The list is on my desk, typed out as an inducement to get all of the stuff done that comes after the Christmas crazies. I am determined to get it all done.
As I was putting the groceries away, number three on the list, I turned on the TV. One of my favorite movies was on. I had to sit and watch it again.
No, this movie has never won any awards that I know of, and, if pressed, I can point out many flaws in its production, but I still love it. It is one of those “take-me-away” pieces that speak to something about me that needs attention. I remember the first time that I saw it, on the big screen, I left the cinema smiling, anticipating writing or calling my girlfriends with my highest recommendation. Under the Tuscan Sun, comes only tangentially close to the book on which it was based, but there is enough of Italy, enough of the melodrama of life in it to capture my imagination for the few hours that it runs and to assuage the unanswered anxieties that hide in the recesses of everyday life.
The film version brings a depressed female writer to Italy, hurting because of the collapse of her long-time marriage. She impulsively buys a dilapidated villa and proceeds to renovate the building and, in doing so, build a new life. The snippets of that new life as it emerges play the dark against the light and, finally, if more pointedly than in real life, the music swells and it all works out well.
I asked myself why I have dismissed my list, the center of my attempt at bringing some organization to the post-Christmas chaos of my house. I know that I will be faced with all of these chores in the coming week. My plan, now aborted, was to have a much-desired week of evenings free to read and work on a craft project. So, why the detour? Because there is something satisfying in losing yourself in a fairy tale of redemption.
I have no great disappointments in my life, but the little ones, the ones that annoy, that frustrate, that mess up your plans, especially those that seem to pile up all at once or sequentially, are enough to want to find some mid-winter’s sunlight.
I have learned not to want too much, to accept that aspirations have to be tempered with the idea that not everything turns out the way you plan, but there are residuals to life’s little problems that, even with humor, cloy for attention.
While Frances Mayes hires Polish workers to fix her villa, I am trying to find someone to repaint the top of the window seat in the dining room. As she cooks magnificent meals for her workmen, I am wondering how I can trap the last two kittens on the day that the vet does surgeries. As she cowers under her bed clothes during a raging electrical storm, I am wondering if I have done permanent damage to my head because of a unique wine-bottling accident. (Don’t ask.) I still struggle with the fallout from a broken femur that occurred during a hip replacement and one of our cats is suffering from an infected animal bite.
This too-long list of minor challenges and family worries, though not written out, still occupies my mind and can, on the odd occasion, bring even more clouds than our dark winter days. They can be a furtive distraction from a positive life.
There is sun in this movie, in the Tuscan Hills, in the robust Italian customs that are so wonderfully different from ours, in the warm portrayal of the deep love of family that is so much a mark of Italian culture, in the exuberance of ancient customs that defy sensibilities, all of which capture the hearts and minds of a people … and make me smile.
So, I have left the to-do list for another time, savoring the movie, its salubrious enticements, the memories of an Italian vacation and the idea that sometimes I need to address the darker corners of my life and sometimes I need to let them go for a while as I attend to the short list on which I am first.
I’ll start the other list tomorrow.
