Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter

italy

Italy. Beautiful, magical Italy.

Hiking through Cinque Terra, our guide told us that Italians use and reuse everything.  Grappa is made from what remains of the grape after wine is made. Olives, once every drop of oil is extracted, are returned to the ground as compost. On our hike we saw bedsprings, of many different eras, being repurposed as fences to keep wild boars out of the vineyards.

In Lucca, our Airbnb was literally a palazzo, full of incredible antiques: desks from the 1800’s when it was a girls’ school, marble washstands, and my favorite, a -floral telephone. However, by US standards, the towels were, well, shabby. Clean, plentiful, neatly folded and stacked… but a little worn and dingy. But this, I realized, is what draws so many people to Italy, their embrace of old (and really, how old were those towels compared to the walls of Lucca?). We are drawn to things softened with age, and Italy, every beautiful foot of it, has that kind of patina.

Italians seem to appreciate their history, and not be so quick to gut or destroy everything old. And why should they, when so much of it still functions so well? I was astonished to find that our host’s instructions to shut the (10-foot high) wooden shutters against the sun when we went out for the day did, in fact, keep the place incredibly cool. Thick stone walls will do that.

I know I’m supposed to tell you to let things go, but that is only half of it. What if we could all stop for a moment and consider if we really need the new? What if we could embrace the worn and imperfect instead of logging on and throwing down our credit card?

Often my clients have new towels (or tees or sheets) because the old one’s were worn or dingy, but they have a hard time letting go of the old ones, because they know that not only are they still functional, they may be worn-in perfectly, soft with use.

What a terrible conundrum: our consumer society has convinced us that we need to buy something new just when the old has aged to perfection.

So: to all of my future house guests, when you come to stay your towels may be worn, possibly even dingy and they definitely won’t match, but I’m saving my money for another trip to Italy… and I know you’ll understand.