The Olive Atlas

My first evening in Italy, I was struck by the cultural difference immediately.

I flew overnight, landed at 7 am, and took a train up to Bolzano, in Northern Italy. After a long travel day, I sat at a cafe for an hour, soaking in the foreign language, drinking sparkling water and a cappuccino.

The people around me gathered to eat and drink. It was a town that other Europeans seemed to visit for vacation. There was designer shopping, coffee, a castle, and vineyards galore. It was beautiful. Life here was slow. The people perused the streets; the only place they had to be was the present moment.

At 3 pm, check-in opened for the rented room I was staying in. Soon after, I was in my room. I took a shower to wash the travel off my skin. I wasted time, thinking there was no reason to rush.

When I ventured out of my room at 4:30 pm, I was planning to visit the farmers’ market shops and wander around. Yet I was surprised to find that all the shops were closing up for the night. The people, so abundant before 3 pm, seemed to have disappeared. The doors were locked, the windows dark, the merchants gone. All because it was the end of the day.

I was accustomed to shops closing at 9 or 10 pm. If I needed a last-minute item for dinner, I could grab it. Not here. The streets were quiet.

The businesses were built around the lives of the people: the shop owners. And they had clear hours. I caught a glimpse of one man as he locked the door to his shop, then tucked the keys in his pocket, mounted a bicycle, and pedaled away.

Outside of business hours, they had a life to live.

Instead of exploring shops, I found a dirt path along a creek. It passed a park, then a green stretch of grass (the sun set at 9 pm, so I still had several hours of daylight). I walked. I breathed in the fresh smell of wet dirt, cut grass, and summer flowers. I watched families run around playgrounds, a woman throw a ball for her dog. I found myself on a winding path through vineyards. I crossed the entrance of an old castle and took in its rustic, ancient beauty.

On my way, a middle-aged man ran past me. He wore a 5k race shirt, shuffling along on the trail, similar to many other joggers I’d encounter in my hometown.

I imagined that he had just wrapped up a day of work in IT. Now at 5 pm, he laced up his sneakers and jogged the same path to shake away the long day of work. Afterward, he would catch the end of his sons’ junior rugby game, and together they’d walk home for a homecooked meal.

His kids would argue and tease each other, running around a living room with full bellies. He’d tackle them. They’d laugh. Fits of giggles would fill the air.

And his wife would sigh, putting dishes in the sink. He’d help his children finish their lessons as his wife wiped down the kitchen counter. And when the kids were put to bed, he and his wife would share about their days over a glass of wine.

This little town in Italy—which I romanticized in so many ways—I realized was similar to my own hometown.

Mine didn’t have a castle or historic churches. But it had restaurants in which friends caught up over a drink, and cafes in which retired folk reclined, sipping on cappuccinos.

My hometown has the parks I spent my childhood in, running through green grass, as the Italian children do. My mother tanning in the sun, reading a book, as my brothers and I played tag around the playground.

My hometown has my father, who drives to the same cafe every Friday, to a strong cup of coffee with his friend of nearly 25 years. They read and discuss a list of themed books every summer and share about what their kids are up to. It’s the same routine he’s had since I worked at the same coffee shop in high school.

My hometown has the trails I ran in college as I trained for my first race. The trails in which I learned every curve and steep hill through my weekly training schedule. I can remember the painful runs and the ones I felt like I was soaring, and the other regulars that I knew only from the nods we gave each other as we ran past one another.

My hometown has carried the memories of a life filled with love and laughter, and relationships.

I snapped out of my daydreaming.

I walked out of the castle, down a hill, and through the park. I sat at a restaurant near the hostel and ordered pizza and a glass of wine. The wine was strong. I devoured my dinner and eavesdropped on an American study abroad student who was catching up with a friend over pizza. They chatted easily, their voices rising and falling like any two friends catching up. Hearing the American accent felt like a thread of home—and yet, it sharpened the edges of my solitude.

I watched the people of Bolzano: parents on a walk in the park with their children, couples on a date for gelato, students throwing a frisbee through the grass. I realized they had relationships and I was traveling alone.

Everyone—it seemed—had someone. And although I was content in the place I was in life, I did long for the simple life: a steady routine, a husband, children. It’s these mundane moments of life shared with someone—the giggles after dinner, the conversations over wine—that make life meaningful.

The Italians have figured something out at 5 pm.

They stop working. They stop consuming. They start living.

They spend time with their families, they jog through vineyards, they catch up with a friend over a shared meal. They drink beer in the park, listening to the rise and fall of live music at a saxophone concert.

I lay in the grass as the sun set, reading a book. Music echoed distantly in the background. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I was still buzzed from the second glass of wine. I soaked in the fading sunshine, the music, and the laughter. The grass was cool beneath me.

The simple life is the good life. I just had to cross the world to be reminded of this truth.