In Love with France, At Home In Italy

It’s fall, and loss is in the air, but also the milestones of new babies and the first fall visit of our granddaughters. Maybe you’ve heard me refer to our neighbor and mentor, Farmer G, before. He died last weekend, leaving us very sad. I have been trying to figure out how to honor him and our special relationship. Here’s my attempt.   Although  Letters to Men of Letters  is my first published book, every year since 2008 when we moved to the Umbrian countryside, I have produced a handmade gift book for Farmer G, who tried to teach us how to live here. Each was loaded with photos documenting that year’s misadventures, as we learned about life in this valley from a master of many generations of wisdom. We were his ungifted students, but he never lost patience with our clumsy, ignorant attempts to find our way.  To watch Farmer G wield his zappa was like being at a ballet. “Zappa” translates as “hoe”: a long-handled tool with a metal blade that is used mainly for weedi...

  Every once in a lifetime or so I have the  luck to find a writer who speaks directly to my heart. One of the first was James Agee when he wrote of lying on a quilt under the stars during a golden moment before tragedy strikes. But for me, right now, Margaret Renkl is that writer.    What are the chances that I should be trying to compose condolence letters to a dear family, and to myself, when I stumble on Renkl not only referring to how much author James Agee meant to her, but saying, of her own children in the aftermath of a devastating Covid year that left empty seats at many Thanksgiving tables:   “But maybe they will remember the joy of being together for a little while, if only at a distance, and the quiet pleasure of an unencumbered afternoon at the end of a hard, hard year. I hope they will know somehow, even if no one thinks to tell them, that such days are rare—and truly perfect.”    Many years ago, I copied into my chapbook the passag...