More Mayes and Immersion Travel

My old friend, Gaelon, refers to Under the Tuscan Sun as his fudge book. Its richness and beauty best consumed in small morsels. He doles it out to his acquaintances in much the same way… offering them passages from Frances Mayes’ book here or there for comfort and consumption.

I have read and reread this travel tome that doesn’t really involve much travel… I dare say it falls under the label of Immersion Travel. I’m reading it again, for the imagery of spring in the midst of our own strange winter. I’m reading it for the endless paragraphs describing crisp-smelling cuisine that is at once both a thousand years old and as original as if it were freshly picked from the neighboring hills and groves that very morning; for the universal truths intended for an Italian love affair but resonating across rivers, streams, endless ponds of water and an ocean of pavement and trees; until it even reaches west and south into the depths of my current swollen flooded bottomlands along the great muddy river:

"This isn’t real; we’ve wandered into a Fellini film," I say.
Ed shakes his head. "Fellini is a documentary filmmaker – I’ve lost my belief in his genius. There are Fellini scenes everywhere." – Frances Mayes

Recognizing genius in the lives of others is effortless; however, admitting to it is often complicated by the decisions we’ve made in our own lives. - North