Gioioso:Joyful

I love to read.  Francesca also loves to read.  In our equally busy lives, we still most often end our days with at least a chapter or two in the book we are currently reading. There is something sort of comforting about leaving "real life" just for a few moments each day and before you head off into a night of dreams.

I also love to read all types of books.  Female crime authors, women's modern fiction, pop psych, historical fiction, young adult fiction...the list is long.  When we were traveling this summer, I read a book review of this book, Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee.  I was happy to find it in the Chicago airport this weekend, and have spent a good deal of time reading it.  While I'm not finished (so I won't consider this at all a book review), I have been struck at the first several chapters and how they speak to the joy I find when I visit Italy.

Now, "of course", you say, I find joy in Italy.  It's beautiful, the people are wonderful, the FOOD, the culture, the WINE, the history...

But for me the joy is more deeply felt and rooted than enjoying these obvious things.  The book talks about ten different components of joy that can be found in design and life in general. Things like freedom, abundance, play, energy...things I feel, see, and experience effortlessly when I am in Italy.  

I feel them and experience them here in the USA too (of course), but joy is the perfect word to describe so much of what I feel when I am in Italy.

Symmetry. These are the herringbone bricks in front of the duomo of Parma. I see and appreciate the major splendid sights and sounds, but the beauty in the simplicity of the symmetry that abounds everywhere in Italy touches my soul every time.

                    A storm drain in Milan                                         Prosciutto di Parma

Parmigiano Reggiano

Tortelli with mortadella and potatoes (handmade for me at an agriturismo after I said I didn't eat something in one of the courses)...joyful and generous.

Another thing that brings me joy when visiting Italy is the whimsy and color that are everywhere.  

I often feel like it is an extension of the spirit of the people who live there...like it is a quality or trait in the DNA of all Italians. This was the parking lot of one of our B&B's in Acqui Terme...with spray painted hearts and love written on the concrete walls.  

An old stone window juxtaposed with tender flower blossoms in Cesana

Burano...the island maybe most famous for its whimsically bright colored homes and buildings.

The graffiti always makes me happy.  Its tasteful and who doesn't enjoy a pig with its meat regions diagramed on an otherwise plain surface????

And the street signs get the same whimsical treatment.

And the rustic beauty in again the most simple things draw my eye and my heart. 

Like this basket of lemons in Manarola (one of the towns that comprise the Cinque Terre). 

Not perfect or uniform, but natural and textured.

My friend Anna received eggs from a neighbor wrapped so perfectly in a sheet of newspaper. 

Fresh from the hens, and nestled into the pages of the current affairs.

And cherries...ciliegia (my favorites...such a tricky word for me to master!).

Red and ripe and with a taste unlike any other.  

What brings you joy?  Is it a place?  A thing? An idea? I could go on...but tonight I will sleep, so I can more easily seek joy tomorrow.