FARM. Sogni d’Oro.
I am unearthing writing and reflections from ten years ago when I had just graduated college. With great fortune, I ended up on a farm in Tuscany for the Fall season of 2014. I had sent out emails while there to my family and my few closest friends that Fall. I just found out these emails I shared had been forwarded and actually inspired someone to come on my first Bella Vita retreat a decade later to this same farm and experience that was so impactful for me ten years ago. In that light, I have found and am sharing my writing from that Fall, as both a reminder to myself and perhaps something of use to others. These posts are unedited - double spacing after periods and all.
Written: September 05, 2014 / Part 2 of working on an Italian Farm
Sogni d’Oro
All summer I have been touting what my Fall is going to be: an organic farming internship in Tuscany, complete with wine on the terrace at 7:30 with the guests every night. The reaction I always seemed to illicit from this casual statement was either disbelief, hatred, jealousy, or a mix of all three. I barely even believed it as the words came from my mouth; it all sounds too good to be true. “Wine on the terrace” is something you’d find Diane Lane doing in a incredible white dress, but not me - I just graduated college for crying out loud. I am no longer supposed to be in the world that of the protected, cloistered academia and thrown into the world that is often described as scary, big and real. Well, as I walked on the terrace at 7:30 for the first time tonight, I can tell you that my reality right now is none of those things.
Let’s start with a glass of vino bianco from grapes grown right off the property, a few hundred yards from where I was overlooking the luscious rolling hills of the Tuscan countryside. I have never been much of a wine person, but I think it will grow on me and I will get to taste the subtle nuisances between the various kinds. So far, not so scary.
I began talking with a guest of no particular choosing out on the patio, and within the first 30 seconds we discover that we are both Cornell alumnae. She went to Cornell as an Agricultural Sciences major, and it was her dream to teach at Cornell. Instead, she’s teaching at Delaware Valley College teaching a course that travels here annually. So far, not so big.
Cue idyllic dinner on the terrace with lights strung above us while chatting with one of the owners of the property, Francesca. First, a heaping helping of risotto with summer squash - that squash picked only 50 yards away from me - makes an appearance. I figure, it’s my first night and I’m going to enjoy myself, and I finish off the whole bowl of carbohydrate-filled goodness, plus a piece of bread with Spannocchia olive oil for good measure. Phew. Now just dessert and call it a night, right? Nope, cue course two of summer squash, which was incredible, by the way, and chicken. Then course three of insalata. And finally dessert of chocolate cake. All the while, bottles of rose, bianco and rosso wine are being passed around and olive oil is flying from hand to hand. This is just special, for our arrival tonight, right? Fa niente (it’s nothing). A four course meal, amidst the Cypress trees towering strong and still in the near foreground like ancient columns and the moon peaking out through the clouds, illuminating the sky with a gentle celestial glow, is a nightly and normal affair. So far, not so real.
Add some experiential learning and farm work and this will be my life for the next three months. For me, it’s a sogni d’oro (a dream of gold).
