Not everyone can just leave

Author: Frances Mays, an American poet, writer and professor at San Francisco State University. In 199, she came to Tuscany, an ancient Italian town.

In p>1996, Under the Tuscan Sun was published. This article is selected from this book, which is leisurely and authentic, and inadvertently leads a cross-century "slow living" fashion. In 1999, "Beautiful Tuscany" continued the meaning of "slow living", a transparent and simple life, after ten years.

"Now, we have a deeper understanding of its surroundings, and we are more and more deeply aware that there is something in the blood of Italians that makes us outsiders jealous: they know the art of life and really know how to live a carefree life. Perhaps it is inherited from Etruscans?"

1

We packed our bags and left for Talamone, a seaside town with towering city walls, with a taste of Etruscan monuments and a delicious aftertaste.

here, the water is pure and clear. We found a rather modern hotel to stay in.

There is no beach around the hotel, only a few abrupt rocks, and guests can sunbathe in chairs on the concrete balcony.

One reason why we chose Talamone is that it is close to the Malema Beach Reserve, and it is the only beach in Tuscany that has not been damaged by the wave of economic development.

Most beaches in Italy are covered with umbrellas and benches, leaving only a thin beach near the sea for people to walk. There are even bathrooms, changing rooms and snack bars on the beach. It seems that Italians feel very comfortable staying on the beach. Hey? And leeches? What about cadmium diarrhea, silk shoots and Guangdong milk? /p>

They often bring their families or friends to the seaside.

as an American from California, I don't like the feeling of being crowded in a crowd. Growing up on the coast of Georgia, I also like the cool sea breeze with a sandy smell, but the beaches in the Old World are hard for me to adapt to at the moment.

Eddie and my daughter loved those big parasols, and dragged me to Villarregui in Tuscany, Pisa Beach and Santa in Piater, insisting that those places were unique and must be visited.

2

I like to listen to the sound of the waves, lie on the beach, or take a walk around nobody, but the beaches in Tuscany are crowded like busy streets.

However, my guidebook says that the beach reserve in Malema is very different, and you may even see wild horses, foxes, wild boar and deer there. I like the smell of Machiavelli very much.

Machiavellia is a kind of wild shrub that grows on the seashore. According to sailors, the fragrance of Machiavellia trees was first reported when the mainland was still out of reach.

The beach in the nature reserve is empty, only wild rosemary and marine lavender are sparsely dotted among it. We stayed on the beach all morning, sitting and walking.

The ancient sea seems to be telling the ancient Etruscan history. We took a bacon sausage sandwich, a large piece of Parmesan cheese and iced tea with us.

except for three or five people at the beach, I almost realized the feeling of being one with nature.

what color is the water? Is it cobalt blue? No, it should be azure, like the color of the clothes on the Virgin in many oil paintings, except that the azure is decorated with silver waves.

these days, we have been driving around, and now we can take a walk, which is really a great enjoyment! I want to read by the sea, but the sun is too dazzling. Maybe I need a big parasol, too.

3

In the morning, we came to Riva, which is known as the "Etruscan coast". Once here, we don't want to leave.

Although there are beach chairs for rent in this beach, there are not many tourists because it is close to the beach reserve, so we took a nap in a farmhouse hotel and went for a long walk on the beach.

It's not far from Calvino and the summer resort of San Visenzo. Shops in the town have rubber beach balls, rubber boats and sand buckets for sale.

In the evening, people come to the street to buy postcards and eat ice cream. The seaside town is a seaside town after all, and you can smell the ocean everywhere.

We found an open-air restaurant, ordered a stew of fish soup, and the waiter brought a dining car with several kinds of fish fillets on it.

He put the fish fillets into a big white bowl one by one, and then poured in the hot broth. Then, spread garlic baked with cream on the toast.

We put bread on the fish soup to make it absorb the rich fish flavor. In the bowl, two crayfish glared at us fiercely.

The waiter comes to add soup from time to time, so that the bread won't sink to the bottom of the soup.

When the salad is delivered, there are at least twenty kinds of olive oil on the dining car, some in transparent bottles and some in colored pottery jars.

We asked the waiter to help us choose one, so he picked up a bottle of light green olive oil and poured it on the red and green chicory from the air.

4

On the way to Mariti, we made a detour to Poponia. Because these two places are very close, it would be a pity not to go to such an ancient town!

Every time I take a quick look at the flowers, I feel like staying a few more days. When we stopped at a coffee shop, we saw two fishermen walking into the shop with a whole bucket of fresh fish just caught last night.

An old woman walked out of the kitchen and wrote the menu of the day on the blackboard. It's a pity that it's not lunch time. After a short stop, we drove to town and parked in front of a huge castle.

Well, it's another Etruscan museum. I have to go in and have a good look. Eddie has lost interest in anything from a thousand years ago and went to buy Machiavelli honey alone.

In the store where we agreed to meet, there was an Etruscan artifact for sale, a ceramic foot. As we were not sure whether it was true or not, we decided to take a walk in the street first and make plans later.

but when we got home, the store was closed and we had to leave angrily.

On the way, a road sign points to an Etruscan site. When Eddie saw it, he didn't stop, but stepped on the gas pedal and sped away, as if he had just escaped from an ancient tomb.

I always can't pronounce the name of this ancient town clearly. Now I realize that Mariti Ma's stress should be in the second syllable, not the third.

After staying in Italy for so long, I still make such basic pronunciation mistakes. Can I learn Italian?

