A beautiful piece, Silvio. It's free and effervescent, bubbling with the joy of youth. I love the anecdotes, especially the car rides with your family. I know the feeling too, and I miss it.
Oh maaaaaan, I wish I had caught up with your recent essays sooner. I can see now we share a very similar sensibility. Love the bit about the movies and sharing made-up horror stories. :)
Enjoyed this a lot Silvio! Loved the way you go back and back and back wondering about other "wasted" time, and how it clearly is not wasted time.
It all feels universal, from a time I wasn't there, but it also feels very Italian. Loved knowing that Vespas were not a movie cliché, but something really desired, also that you did get to have one!!
And, as I told you, it all made me think both of scenes from the movie Io sono l'amore by Luca Guadagnino and the book Le Otto Montagne by Paolo Cognetti.
There's this lightness I've felt the times I read this piece that make me want to come back to it whenever I want to "waste" time.
Also, the coincidence at the end gave chills both times!
Thank you, Oscar! Yes, Vespas were the thing to have when I was a teenager. And I was lucky to have one. I will definitely check out the Guadagnino movie and Le Otto Montagne. Thank you for pointing them out! :)
Beautiful Silvio. I love the set up and I too, don't believe we "waste time." I do believe we "spend" it. Interestingly time is the one thing we all have an equal amount of each day we're alive. It's a constant commodity and we can in most ways, choose how to "spend" it.
In reading your reflections, at my ripe age of 57, it dawned on me that back in those days before the internet, I think we "spent" our time, in whatever fashion, to a much greater degree in direct relationship with others - like when you and your friends recorded stories on your cassettes, vs. indirectly - via gaming, or indirectly like this - me typing you a note on substack. Or worse, in isolation - like so many young kids today.
I still remember meeting you in my first cohort on the first night, in our first breakout room!. Thank you for the thought-provoking piece!
Thank you, James, for this beautiful reflection. Yes, spending time in direct relationship with others is definitely something that was a sort of trademark of our pre-internet age. We are the same age, so I know you know what I'm talking about. Thanks for commenting and I do remember fondly my very first breakout room at WOP! :)
Your description of that first vespa ride, the hill, the crumbling house at the top. God Silvio, you made me both nostalgic and so enamored with the possibility. I felt in that place even though I've never been.
funny, i am reading this just as I heard a story today about how the early teens nowadays bully each other in schools by posting pictures of those who they don't like taking showers on social media. How horribly the internet has changed human beings. Always, you write with such breeze and zing.
Thank you, Jisoo. Yes, lots of horrible things get media exposure nowadays. I wonder whether they've always existed but we couldn't see them. But then I think that no, probably they haven't (or at least I want to think they haven't always existed). :)
I don’t even think it was a surrender to the unfolding of life as we didn’t know we would be conquered by the never ending now. That lightness was like oxygen and yet breathing is a miracle in itself. You of course captured those feelings so well and if Silvio’s Italian Country side Vespa tours ever become a thing become a thing I know what I want to do for a future birthday. :)
Thank you, Steven! LOL Silvio's Italian Countryside Vespa Tours sounds like a great idea! Thanks for reading, my friend. And for always leaving such pearls of comments! :)
Driving around on my vespa was definitely a great way of "wasting time", Michelle. The wind (there wasn't any law that made helmets mandatory yet back then) would both blow away existing thoughts and generate new ones. :)
A beautiful piece, Silvio. It's free and effervescent, bubbling with the joy of youth. I love the anecdotes, especially the car rides with your family. I know the feeling too, and I miss it.
Thank you so much, Rachael. Glad you can relate. :) (Somehow I had missed your comment here. But I guess it's never to late to respond!:))
Oh maaaaaan, I wish I had caught up with your recent essays sooner. I can see now we share a very similar sensibility. Love the bit about the movies and sharing made-up horror stories. :)
& We could all stand to have more lightness.
Loved this, Silvio💙
Thank you, Sandra! It's all a bout catching up here: you with my pieces and me with comments lol! Good to see you here and glad that you liked it. :)
Enjoyed this a lot Silvio! Loved the way you go back and back and back wondering about other "wasted" time, and how it clearly is not wasted time.
It all feels universal, from a time I wasn't there, but it also feels very Italian. Loved knowing that Vespas were not a movie cliché, but something really desired, also that you did get to have one!!
And, as I told you, it all made me think both of scenes from the movie Io sono l'amore by Luca Guadagnino and the book Le Otto Montagne by Paolo Cognetti.
There's this lightness I've felt the times I read this piece that make me want to come back to it whenever I want to "waste" time.
Also, the coincidence at the end gave chills both times!
Thank you, Oscar! Yes, Vespas were the thing to have when I was a teenager. And I was lucky to have one. I will definitely check out the Guadagnino movie and Le Otto Montagne. Thank you for pointing them out! :)
Beautiful Silvio. I love the set up and I too, don't believe we "waste time." I do believe we "spend" it. Interestingly time is the one thing we all have an equal amount of each day we're alive. It's a constant commodity and we can in most ways, choose how to "spend" it.
In reading your reflections, at my ripe age of 57, it dawned on me that back in those days before the internet, I think we "spent" our time, in whatever fashion, to a much greater degree in direct relationship with others - like when you and your friends recorded stories on your cassettes, vs. indirectly - via gaming, or indirectly like this - me typing you a note on substack. Or worse, in isolation - like so many young kids today.
I still remember meeting you in my first cohort on the first night, in our first breakout room!. Thank you for the thought-provoking piece!
Thank you, James, for this beautiful reflection. Yes, spending time in direct relationship with others is definitely something that was a sort of trademark of our pre-internet age. We are the same age, so I know you know what I'm talking about. Thanks for commenting and I do remember fondly my very first breakout room at WOP! :)
Your description of that first vespa ride, the hill, the crumbling house at the top. God Silvio, you made me both nostalgic and so enamored with the possibility. I felt in that place even though I've never been.
Beautiful piece. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much, Latham! So glad I could bring you there with me in these memories. :)
funny, i am reading this just as I heard a story today about how the early teens nowadays bully each other in schools by posting pictures of those who they don't like taking showers on social media. How horribly the internet has changed human beings. Always, you write with such breeze and zing.
Thank you, Jisoo. Yes, lots of horrible things get media exposure nowadays. I wonder whether they've always existed but we couldn't see them. But then I think that no, probably they haven't (or at least I want to think they haven't always existed). :)
I don’t even think it was a surrender to the unfolding of life as we didn’t know we would be conquered by the never ending now. That lightness was like oxygen and yet breathing is a miracle in itself. You of course captured those feelings so well and if Silvio’s Italian Country side Vespa tours ever become a thing become a thing I know what I want to do for a future birthday. :)
Thank you, Steven! LOL Silvio's Italian Countryside Vespa Tours sounds like a great idea! Thanks for reading, my friend. And for always leaving such pearls of comments! :)
This makes me nostalgic for pre internet days! A Vespa up a mountain by the water sounds like the best way to waste time.
Driving around on my vespa was definitely a great way of "wasting time", Michelle. The wind (there wasn't any law that made helmets mandatory yet back then) would both blow away existing thoughts and generate new ones. :)