CARPE DIEM: MOVIES, MEMOIR and VICARIOUS TRAVEL to ITALY

In the garden, the delphiniums were in flower. Through scented twilight the girl in the white dress walked with a step as light as a cobweb. That evening, she hadn't a care in the world.

Mrs. Delahunty, My House in Umbria

Mrs. Delahunty: I may be dead next month. The moon may have crashed into the earth. Who knows what dreadful things may come to pass? But at the moment, I'm happy. What else matters?

Colonal: Carpe Diem

Mrs. Delahunty: I'm never really sure just what that means.

Colonal: Oh. Seize the day. Embrace the present. Enjoy life while you've got the chance.

Mrs. Delahunty: Carpe Diem. I'll remember that.

My House in Umbria

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Lately, I am aware that I have to do just that, carpe diem, because everything seems to have a feeling of impermanence. Not in a dark somber way but in the way that you feel that something's moving and changing.

I wonder why after you hit a certain age, you wake up with memories of people and places that you haven't thought about in a long time. Often fragments of youth-inspired dreams come back to your mind with a strong force. When I was a teen, I wanted to travel to Europe and it became one of my main goals to tour England, Scotland, Ireland as well as France and Denmark. After much saving, planning and determination, I finally was able to make the unforgettable trip. I think my early obsession with travel was connected to my love of romance novels. Though the love story obsession was left in my teenage years,  the enjoyment of other lands and people remained.

I think that's why I love Maggie Smith in My House in Umbria. The film is set in Italy, where she plays the lead character Miss. Emily Delahunty but (as she tells us) her name is not important. In fact, we learn that she has many other nom de plumes and we realize that she actively creates her own fluid identity. She's a writer of romance novels who feels most alive when she's helping others. In one scene, she invites a group of complete strangers to move in with her after a train explosion. Through her engagement with the other characters, we fall in love with her quirky personality. Whenever I want to imagine myself in another life this movie does the trick.

If you can watch My House in Umbria and not yearn to travel to Italy, you are a strong person.  If you are having an Italian themed movie night, you might watch Under the Tuscan Sun or go out to see Letters to Juliet. Both of these movies will make you feel as though you have been in Italy or that it's essential for you to go there now!

I have read the memoir, Under the Tuscan Sun (Frances Mayes), and found it to be richly satisfying. I loaned this book to a close friend who found it tedious with detail about the Italian countryside, garden restorations and house renovations. However, I like these details of ordinary life. I like to see how people make decisions and what occupies their time. I'm interested in both real and spruced-up life. (A little magic making fantasy is fine with me.) Another popular book made into film that has an enchanting section on an vacation in Italy is Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. (Julie Roberts plays the author Gilbert in the movie.) There is another saturate-yourself-in-Italy movie that I have already mentioned in previous blogs, Enchanted April, which documents a life transforming month in an Italian Medieval castle. Gorgeous scenery!

In the London Times, a small classified ad appears:

“To those who appreciate Wisteria and Sunshine:

To let for the month of April - a medieval castle on

the Italian Mediterranean shore.”

Photographs and movie review here.



If you want to explore Italy or imagine yourself there in real life, try Rick Steves' link to travel. Now I wonder, which movies you watch (or books do you read) that bring you into lovely romantic Italy? Have I missed any? 

Do you hear Italian music...

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Waking up on the Island of Enchantment that is also know as Puerto Rico, I plan to bake a fragrant pan of vegetarian lasagna, toss a green salad and toast garlic bread.

I promise myself that at every moment I will carpe diem!

On a side note: my struggling gardenia bush finally bloomed after three years of waiting, hoping, and supplementing it with coffee grounds. 

I like to believe that this momentous occasion is symbolic, perhaps it's foreshadowing a trip in the near future?

Full Moon Viewed on High

View of the full moon from an airplane. Radiating and reflecting light...

Traveling Today through JFK

I'm hearing the soft rhythm of Sade playing in the background while drinking large gulps of American style coffee and sitting at a clean table on a cushioned chair using free wifi and an iPad set up for public use. Where am I? A coffee house?

No! I'm at the JFK airport in New York.

What happened to travel in the last few years? The last time I was in this airport on a family trip, the plane was delayed, we had lost our connection, and it was dreadfully uncomfortable. We waited for hours cold, hungry, tired and trying to sleep on the floor with fifty other waylaid travelers caught in route like flies in this crafty spider web of concourses, terminals and shuttles. Victims at the mercy of impatient airline officials and over zealous security agents, e.g.

 "Where are you going and to what purpose?" 

"Home"  

 "What are you transporting in that red jar? 

"It's homemade cherry preserves?!" (There they go into the trash!)

I felt like running to the nearest exit, "I'm unsat! I'm unsat!" For those of you who don't know, that's military jargon for "unsatisfactory" but it's equivalent now would be "that's a fail." Only the panic feeling of "I'm unsat" is more to the point. I felt guilty and afraid that I would get caught. But what had I done? The general atmosphere after 9/11 was intense, we were all guilty until proven innocent. I stayed  away for a good while. I stopped traveling north. 

Today, I'm mystified by the contrast of my memory with the current reality. Is this the same nightmare airport where more than once,  I've been caught midstream on my way to somewhere.

I'm not complaining about the comfortable wait, I'm just taking it all in and feeling more and more delighted by the moment! Times have changed while I've been sipping a cool drink by the ocean on the beautiful island of Puerto Rico -  oh yes, they keep changing by the moment! I'm pleasantly surprised that this change is good; in fact, it's brilliant!

Sunset

Dollop of buttery sun melts into the toasted twilight...