5

Mariti Ma used to be close to the sea. Later, the sea gradually receded, and it was surrounded by a large piece of silt, which eventually became an inland town.

But now, it is built on a high grassland, which makes people feel like they are in a remote town in Brazil that is favored by magical realist novelists. To be exact, Mariti Ma is two towns: a new city and an old city.

But the two cities are equally solemn, with dark projections of buildings and sudden fierce sunshine everywhere.

We were a little tired, so we found a hotel to rest. This is the only hotel with TV along the way.

When we checked in, there was a World War II movie on TV, which faded a little, and the actors all spoke Italian with strange pronunciation.

In the film, a village is occupied by the Germans, and an American soldier hiding in the suburbs wants to help the villagers escape from the clutches of the Germans.

The villagers put all their supplies on the backs of several donkeys and started their escape journey. As for where they fled, I don't know.

I fell asleep in a daze, dreaming that someone was breaking into the window of Bama Sulu, and I woke up with a start. While the movie was still playing, another soldier was hiding in the haystack in the barn, and something was burning around him.

6

But I'm in no mood to watch movies, and I'm thinking about Bama Sulu: Is she all right? After a while, I really woke up and realized that I was in Mariti, not the United States.

It only took us two hours to walk through every street in Mariti Ma. This place always reminds me of the American West.

For example, those remote towns 5 miles away from the expressway, for example, those small shopkeepers who like to look at the vast sky through their windows.

Of course, there are no such squares and magnificent cathedrals in the western United States. These two places are just spiritual similarities: the loneliness that arises spontaneously, and the way locals look at foreigners.

on the way home, we stopped at San gagano. There is a beautiful ruin here, an elegant French Gothic church.

The floor and roof of the church disappeared as early as centuries ago, leaving only window frames open to white clouds and green grass. It is a good choice to hold a romantic wedding here.

The original rose windows are now filled with bright red or blue colors by your rich imagination; The altar where monks used to light candles has now become a bird's nest.

there is a stone staircase, but I can't see where it leads. Another stone altar remains, but it is different from the common altar in Christian churches, and more like a sacrifice to the living.

8

In that year, in order to finance the war, a abbot removed the thin lead sheet from the roof and sold it. Since then, a well-preserved church has become a pile of ruins and has become the shelter of more than a dozen wild cats.

That white cat mother gave birth to many kittens, but each kitten's coat color is different: black, brown, tiger-skin, soft-fur. Presumably, the kittens' fathers are different.

finally home! We dragged boxes of wine into the house, opened all the windows and hurried to water the listless plants.

after this work, we'll put the wine in a crate and put it in the stairwell. These wines are already ripe, just waiting for the festive holiday to come and show off.

Eddie closed the cupboard door in the stairwell, leaving the fragrant wine to dust and scorpions. We've only been away for a week. I didn't expect to miss it so much.

Now, we have a deeper understanding of its surroundings, and we are more and more deeply aware that there is something in the blood of Italians that makes us outsiders jealous: they know the art of life and really know how to live a carefree life, perhaps inherited from Etruscans.

It seems that the murals of each ancient tomb contain certain meanings, but we just can't interpret them for the time being.

when I close my eyes, I seem to see the curled-up leopard, the exquisite statue of the dead, and countless pictures of feasts.

9

From time to time, the characters in Greek mythology flashed through my mind: Persephone, the wife of Pluto, Ackert Weng, a young hunter, his hound, and Pegasus PaGasos.

But my intuition tells me that both the images in ancient tombs and the characters in Greek mythology should have an older source, and there is a source above this older source.

The original prototypes will appear repeatedly in history, and we can feel something more or less, because they talk to the oldest neurons and nerve tendons in our bodies.

I once lived in an 18th-century house in Samos District, new york, and there was a big garden full of herbs next to it.

now I often dream about it. I often dig brown or amber bottles in the garden. On one occasion, I dug up the soil by the garden to plant sacred flax, which was often spread on the floor of medieval churches to absorb people's sweat and body odor

I didn't expect to find a rusty little iron horse, which was stretched and ready to go.

I put it on my desk as my totem. At the beginning of this summer, when I was digging stones in Bama Suluo, I accidentally dug up a gadget. I picked it up and saw another galloping horse.

Is it an Etruscan handicraft or a small toy from a hundred years ago?

1

A few years ago, when reading Virgil's Aeneas, it was mentioned in the book that some vagrants dug up a portentous token and decided to build Carthage on that land.

The head of a brave horse symbolizes

that our race will be invincible in the war and

will have a colorful life.

I'm not interested in the war mentioned in the book, but the words "colorful life" touched me deeply.

The heroic steed of Orlando stepped out of the hot spring, and the two flying horses dug out of the rubble and dust in Tacu? a often came into view.

I put postcards with pictures of flying horses on my desk to keep company with the two horses I dug up.

Yes, a colorful life, just like the Etruscan life, we once had it in a certain time and space.

at this moment, even if we can't fly, we will fly to a colorful life.

- Recommended beautiful scenery -

Mace: The sunshine in Tuscany will make you crazy if you miss it

Mo Bosang: God made a moonlit night because of love

Wang Zengqi: It took a year to slowly plant grapes

Sanmao: You rejected me and hurt my pride

Bode: Esters Park, a place that doesn't belong to the world.

when you are not willful enough to leave, you might as well read the words and photos left by those travelers first to understand what the distance is like.

here, there are several travelers who are walking and reading, like hunters, who find out the classic travel notes from the page forest and present them to you.

looking at the scenery on paper is also a long trip?