San Benedetto Val di Sambro

During the winter of my second year in Italy, I found myself in the Apennine ranges of San Benedetto Val di Sambro—an unexpected resolution to my search for housing. As I had struggled to find apropos lodging in Bologna, the authority for the student housing came to my aid and directed me- found me a solution superseding my imagination- and thus in some intangible way forever indebting me. An interview later with a certain Mrs Borelli of the comune, they found in me a suitable candidate for the solution to the Sindaco's effort to combat dwindling population, and I found in them a solution to my housing woes. And thus, I have been a resident of this place since (two years now). In the past I have tried to rationalize the culmination of my experience in the light of a mechanism design to a housing crisis (that may still plague many unfortunate people in Bologna) but have failed like many a pedantic economist! (Jokes aside) As I reflect my time spent here, I am filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and an appreciation for the good and beautiful things in life.

Perhaps typical of a foreigner (a foreigner's gaze always lingers too long), I notice the sight and smell of this place, so different to that I have hitherto experienced. In autumn as I think to write and wait solemnly at the bus stop- the sweet, nutty perfume of falling chestnuts and the musty richness of wild mushrooms push through leaf litter, while the sharp, wine-like scent of fermenting fallen fruit hits my nostrils. The verdant hills embraced by the different "Borghi" and "Poderi" are paradoxically strange, yet intimate to me. The chestnut and beech forests blanket the slopes, their leaves whispering stories of the countless civilizations - Etruscans, Romans, Lombards, and Byzantines - who have left their mark on this land. I sometimes feel like living here gives in to these lazy stupors of introspection. Perhaps one can greatly benefit to exercise it in some creative pursuit or intellectual problem….( I wish I did but I don't!).

But in other ways, living here has developed some qualities which I now find wholesale appreciable. Having left my home country when I was 19 (even before I had a peripatetic upbringing) I have always been very envious of writers (or common folk) capable of seamlessly connecting with their surroundings. In my desire to emulate writers I often wish if I could so easily identify the trees and the flowers around me, observe the nature and physical characteristics of people near me, or perhaps the life cycle of fruits and weather seasons and weave them in my lived experience of being. In San Benedetto, I have found myself taking pictures of trees to index and inscribe them to memory and be conscious to use my observations for a fertile imagining! Trivially, I discern when the air in this cloud-kissed mountain peaks grow crisp, carrying the woody smoke from chimneys across the valleys or cut sharp as the winter's first frost. In the summer I hear the leaves scratch the air when I play football with the neighbourhood kids or go to sleep to the intense chorus of cicadas beside my windowsill. At night, stars twinkle in clear skies unobstructed by no city lights or fumes. Carried on the mountain winds will come the howl of dogs while distant lights of lonely homesteads will wink through the deepening shadows. The restless mountain air - sometimes a gentle caress, sometimes a wild rush - sweeps down from the high peaks, carrying with it the cool breath of stone and forest, and the faint, scent of human activity somewhere in the valley!

My other reflection concerns the awareness of the improbable place I have made my home. Here in the heart of the Apennine Mountains, 44 kilometres from Bologna and 79 from Florence, lies San Benedetto Val di Sambro - a place where time seems to flow differently. Like the ancient Via degli Dei that winds through these hills, connecting Bologna to Florence, life here follows paths carved by years of tradition and necessity. Sometimes when I am walking back home, I feel the weight of all the centuries lived here….and then my mind flits back to the mundane. But I will not claim that what I appreciate most about living in San Benedetto Val di Sambro is the way of life it embodies. As if far from the frenetic pace and "consumerist" distractions of the modern world, I have found a renewed sense of purpose and connection. Maybe from a lack of inspiration or a fear of falling to platitudes I must answer in the negative. But I have yet to meet any person who has not been kind and welcoming to me. This has inevitably taught me to be gentler and positive in almost every outlook of my life.

However, since I have not transformed into a philosopher-hermit- content with solitude's embrace- I do debate competing visions of my living situation. Sometimes I fear I have grown too comfortable with the virtue and serenity of living a quiet life and then the peculiar tension of youth's restless ambition takes centre stage. I think it is a valid concern, and eventually I will try to experience alternate ways of living-something more cosmopolitan and boisterous, fitting of someone young and having much to do out in the world. Perhaps it will make me appreciate my experience even more! And thus, once I leave San Benedetto Val di Sambro, I will return- whether by treading these mountain paths once more, or by finding its essence again in some distant quiet corner of the world.