“I can’t believe I’m finally going,” I said to my friend Karen as I gripped my passport like it was a ticket to a future version of me. We were about to board a plane to a place I had only dreamed about after watching Under the Tuscan Sun more than a dozen times.
I had rehearsed this trip in my mind for years. The pasta. The unhurried afternoons. The gelato. The ancient ruins. The wine. Did I mention the food?
Nine days in Italy touring Venice, Florence and Rome chasing la dolce vita, and I intended to make every day count.
On day one of my trip, I splurged in Venice, buying wine glasses and a decanter on Murano for 1,000 euros. I couldn’t stop imagining sipping wine from them when I was back in New Jersey.
I sat down to a plate of carbonara with truffles at a small ristorante in Florence when an older man walked in with four shaggy white dogs riding in the basket of his bicycle. They were well-mannered and unbothered. No one blinked except my friend and me. We had never seen such a thing in a restaurant back home.
In Italy, dining out is for everyone, dogs and children included, and no one is made to feel like they don't belong at the table. Everyone, yes, everyone, is famiglia.
People walked everywhere in Rome, even those clearly on their way to work, swinging their briefcases. Despite their destination, they still stopped for a morning espresso. But they held no to-go cups. People stood at the counter, unrushed, as they slowly sipped.
At one point, on a passeggiata between stretches of touring ancient ruins, Karen reminded me of the day's agenda. It’s not like me to go about my day in the unknown. I'm a person who normally needs to know every detail, who runs on a schedule the way other people run on coffee. But Italy had swept that away. I was no longer married to the clock.
The night I came home, almost 10 years ago now, something in me had changed. I remember expecting to hear the sound of church bells, or “Volare” playing somewhere in the distance. Instead, all I heard was the low hum of the refrigerator. As sad as I was to leave, I came back carrying a light I hadn't had before. Italy made me hungry for a zestier life.
However, within a few days, I was unraveling at the ordinary rush of my actual life. Traffic, work schedules, and frozen dinners became unbearable. I began noticing something I'd somehow never let myself see before: how chaotic my days actually were, and had been, for years.
It only took nine days in Italy for me to be accustomed to a different way of living. It was as if my soul was finally aligned with my body. I felt myself gripping what was left of that light just as tightly as I had gripped my passport two weeks earlier at the gate. Whatever was left of Italy within me needed anchoring through new rituals. I needed to bring la dolce vita to New Jersey.
So, I started small. I turned my TV off and instead tuned into dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing. I took up watercolor—just me on the floor of my living room. With a candle lit and paper spread out in front of me, I began to feel the slowness of an evening. I traded rushed drive-thru coffee for a slow morning ritual. Sitting with my coffee lets me taste it and enjoy the warmth of the cup.
My workweek still had its rush: morning traffic and countless emails. These things would never disappear. But when I came home, I put down my work bag and phone and I cooked something worth bringing the whole famiglia to the table for.
Then, one summer, I was became reacquainted with Italy all over again. It was a late afternoon, with Ella Fitzgerald playing low in the background. I mixed 00 flour and two eggs and, like magic, made my first-ever homemade pasta.
When I’m in it, whether it’s forming the well in the flour, mixing in the eggs or kneading the dough until the gluten has thoroughly worked through, I no longer hear myself think. I get lost in the dough, my thoughts folding into it along with the egg, until the kitchen that once felt chaotic becomes something closer to a sanctuary.
The moment I saw my own homemade pasta lined up on the counter—fettuccine, pappardelle, tagliatelle— I was in shock. It took ten minutes to create something Italians have spent generations mastering.
I don’t exactly see rolling Tuscan hills when I open my front door. I see New Jersey. There’s traffic in the distance, someone’s leaf blower running and all the typical noise of a life that would never mirror an Italian postcard. But when I give myself the chance to slow down and take an evening passeggiata, it reminds me of the cobblestones. It turns out the feeling was never really about the location.
Did I need to spend 1,000 euros on wine glasses in Venice to find la dolce vita? Of course not. But it didn't hurt to try. Now, when I sip wine from that glass and set down a plate of fettuccine I made with my own hands, I think about what Italy actually gave me—the practice of savoring a life well spent.
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