but not in this universe!

There's something so annoying in all of this--the idea that we cannot manage our adult bodies and lives on our own, thank you very much. And whatever the hell happened to common sense? Ok, ok, I know that many of us binge out on huge hamburgers and think flipping the remote control qualifies as exercise. But I don't. I push my body up the road when I walk our Jack Russell; I've been known to do the Wuss's Yoga Routine; I cook delicious things for all of the people I love who live in my house; I try to be in bed pretty early and not read a delicious novel until 12:00; but gimme a break--I am not going to follow this guy's pattern for a healthy life. I'm using my common sense, the smattering of rules my parents laid down in the pleistocene, and respond to the needs of my family, including the pyschotic cat who throws up almost daily on my bedspread. What would Dr. Oz have to say about THAT? Maybe she needs more fibre....I'll get back to you on this. Damn. Whatever happened to just having fun in our lives, without hurting too many people, including ourselves? Thomas Merton once spoke of throwing our "awful solemnity" to the winds, and that's what I'd like to do here. Just-throw-it-away. Have fun instead. You'll live longer, I know it