Paolo’s advice for a good life

We’ve spent the last year improving the nest, getting around to things that we haven’t tackled after being in the house close to six years. One category was getting some large mirrors. When you live in a house that’s somewhere north of 600 or so years old the aesthetic choices about something like a mirror get a bit complex. Do you go in-your-face modern, real old (which is often gilded and simply too much for our simple house), or pseudo old, most of it screaming out every bit of its fakery. At the risk of sounding pathetic, we’d not found the solution since we’d moved in and wanted it solved and to never think about it again.

The next small town over from us has an intriguing store, although it rarely seemed to be open. One dusty window facing the street revealed a long, narrow space piled high on both sides with all sorts of old wood, some frames, and assorted furniture. We’d tried to go a few times, with little success. Sometimes a worker or two would be there but they seemed unable to give details on what was available because the owner, Paolo, wasn’t there.

One day, this lovely woman who seems to specialize in decorative and faux painting, offered to contact Paolo, who was in his office, and have him come to the shop. She called, and about a minute later he appeared. He sorted through the mess, sometimes needing to crawl on top of tottering furniture to get to what was behind, while the woman called out warnings, and finally we had several possible frames. He helped us pile them in the car to take home to try out and although we’d met five minutes earlier he wanted neither deposit, name, or phone number. And we drove off with hundreds of euros worth of frames.

Several of the frames worked, so we returned the following week to buy a couple, return some, and have more made. Once again Paolo had to be called from the office. We discussed what needed to be done and he invited us back to the office for a coffee. We had things to do so declined.

Several back and forths to check on progress all yielded a similar pattern and it was revealed that the office was in fact the cafe just around the corner. We finally took Paolo up on his offer of refreshment at the office, and he shared his philosophy of life to the tune of church bells.

You choose a work you enjoy and is fulfilling—he has worked with wood since he was a child at the side of his father—but you never, ever let it dominate the rest of the mix. Your life always needs to be bigger than your work or you are lost. He works (or more from what I saw his charming and talented employee works) but it is only to support life and to provide funds for enough time “in the office,” a cafe adjacent to the town square, in the shadow of one of the most famous paintings of the Renaissance, Piero della Francesca’s Resurrection, and filled with his friends and enough new people wandering through to keep life interesting.

With that he invited to come visit him at the office whenever we happened to be in the area for a coffee or glass of wine and more conversation. And we have our mirrors at last.