The joy of doing nothing. Sweet idleness accompanied by the smell of roasting chestnuts. About turquoise scarves, Italian Sunday lunches and thriving pet shops. A moment of doing nothing translated from Italian

Food is like a religion for Italians; the words “they cook well here” fascinate them.
Photo by Reuters

Autumn Milan, the smell of roasted chestnuts floats through the streets. I stop at the cart, hand the seller a few coins, and he generously scoops them up and pours hot, aromatic nuts into my bag. I was born and raised in Moscow, and the taste of chestnuts is still unusual for me, even exotic. I first tried them in Paris many years ago, and since then the smell of roasted chestnuts has become a symbol of autumn Europe for me. And what would autumn be in Italy without an extensive menu with the addition of chestnuts! Risotto and all kinds of pasta with chestnuts, marmalade and sweets, polenta.

Italians can talk about food for hours: food is like a religion for them. The words Si mangia bene - “they cook well here” fascinate Italians. I once talked with an entrepreneur about the problems of running a business during a crisis. We have come to the conclusion that today there are much more opportunities for making a profit abroad. “But I won’t be able to eat real Italian cuisine there; prosciutto di Parma has a completely different taste abroad. How can I manage without the traditional Sunday lunch at my mother’s?” - my interlocutor spoke indignantly. That is, money is money, but they don’t want to give up their quality of life. And here I’m already thinking, maybe they’re right in some ways.

Since childhood, we have been taught to work hard, achieve success, and strive for career growth. But we are not used to enjoying life, every moment of it - wonderful food, good weather, a random smile of a stranger on the street, just like that. It was in Italy that the concept of dolce far niente - sweet idleness - was born. One Italian who lives by the sea told me: “I get up in the morning, open the window and admire the sea. You don’t have to rush anywhere, the sea, the sun... but the work can wait!” Italians can sit in a bar for hours over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, discussing how their favorite football team played or what crazy taxes that Monty introduced.

What I love about Italians is their cheerfulness. An adult, respectable man is capable of talking about complex economic issues and, five minutes later, laughing bewitchingly at a good joke. This is how little children laugh, unencumbered by problems and worries. And on the streets of Milan and other cities you can meet 70-year-old men dressed in a bright cyclamen sweater with a turquoise scarf to boot. By the way, oddly enough, men in Italy dress much brighter and more interesting than women. The most eye-catching colors - pink, blue, yellow - are more likely to be found in a men's wardrobe, while women prefer black, however, in any case, these should be clothes of a very good cut.

But what is truly important for women is their hairstyle. Despite the frugality caused by the crisis, Italians do not skimp on hair styling. A couple of times a week, be sure to visit the hair salon. Here you are met by a master who knows very well not only your preferences, but also your entire personal life. At first, I was shocked when, when visiting a hairdresser, the hairdresser asked me in detail about my marital status, work, and even the size of my salary. To my indignation, my Italian husband calmly answered: “What do you want, we are open people. It’s you Russians who always have serious faces and don’t smile; it’s not clear what to expect from you. And we Italians are cheerful and sincere.”

You often meet older women in salons, and this, alas, is not accidental. Italy is rapidly aging, and among European countries it ranks one of the last in terms of childbearing. Due to financial problems, Italians prefer not to have children, but to have dogs. For the first time in Milan, Turin, Rome and Palermo, the number of dogs exceeded the number of children. According to statistics, in Milan alone there are about 82 thousand of these human friends, and there are only about 72 thousand children under the age of 6 years. Relations with four-legged pets have reached the point of paradox, they are treated like people, pampered. Despite the crisis, pet stores are thriving - owners do not skimp on special shampoo or rare types of food. They dress up the dogs, buy them strollers, and prepare special food for the holidays!

However, Italian oddities do not end there. Another mania is the desire to insert English words and expressions appropriately and inappropriately. And this guy is single and his look is cool. Let’s all go to the meeting, where our director will give us a speech. As once in the famous song of the 60s, which became popular thanks to the remake of recent years: Tu vuoi fa L "americano - you want to look like an American, but you were born in Italy! This is how Italians strive to be fashionable, although you have to force them to at least learn one language, even that fashionable English, is difficult, they are terribly lazy. “We already know two languages,” say the inhabitants of the Apennines, “Italian and Neapolitan.” And they are right in their own way, because each adverb is a separate complex language . A Milanese speaking Milanese will not be understood by a resident of Sicily. The Genoese dialect is like an explosive mixture of Italian and Arabic. About Russians and Slavs, Italians say that we simply have a talent for languages. Without even suspecting our innate hard work: I learned three their foreign languages, like a first-grader, writing out words and memorizing them every day. Italians most often do not want to strain, they read very little. Recently, my friend proudly told me that her Italian husband had mastered the second book. We Russians strive to go to the theater or museum, but in Milan it is difficult to find a local resident who has visited La Scala at least once. I like to listen to classical music at the conservatory, but in Milan 80% of visitors to the conservatory are people over 60 years old, there are practically no young people. Well, the Italian’s favorite art form is cinema, which, however, as we all know, is considered one of the best in the world history of this art.
So living with Italians is not easy. They are often lazy and unnecessary, overly emotional and jealous, and cling tightly to their strange habits and attachments. And yet, is there a more attractive and joyful country in the world with more charming and life-loving people than the Italians?
Read more.

