Dreaming in Italy

Please forgive the radio silence. The world is still messy and complicated, but Department of Dreams hasn’t thrown in the towel! I was just on vacation. It’s horribly ill advised to start a project and then immediately take a vacation, I know, but… I really needed a vacation. Like really, really. Vacations can seem like luxuries in an era that hyper-regulates our time via modern work culture—but for me, this underscores the point about need. I needed to be off the clock, unplugged, and deeply out-of-office.

Plus, it gave me a good opportunity to do some dreaming. I started a longer list, but here are three of the most dreamy things I encountered:

• The Tenuta Tralice Vineyard in Alvignano, Italy
  My visit to this vineyard happened by chance. I was in the area with my husband and some of our friends, but poor planning on our part meant that when we showed up, the vineyard was closed. But one of the vignerons (isn’t that a fun word?) ushered us inside and proceeded to serve us a generous platter of meats and cheeses, and bottle after bottle of wine. He then sat and talked with us for hours. We didn’t talk much about the wine, though it was delicious. Instead we talked about our lives and interests. The wine was just a conduit for conviviality. When we were done, the vigneron refused to accept any form of payment. It was deeply confusing! But in truth, money is a limited and deeply flawed form of currency, and it’s impossible to quantify the value of everything. What a dreamy thing to learn.

• The Amalfi lemon
  The Amalfi lemon is famously delicious—and it’s huge. As you can see in the picture, the lemon is as big as the palm of my hand, and it’s incorporated into all kinds of pasta dishes, desserts, and cocktails. The lemon trees are also everywhere, and at some point it occurred to me that the Amalfi coast is one big lemon celebration. After a year of hard times, it was a playful reminder of all the ways it’s possible to turn lemons into lemonade. And why even stop at lemonade? A bunch of other wondrous stuff is possible too. By day three I was already obsessed with Amalfi lemons, but on my last day, I snagged a perfectly ripe lemon that had fallen from a tree. That was also pretty dreamy.

• Bringing your dog to church on Sunday
  I love dogs. And I was really missing my dogs while I was in Italy. So seeing people bring their dogs with them to church on Sunday in Assisi was really sweet. Assisi is home to the Basilica of Saint Francis, the patron saint of animals and the environment—and let me tell you, dogs are everywhere in Assisi on Sunday. Dressed up in their Sunday best. Accompanied by their human companions. For church! I myself don’t attend, but how charming. 10/10 total dream.

In terms of dreams, this list is somewhat surprising to me. If I would have been asked to conjure a list of dreamy vacation things I wanted to do before going, my list would have looked a lot different. I probably would have constructed my dreams through the lens of social media and the Instagram version of Italy. Boo.

Anyway, I also got lots of new submission to the Dream Files, so expect to see more dreams here soon.

xoxo!