When the going gets tough, the saying goes, the tough get going. I guess the message is to grow a spine; when things look hopeless isn’t the time to lose your nerve but to charge bravely ahead like the British cavalry did into the “Valley of Death” in Tennyson’s poem Charge of the Light Brigade. I’m taking a more measured approach — it didn’t end well for British — by deciding that escapism is the better part of valor.
It requires all my self-discipline to put aside my phone and my various news feeds. But I’m reading good books, at least trying to, and just started watching the new season of White Lotus. It annoys me when people start comparing notes about TV shows I’ve never seen — Breaking Bad, for instance, or Succession. So I won’t bore you. Suffice it to say that I admire the show’s winning formula. Based on past seasons many of the guests at whatever paradisiacal resort is featured end up dead but you don’t mind because they tend to be rich, obnoxious members of the ruling class. Heroes, such as there are, typically emerge from the housekeeping staff.
What the show nails, besides beauty shots of white sand beaches, ancient Buddhist temples, or photogenic monkeys ducking for cover is the head-scratching discontent of people who seem to have it all. There’s some truth to that. Those with too many options often find novel ways to screw things up. I’m not thinking of anyone in particular.
Speaking of good fortune, I had the opportunity to visit Italy in September when Europe remained our ally. I’m not surprised by anything that’s happened since Election Day, since I always assume the worst, but when you find yourself on the North Korean side of a U.N. resolution you know that things have gone off the rails.
I grew up in that rose-colored post-war era when the United States, for its myriad flaws and failure to live up to its ideals, was a beacon of democracy, a role model for the rest of the world. In a matter of weeks we’ve become an international pariah while passing the torch of democracy to Europe, epitomized by Ukraine’s ferocious fight for freedom and self-determination. I heard that the last election was all about the price of groceries, that we didn’t vote for autocracy — in which case you need to have your hearing aids checked. Whatever his flaws, part of Donald Trump’s charm is that he says the quiet part out loud.
But now for the escapist part of the show: I went to Italy with one goal. It goes without saying that I was hoping for good food and weather. But what I had in mind was to recapture an aspect of a summer trip that I took to Sicily in the 1970’s. My cousin, my traveling companion, and I found ourselves in Enna, a hill city in the center of the island. It may have been my first exposure to the Italian ritual known as the passeggiata. That’s the evening tradition where the whole community, young and old, flirting teenagers and widows in black, comes out after dinner and takes a leisurely stroll.
It’s socializing in motion. It’s an opportunity to admire the evening sky and bask in cool redemptive breezes after the sun-baked Mediterranean day. It reinforces the notion that everyone is part of something larger than themselves. No necessarily anything cosmic. But a place in time. An interconnected network of realtionships. The pampered wellness junkies in White Lotus are too busy dealing with their demons to appreciate anything as mundane and cost-free as a passeggiata.
There’s been a lot of ink, or rather keystrokes, spilled lately about overtourism — the sightseers run amok in Venice, Barcelona or the Louvre. But there’s an easy solution to the problem. Steer clean of tourist traps. Our vacation was focused on smaller northern Italian cities such as Cremona, Parma and Mantua where there was no problem scoring hotel rooms, dinner reservations or having the run of cathedrals and museums. But what attracted me most of all, besides the opportunity to see great art and consume fresh pasta, was the desire to rediscover, to slip back into the gulfstream of graceful humanity that I experienced all those decades ago back in Enna and that I knew also happens in secondary Italian cities.
One could argue that it was a reaction to the growing polarization and dysfunction back home. I, like many others, was fool enough to believe that staging a coup would disqualify one from higher office. Also, Italy has turned political dysfunction into a brand. But the Italians are living proof that comity and chaos can happily exist co-exist.
We visited the violin museum in Cremona, stayed at an agritourismo famous for its pork in the countryside, and saw Parma in the rain. But it was in Mantua where I found what I was looking for. The place was buzzing with life. The cafes and restaurants were full. I had breakfast at one of them overlooking the main piazza while watching a Great Dane meet-up. Bicyclists politely wend their way through pedestrian ruled streets. Pastry with lots of frosting beckoned from bakery windows. It was like a rolling all-day passeggiata. If you were tempted to think that humanity was under existential threat this scene would have restored your faith.
The United States isn’t Italy but maybe it has lessons to offer us. The need to connect becomes more urgent than ever. Perhaps to ignore Washington, challenging as that is, and focus on local life. Family, town, city and state. Certainly now is no time to stop drinking, dining, eating baked goods in profusion, or, weather permitting, taking an after dinner stroll.
Ralph Gardner Junior is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found in the Berkshire Eagle and on Substack.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