It is difficult for a modern person to sit idle. Without haste, overtime, constant glances at the clock, chaotic browsing of your favorite sites and frequent checking of your mobile phone. Living outside of a schedule means falling behind those who have time to work, play sports, participate in volunteer programs, try seasonal dishes in restaurants, sleep six hours a day and be content with that. The busy schedule of adult life is involuntarily projected onto children, and in their case it turns into gymnastics, a photo club, an art studio, a swimming pool, a Saturday trip to the museum, a Sunday trip to the planetarium - that is, on clearly structured days in which every minute should not be wasted. It is not surprising that if one day a busy child has free time, he simply does not know how to manage it. And a complaint is heard in the house: “I’m bored.”

The expression “the sweetness of doing nothing” was coined by the Italians, who know a lot about relaxation. And it does not mean laziness or idleness, but the ability to break away from worries, take your time, enjoy solitude, contemplate and find something to do to your liking. This is exactly what we allow ourselves less and less, trying to fill every minute with something useful.

The summer holidays are approaching, and adults are racking their brains: how to fill their children's days so that they don't go to waste. At the same time, “wasted” is synonymous with long walks, late rises, reading comics and inaction. Diligently filling temporary voids, parents do not realize that children need free time. What could be more important for a child than just lying on the grass and looking at bugs, or swinging his legs while sitting on a bench and eating ice cream? What happens in the world of a kid who simply throws a ball in the air, or who has been stirring the coals in the fire with a stick for half an hour with a smile and a mysterious expression on his face? Maybe right now interesting ideas come to his mind, or he comes up with a poem, or decides who to be. Rest is the moments when children are not pressed by the burden of the school schedule and clubs, unfinished homework, and household responsibilities. At school there is no opportunity to look out the window, dream and be distracted, so sometimes all a child wants when he is at home is to do things that do not require an answer to adults, that do not obey the word “should”: listen to himself, reflect, observe the world around him, even get bored.

In an era of general busyness, boredom is considered a wrong, shameful feeling, and phrases like “only boring people can be bored” are thrown at children who don’t know what to do with themselves. But the mother of the bunny Karlchen from the popular book “Karlchen is Growing Up” among preschoolers, in response to “I’m terribly bored,” suggested we play boredom together: you need to sit in your favorite place, close your eyes, don’t talk and think about something pleasant. Needless to say, after just a few minutes of boredom, Karlchen urgently came up with a new activity: drawing. In the same way, it is difficult to imagine a child who is bored for a long time: energy and an innate desire for activity overcome idleness. But fantasy only works when the child is allowed to get bored, thereby stimulating his creative thinking. If parents continually offer options for how to keep the child occupied, he will never learn to manage his free time, entertain himself, enjoy playing in solitude, invent, create.

What the literary mother suggested to her bunny son is somewhat reminiscent of meditation - a way to relax, known since ancient times, to relax the body and soul. Such a reboot in one form or another is necessary for both children and parents in order not only to do what they should, but also to remember what they love. Therefore, both children and adults should definitely arrange days of doing nothing: go offline, lie in bed with books, get into a car, train, water bus and leisurely drive somewhere, walk and talk about everything in the world, make plans for future, just sit in an embrace and be silent. To make room for silence, to hear your thoughts and desires and to miss a new thing.

The collection includes quotes and phrases from the film “Eat, Pray, Love”:

I chose happiness over suffering, making room in my soul for an as yet unknown future that will fill my life with amazing events!
You have the potential to one day love the whole world!
She has the strongest psyche in the world: the word “depression” is unknown to her at all, and she has never even heard that self-esteem can also be low.

