Tuscany — On The Farmhouse Fantasy

Taken from a journal entry on October 26, 2021 — notes from a farmhouse in Incisa, Tuscany 

It’s less jarring than I expected, traveling from the sweltering Sicilian seascape to the crisp Incisa hills. Over the last month, I’ve watched my landscape change from outside train windows and have stepped into small towns, new worlds. Entering a new season is as simple as reaching the next region.

I’ve made it to northern Italy right on the fringe of fall. The leaves haven’t turned. Seasons are on the verge. The timing is funny, like autumn needed a signal to actually begin, like change was left to chance until I welcomed it myself. We are always our own protagonists, aren’t we? And in my narrative, I’m carrying the torch of change from one physical landscape to the next, from one season to another, stopping and starting nature’s momentum, catching up with the flow of time and region. Change happens between spaces, just as it happens within them. So does growth. Maybe they’re the same thing. Either way, the Tuscan landscape looks like Incisa was waiting for our arrival to embrace its full foliage — its true self.

Here in this little hillside farmhouse, 30 kilometers outside of Florence, we are staying between silver-tipped olive trees and patterned patches of vegetables, where the clang of sheep-worn cowbells meets the soft whine of an attention-seeking farm kitten named Budina: Italian for “pudding,” who we scoop up and carry with us because she is like her namesake, spilling into spaces outside her container, oozing beneath the fence. I’ve tuned out her purr to listen to the synchronous moos of the happy, happy cows on a neighboring farm in this land of Florentine steak. This morning, we bought meat at the markets in Florence with plans for dinner, and I’m not sure whether it’s funny or morbid that our grilling playlist consists of this outdoor cow concert. They’re chatty today; either nature is telling us to find an alternative dinner, or it’s letting us in on the joke, reminding us we’re savoring a product of our very environment, as close to the land as we can get. (Reminds me of a burger restaurant I visited in Iceland a few years back that was on a farm, located in line with cow stalls. Perhaps it’s a European thing — appreciate what you eat, recognize origins.)

In the morning, you can hear the birds chirp from the farmhouse, and I know it’s cliche, but here their melody gets me out of bed to walk in circles, soak up the sun, and enjoy being human. Right now, every part of this farmhouse life appeals to me. After quarantine, I’ve learned that I can entertain myself easily, and long stretches of solitude make my brain go round. If this were my real life and not a quick getaway, I don’t think I’d get bored. If you asked me that three years ago, I’d say there’s no way. 

As I sit beside the fireplace, absorbed in sizzle and smoke, I cant’t help but think that this is the kind of place that pits “real” life against that of a dream, and I imagine myself as a character in a fictional world who makes this her real life. Who would I be if I wasn’t playing house in Italy for three months, only to run back to America (albeit not by choice, thank you Italian embassy — more on that later)? Would this iteration of luxurious simplicity supply the kind of plenty — sprawling vegetables, happy animals, vast land, infinite solitude — that would fill me? What kind of plenty do I need?

My character would harvest olives and grapes in season, rescue pudding-inspired cats from the grates of vegetable gardens, soak in steaming bathtubs with lavender soap, appreciate the little moments because out here, that’s all there is. Such simplicity and pausing and mundanity are compelling in their own right, and here is the answer to what keeps me tethered to Italy. Here is the answer for what draws me to this culture, when everyone back home is running toward something — only few know exactly what that something is, only that we are always behind, always planning ahead, always forging forward. What about going backward? What about retracing your roots, thinking about what you want and why you want it, experimenting with all spectrums of what life could be? I, too, am running toward something, but being here reminds me to think about where I am heading — and if I need to rush to get there. 

I went to an elite college, where everyone thought two years out, lived for the life plans, and had backup plans for their backup plans in case something went awry in the next half-decade. I graduated from that world to move to Palermo, which exposed me to the opposite end of that go-go-go lifestyle, and I’m still trying to reconcile the two. Neither is wrong, neither is a non-answer, but Tuscany feels like literal middle ground, reminding me that I can’t plan like I once did — not because I don’t want to (believe me, I wish I could) but because Italy has taught me that my life doesn’t work like that, that thinking ahead and speeding up don’t allow room for creativity and exploration, and those are two things that make me giddy. I like imagining, I like lingering in my brain, I like places that make me think and people who challenge me and furry kittens who make me sneeze while they trail behind trees and hillsides that are impossible to reach by foot. This Tuscan lifestyle leaves room for creation because things in Italy move so frustratingly, beautifully, imperfectly slowly — but here it is all by design. This entire country is akin to this farmhouse, filled with noises and voices and pretty things meant to spark my mind, not because they’re catering to me, but because they’re existing of their own volition, heeding me no attention at all. 

For now this farmhouse is my three-day plan, and then who knows where I will go?