Ciao, I Miei Amici —
This is really one of my favorite days as a teacher. But this year’s meeting was a little different, given that a few of us have been and are still sick, and the notion of walking the mile and a third down and then up to the classroom in town, then walking it all again back home at the end of the day, meant just a little too much work. So we stayed here at the villa for classes one more day.
But about this class day: One meeting near the end of our time here, after we’ve handled our daily chores of workshopping and talking about the reading (we’ve just finished Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence), I lead them all out into the streets of Spoleto, park them, and tell them to start writing about this place. But because we are at the villa, I simply told them to go find their favorite place to be, and then instructed them to ruminate, to ponder, to daydream all about Spoleto. I know it’s all been said before, but we live in a time when we are assailed daily by shards of information and reactions and undigested thought, by tweets and headlines and memes and instagrams, and emails and Facebook updates and all else, all of it working to break down – sorry for the soapbox here — the idea of reflection, of rumination, of pondering. We live in a time of reaction and snark, of selfies and youtube. But rumination — and the words found to express that rumination — allow us to feel deeply our lives. Hence this exercise, one that will lead to their final assignment for the course. And, I hope, reacquaint them with being calm, and thinking, and writing.
Here are some pictures of pondering, and of writing: (1) Robbie, who had to be told to quit when the hour was up; (2) Ashley, who first went inside, got a blanket, and had at it; and (3) Campbell, writing away.
Ciao!
Bret