I pressed my palms tightly to my eyes, trying to push the tears back...
I'll be back in a week: penniless and with dysentery.
Guilt is what America is all about.
You are the only person who has fallen asleep during meditation.
Hamster, you have the potential to one day love the whole world.
Every Italian word is like a truffle.
You're leaving, who will compost my brains?
When you study, you have to love yourself.
It was scary to endure, but leaving was even worse.
Stand firmly on the ground, as if on four legs.
Your moral duty is to eat it with gusto.
I find it easier to be with God than with my peers.
The sweetness of doing nothing, we are masters at this.
Maybe it’s not my life that is chaotic, but the world itself?
Ruins are the path to transformation.
At other people's weddings you remember yourself.
Losing balance from happiness is an important part of the balance of life!
Don’t whine, don’t get hung up, use repellent and... there was something else, I wrote it down.
Be careful with your prayers. They come true.
Come on, Richard, get out of my head! Close the door.
Don't look at the world through your head, look through your heart.
Soul mate - people think this is the perfect match, and everyone wants to find her. But a real soul mate is like a mirror, it shows everything that you lack, draws your attention to yourself so that you change your life. Your soulmate is the most important person in your life because he is the one who breaks down all barriers and makes you awaken.

Tell me, is there anything skinnier in the world than an Indian teenager?
A real writer in the house.
A broken heart is a good sign. A sign that you've at least tried to love someone.
Silence is a powerful spiritual force.
Maybe you and Rome have different words...
What happened was that I fell out of the marriage and into David's arms.
It makes me a little nervous that a stranger understands me better than I do myself.
You don't need a man, you need a champion.
When, after a black streak, you begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel, you need to grab it with all your hands and feet and not let go until it pulls you face up from the swamp.
You are slender and graceful from a distance. And up close it's damn seductive.
Each city can be described in one word.
Learn to choose your thoughts the same way you choose clothes for every day in your closet.
Hello God! Nice to meet you.
To wash the most important things, a kettle is enough.
My whole life fit into one container.
I'm fat, I'm in a trance, I can't hold anything in my head. I'm like Liza Minnelli.
After all, we loved each other. No one ever doubted this. We just haven't figured out how to live together without causing each other unbearable, acute, heartbreaking pain.
I don't have to love you to prove my love for myself.
What if we admit the relationship is a failure but stay together?

The selection includes phrases and quotes from the film Eat, Pray, Love - a feature film directed by Ryan Murphy, based on the book by Elizabeth Gilbert and starring Julia Roberts. The film was released in 2010, genres: drama and romance.

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Sweet idleness
From Italian Dolce far niente(dolce far niente) - sweet idleness.
It is generally accepted that this expression was first used in the 8th letter of the Roman author Pliny the Younger (62 - c. 114). Here is an excerpt from this letter in Latin:

"Epistularum Libri Decem, Liber VIII"
(1) Olim non librum in manus, non stilum sumpsi, olim nescio quid sit otium quid quies, quid denique illud iners quidem, iucundum tamen nihil agere nihil esse: adeo multa me negotia Samicorum nec secedere nec studere patiuntur. (2) Nulla enim studia tanti sunt, ut amicitiae officium deseratur, quod religiosissime custodiendum studia ipsa praecipiunt. Vale.

In writing, the Latin word originally used "iucundum" (pleasant, joyful), was once replaced by the Italian word "dolce" (sweet, cute). And now it is customary to say " sweet doing nothing" and, most often, this expression sounds precisely in Italian - dolce far niente, and the process itself is associated with a pleasant, carefree pastime under the gentle sun of beautiful Italy.

One of the highest human life expectancies has been recorded in Mediterranean countries: Greece, Italy, Malta. Of course, this is largely due to natural features, a mild climate, an abundance of natural products, and, of course, the Mediterranean diet. We will talk about it further.
But first of all, I would like to draw attention to the Mediterranean lifestyle. After all, it is in it, as a reflection of the worldview, habits, and way of thinking, that lies the reason for longevity and the prevailing good mood, as well as a special attitude towards life’s adversities. I propose to slowly, in accordance with the pace of the blissful mood, penetrate into the essence The art of living with pleasure.

why do nothing
the art of theater in life - emotionality
rest, siesta, pace of eating
nature, contemplation, art
craving for beauty, aesthetics, creativity
self-expression, harmony, music
temperament

And after long, complex, difficult
Years - the shine of midday valleys,
A vault of pines, bluish-emerald,
Into the rabble of cypresses, into the gall of olives;
And the seas gave way, a colorful swell,
A semicircle of all blue colors,
Where the daytime dormouse drowns languidly,
Calling to sleep - not out loud, not suddenly...
Melted noon; arcade mountains,
As they approach, they send streams of fire...
But here the cicadas are chattering as of old,
And the ancient cedar recognized me.
Place your cheek against the rough bark,
Take in the trembling waters in your eyes...
Chu! the key creaked, long since rusty,
The door was opened into a former dream, and behold,
While there, in the sea, ribbons are flowing,
While the surf is hitting my ears here,
I'm drinking again dolce far niente*
I was returned to my youth by fate.
V.Ya.Bryusov